Value chain development involving small holders is currently promoted as a
mechanism for promoting rural development generally, harnessing market forces for
improving the livelihood of the poor. There is a growing trend for agricultural
development projects to incorporate market linkages, in order to avoid the pitfalls of
development efforts driven primarily by technology transfer, production increase or
unsustainable institutions propped up by project structures. The market provides a solid
basis for economic growth and thus a substantial prop for development. Nonetheless,
there remain many challenges for linking poor farmers to markets and ensuring that the
resulting changes retain a pro-poor orientation. These challenges are acute in a country
like Vietnam, undergoing profound economic and social transitions. This is particularly
the case in the upland regions, where the terrain, remoteness, ethnic diversity, unstable
marketing networks, lack of support policy and socio-economic disadvantage pose so
many additional challenges for poor farmers. The interplay of market forces and the
development aims of government agencies and NGOs are not necessarily arranged on a
common course. In the face of rapidly accumulating experience with these phenomena
around the world and growing expertise within Vietnam, this paper provides a review of
international and Vietnam based experiences, focused on the uplands. The paper centres
on a set of research questions designed to support an Australian Centre for International
Agricultural Research project implemented in 2009 in the north-west highlands of
Vietnam. The project deals mostly with ethnic minorities. The review is augmented by
an analysis of project participants’ experience with linking poor farmers to markets in
Vietnam. Can value chains shaped by pro-poor intervention achieve poverty reduction
and sustainable development when the results are dependent on market outcomes? What
are the alternative approaches for linking poor farmers to markets? What factors
contribute to the success or failure of these alternative approaches? What common and
upland Vietnam specific experience with pro-poor value chain development can guide
projects to improve market linkages for the uplands of North-West Vietnam? What are
the policies necessary from local government to support value chain development? The
paper addresses these questions and reveals evidence of corporate social responsibility
in the emergent properties of agricultural value chains.