Background / Agriculture and Socio-economic Situation of Farmers in Thailand
Since the fifties and sixties farmers in Thailand have faced a rapid change in agriculture production. Several cash crops were introduced and farmers had to increase productivity to keep up with the demand of the urban areas and the drive for export income. A massive expansion of farmland occurred in this period together with the growth of export crops, such as cassava, maize, kenaf, sugar cane and several fruits. New farm inputs, such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides, were introduced and promoted to boost national agricultural productivity under the banner of the ‘Green Revolution”.
However, Thai agriculture still remains mainly based on small-scale farming. Yet agro-businesses and food-exporting companies control modern agriculture, promotion and marketing. More and more farmers are entering into contract farming, a situation where agribusiness companies make an agreement with farmers of what and how much to produce. In such system farm produce is supplied exclusively to the contracting company. The company may also provide seed and other inputs as well as loans and technological knowledge to farmers. Middlemen, often village headmen or sub-district leaders initiate this intensive production on the local level for the companies, introducing new varieties of seed, new breeds of animals, chemical fertilizer, as well as an enormous amount of pesticides. In this situation, rural farmers have changed from independent farmers to hired labor in their own fields. Farmers became increasingly dependent upon production factors outside of the community and outside markets that are not obliged to consider the needs of farmers. These systems worked well for some producers, but in many cases the risks of production and price fluctuation and loss remained with the farmers, while the profits were gained at the agribusiness level.
Even with the increase of production, the contribution of agriculture to the Thai national economy has been steady
declining within the last decades. In the last 20 years, the contribution of the agriculture sector to the national economy has dropped from 25% to 10%.While more than 60% of the population still works or lives from the agricultural sector.