This paper examines how rice farmers at all gender and ages perceive climate change and adopt Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies to enhance resilience and adaptation in three sub-regions of Vietnam. Impacts on livelihoods resilience, workloads of left behind family members, gender roles and responsibilities are also assessed. Using data from 579 randomly-sampled households, results show that women play a more important role in rice production in North and Central compared to the South due to higher rate of male out-migration. Differences in awareness and adoption of CSA technologies are observed although men and women across provinces have similar perception of climate change. The key challenges of youth engagement include drudgery in farm operations, labour-intensive technologies, low profit, inadequate access to land and credit, and lack of agricultural insurance scheme. Results imply that farmers should be provided with equal opportunities in trainings and field demonstrations on CSA technologies. Recommendations to attract the youth include: (i) promote on-farm training at school; (ii) organize exchange visits, trade fairs, competition on farming techniques; (iii) develop good production and business model; (iv) emphasize the important role of farmers and agriculture; (v) update agricultural policies and programmes; (vi) upgrade the skills and knowledge of extension workers.

The Silang-Santa Rosa subwatershed feeds into Laguna Lake to the south-east of Metro Manila. This case study of the subwatershed provides some insights on the interactions between people and institutions within their given natural environment. The link between the socio-economic conditions of households and the quality of the ecosystem resources available is premised on the extent to which socio-economic conditions influence household decisions relating to the use and management of land and water resources. The major issue is how people might be able to improve, protect, and expand their current resource base or level of acquirement given the different types of risks they face. In the subwatershed’s upstream areas, the risk is from soil degradation coupled with inefficient farm production systems that lead to low farm productivity. In the downstream areas, households face poverty-related issues such as food insecurity and low income from declining fishery resources. In addition, pollution from both upstream and downstream areas threatens their livelihoods and increases the incidence of water-borne diseases. To address these issues, it is proposed that the different stakeholders could be enlisted to develop an integrated development plan that would reflect their common interests and vision for the watershed area feeding into Laguna Lake. The plan should deal with major issues such as land and water degradation, poverty, livelihoods, food security, health, farm production efficiency, and marketing systems, as well as regulatory and economic instruments that would reduce land and water degradation.