The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

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1972
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PATTERNS OF LAND OWNERSHIP TN CENTHAL '1'1-IAJLAND 261
TABLE 6
Location of the Owners of Land in the Sample Villages
(Percent of Total Titled Area)
"-------------·---·--·---- --~---··-
In the Same District
Assumed Absentee Landlords
·····-. ----·--~· ---··-
Same Different Different Different
Village Village District Province
AYUTHIA
52% 27% 8% 13%
52 28 8 12
57 26 8 9
61 22 9 8
59 18 13 10
74 14 3 9
80 13 1 6
84 12 2 2
85 12 1 2
NAKHON PATHOM
66% 23% 4% 8%
67 22 4 7
66 25 4 5
64 29 3 4
60 29 3 8
69 25 1 4
70 25 2 3
74 25 1 0
Note: If the owner of the land 1i ves in a different district or a different province
than where the land is situated, he is assumed to be an absentee landlord;
if he lives in the village itself or in an adjacent village, he is close enough
to cultivate the land himself or personally to oversee the cultivation by
tenants if he rents the land. The data provide no evidence on whether
owners rent their land or cultivate it themselves, so no overall rental ratio
can be calculated. Nevertheless the simple fact of geographic separation
from the land assures that the owner is a landlord and an absentee owner.
This assumption is imprecise at the margin. The villages in some cases
border villages in other districts or provinces and some absentee owners
may be close enough to be resident landlords. In the case of Village N l
the adjacent village is a market town and some landowners there are
·merchants who display the traditional characteristics of absentee landlords.
The extent of local ownership of village land shown in this study is similar
to that in Bangchan, the most intensively studied village in the Central
Plain. Village residents owned 64 percent of the village land there in 1953.
Kamol Janlekha: A Study of the Economy of a Rice G1·owing Village in
Central Thailancl (Bangkok: Ministry of Agriculture, 1955), p. 55.