The successive passages of Typhoons Yagi and Kajiki between 2024 and 2025 illustrate Vietnam's vulnerability: hundreds of victims, 300,000 people evacuated, and material costs reaching $1.6 billion in 2024. The destruction of crops impacts both the population and the country itself, which is a global producer of rice and coffee. The government must therefore ensure the state's food security, based on criteria of quality, health and nutritional safety, and availability. In doing so, it would be relevant to analyze how governmental policies are asserting themselves as necessary measures for modernization and adaptation of agricultural practices amid global warming.  

I. Adverse Climatic Effects and Agricultural Paradigm Shift

(The Scientific Origins of Climate Disasters)

In 2019, Vietnam ranked sixth among the countries most severely affected by extreme weather over the past two decades (Eckstein et al. 2019). Stretched across a coastline spanning more than 3,200 km, the country is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rising temperatures not only cause water levels to rise (e.g., thermal expansion and ice melting) but also disrupt the balance of ocean currents. This phenomenon is responsible for the formation of El Niño, a current that disrupts weather cycles in the Pacific, and leads to droughts in Vietnam. At the same time, beyond typhoons, the intrusion of salty sea water into the land damages soil fertility.

(The Consequences of These Climatic Disasters)

These disasters are responsible for the destruction of fields, spaces, and means of production, leading to population displacement. This is particularly the case in the Mekong Delta where a rise in water levels of 30 cm would overwhelm about 47% of the Delta. Beyond the human aspect, the typhoons of 2024 and 2025, destroyed 104,000 hectares of rice fields. As a matter of fact, 5% of the population lives in coastal areas and survives on small-scale agriculture, with less than 1 hectare still representing 69% of the 11.9 million agricultural households, whose adaptation capacities remain limited.

(The Importance of Vietnamese Agriculture: A Vulnerability to Climate Change?)

Domestically, agriculture is a key sector of the Vietnamese economy. The country ranks second among global producers (45 million tonnes/year) and third among exporters (7 million tonnes/year). Coffee and aquaculture products reinforce Vietnam's importance in the global food supply chain.

Thus, adaptation is a major challenge for the government, which, given its demographic and social challenges, must anchor the issue of food security at the heart of a human security issue. The government has therefore proposed the adoption of a plan for 2030 combining both green growth and a National Food Action Plan (NAP-FST).

II. The Need to Adapt to the Current Environmental Challenges : A Triple Modernization of the Vietnamese State 

(Bureaucratic Modernization: Towards a Concentration of Skills)

Faced with these food and environmental issues, Vietnam has initiated administrative reforms to support green growth and NAP-FST projects. With the problem identified, the successful implementation of these public policies relies on targeted mobilization of stakeholders and the definition of a clear framework.

The government also aims to transform its post-typhoon recovery policies, which focus on public injections and private sector intervention into prevention policies. This is, at least, what the strategic framework of the National Plan 2030, set out in 28 decrees, aims to develop through a Climate Smart Agriculture initiative. It implies the modernization and sustainability of the agricultural sector in a sustainable manner. 

Requiring a strong and efficient administrative framework, the government initiated a bureaucratic overhaul reform in July 2025. As a result of merger policies, the number of ministries has been reduced from 18 to 14, including the merger of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment. This reinforces the centralization of decisions, avoiding overlapping powers; in addition to ministerial efficiency, there is the issue of over-centralization of powers around bodies close to power.

(Decentralization Measures: Towards a Transfer of Skills to the Local Level)

However, the reform also brings about a restructuring of local entities through territorial redistricting. Identified since 2010, the problem of the lack of efficiency at the local level in Vietnam seems to be due to the excessive number and lack of autonomy of territorial entities. The debates, initiated in 2017, led in 2024-2025 to the adoption of resolutions 60-NQ/TW and 202/2025/QH15, abolishing the district level and approving the merger of provincial units, respectively. Over the entire period, the number of provinces decreased from 63 in 2010 to 34 in 2025 (28 provinces and 6 cities under central administration).

In addition to the issuance of 28 decrees in July 2025, and the delegation of powers in the areas of justice, finance, taxes, the environment, and culture to local authorities at two levels, the reforms will modernize the state apparatus as well as local levels. It will allow for the assertion of clearer control and management at the local level, based on two major pillars: autonomy and transparency. The objective is to strengthen the effectiveness of local action by developing policies adapted to each region and aimed at ensuring the resilience of production and water supply for small farmers.

These policies help to implement the CSA project, which aims to increase productivity while reducing agricultural emissions (CO2). They offer farmers a choice of suitable tools, such as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), for reducing the water consumption of rice crops in the Mekong and for the selection of resistant varieties, crop diversification, optimized irrigation, and even mechanized surveillance by drones.

(From the Private Model to the Desire to Promote Smart Agriculture)

These costly agricultural transformations require private investment, which the 2030 Strategic Plan seeks to attract through tax incentives and green credits. They rely on the reform of territorial entities: the latter, endowed with expanded powers, negotiate directly with companies, while the State sets the overall direction. Targeted regionally, this capital brings technology and integration into global value chains, such as Agribank, which signed a memorandum of cooperation with Yanmar to facilitate the access for the agricultors to machines.  

But this increased role of the private sector imposes constraints on an aging and unevenly prepared population: age, gender, and access to information condition adoption and access to credit. It appears necessary to combine an extension service with technical and financial support for farmers. This collaboration with the private sector introduces a necessary international opening into the global value chain.

III. International Cooperation as a Way to Support and Expand the Reach of the National Policies  

(Food Security as a Key Legal Concept of the UN)

Indeed, the issue of food security is not specific to Vietnam and remains an international prerogative since it has been enshrined in Article 25 al.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). This fundamental principle of the UN, though non-binding, is supported by the ICESCR (1976), in which Article 11 paragraphs 1 and 2 deal with the right to an adequate standard of living and the fundamental right to be free from hunger.

Additionally, the development of the FAO in 1945, along with other entities like the World Food Security Committees—all responsible for food production, distribution and security—made it possible to conceptualize food security as a global governance objective.

Yet, food security remains the prerogative of states and therefore relies on their willingness and approval to implement these agreements. This is evidenced by the national Zero Hunger Action Program launched by Vietnam in 2015, which is directly aligned with the UN's Zero Hunger Plan. Establishing itself as a model in the region, Vietnam was recognized by the FAO in 2012 as a pilot country in the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Land Tenure. This initiative led Vietnam to implement the CSA as a pilot project, illustrating that it is part of the country’s national political frame. 

(The Importance of International Funding: the Risk of a Neo-Colonial Reading)

However, this international integration, especially related to the Chinese market could call into question the ability of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people to determine their own agricultural and food policies or to promote the protection of local markets. Aligned with the UN objectives, Vietnamese plans benefit from cross-investments, both private and public, such as those proposed by Yanmar and Agribank.

However, the Vietnamese market is not conditioned by this export support, as the government still maintains control over its food sovereignty. Indeed, the bureaucratic overhaul itself seems to envisage this private and international integration, placing Vietnam in a fully integrated driving role within the globalized food system. Vietnam therefore becomes a key country in the food supply chain that must be supported to maintain a sustainable balance. Moreover, the US investment since the free-trade treaty of 2020 allows Vietnam to not fall into the fold of China. 

In this sense, the government's reforms allow for a transition from centralized to multi-sectoral food sovereignty. Acting at different levels, the latter is, however, always determined within the central government's strategic framework.

(Vietnam as a Driving State for Transnational Cooperation)

With its proactive strategy, Vietnam uses food security projects to strengthen its local roots and regional cooperation. As a key player within ASEAN, it participates in the AFSIS (ASEAN Food Security Information System), the Rice Reserve Agreement (1996), and the ADB-led Green Recovery Program, which aims to advance sustainable agricultural infrastructure. This integration allows it to align its green growth policies with regional priorities, as demonstrated by the “1 million hectares of low-emission rice” project in the Mekong Delta.

The country also benefits from foreign initiatives such as Grower in Indonesia, which promote the training and integration of women in agriculture. This exchange of practices is materialized through bilateral agreements: in July 2025, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a rice trade deal and on research cooperation. This new key role that Vietnam plays in food security allows it to use its agricultural projects both as an argument of soft power and as a way to strengthen its international status through bilateral agreements; the country has, indeed, established partnerships with France, Germany, and Denmark, all trying to navigate among great powers.

Conclusion

Vulnerable to climate change, Vietnam is positioning itself as a proactive country seeking to promote food security in the world. With its recent bureaucratic reform, which promotes targeted local action, the country is asserting an ambitious sustainable food and environmental policy for 2030. Aligning with UN policies, it appears that Vietnam is more firmly anchored than ever in the global food supply chain, reaffirming its status as a leading country in the region and in the world. This lays the foundations for bilateral partnerships, illustrating a multipolar world where avoiding dependence on major powers seems to be the preferred path for middle powers.