Prioritizing the Development Strategy of Ethnic Minority Farms in Central Highlands of Vietnam Using SWOT-AHP-TOWS Analysis

The increasing division of farms, caused by internal and external circumstances, requires the formulation of a farm economic development strategy that ensures access to a trajectory of sustainability and enhancing competitive capacity, especially in ethnic minority farms. In order to achieve this, a methodology to estimate the impact of factors and prioritize alternative strategies on development of ethnic minority farms is presented and applied to the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The study combines a SWOT-AHP-TOWS analysis, in which the SWOT technique examines internal and external factors of these farms and then prioritizes the use of analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Finally, the TOWS matrix is built with nine strategies to comprehensively prioritize each alternative in relation to the SWOT factors. Hence, factors that pertain to weakness are becoming prevalent such as low educational attainment, lack of access to credit, as well as cultural, tradition, and language barriers. Along with the orientation of farm economic development and long-term goals, it is important to minimize weaknesses to avoid threats to the development of ethnic minority farms. Therefore, in such context the following policy considerations are significant: (1) Developing and issuing specific policies for ethnic minority farms; (2) Encouraging alliances between farms; (3) Promoting the “four-house” linkage model; (4) Optimizing of production resources, and (5) Developing human resources.