when the mekong river enters vietnam, it fans out form a giant a. the deltand is ideally suited to growing rice. yet in the late 1970s, vieam was onhe verge of mine. translator: i grew only one crop a year. because there was no irrigation, there wasn't enough water to grow more than one crop. so we didn't procenough. ator wngomed byaywaed changes since then have turned vietnam ieffective irrigation rgesland management and accesthe benefits ofets arits physical environment. before 1988, rice in vietnam was produced by collectives. individual farmers had little responsility for their land and virtually no incentive ( man speaking vietnamesey) translator: in the collective system, faers are just hired hands. everything they produce becomes the collective's property. the collective then tries to sell the produce narrator: in the 1990sa market-oriente "contract system" was installed. the collectives were disnded, reinstating the individual farmer as tinchpi of rice production. translator: in the contract system, the farmers profit from whatever they produce; they'