Agriculture Growth and Environmental Degradation in Vietnam: Do Natural Resources Play a Vital Role in this Regard

Abstract

The growth of agriculture in Vietnam has significantly transformed the country's socio-economic landscape, enhancing food security and boosting agricultural exports. However, this growth has also emerged as a leading contributor to environmental degradation. Additionally, Vietnam's rich natural resources, while facilitating economic development, have similarly played a pivotal role in environmental challenges. Therefore, it is essential to re-evaluate the interplay between agricultural growth, natural resource exploitation, and environmental degradation. To address this, the current study employs the conventional STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) framework to analyse the effects of agricultural growth and natural resources on environmental degradation, operationalized through CO2 emissions in Vietnam from 1990 to 2020. The research not only aims to estimate the direct impacts of these variables but also investigates the moderating influence of natural resources on the relationship between agricultural growth and environmental degradation. The methodology employed is the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound Test approach, which allows for an assessment of both short-term and long-term relationships among the variables. The findings indicate that agricultural growth exerts a positive and significant impact on CO2 emissions in both the short and long term. Conversely, the influence of natural resources on CO2 emissions is found to be statistically significant and positive only in the short term. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the moderating effect of natural resources on the relationship between agricultural growth and CO2 emissions is negative but statistically insignificant in both the short and long term. In light of these findings, the study suggests several policy recommendations aimed at achieving environmental sustainability in Vietnam. These policies are designed to balance agricultural development with environmental conservation, ensuring that the benefits of economic growth do not come at the expense of ecological health. Overall, this research contributes to the understanding of how agricultural practices and natural resource management impact environmental outcomes in Vietnam, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches to promote sustainable development.