Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific region - United Nations in ...

CROP DIVERSIFICATION IN THAILANDChavalvut Chainuvati * and Withaya Athipanan **1. INTRODUCTIONThailand is located in the Indochina Peninsula with a total area of about 51.36 millionhectares. Her territorial boundaries connect with Malaysia in the south, Cambodia in thenortheast to east, Laos in the northeast, and Myanmar in the northwest to west.Geographically, the country may be divided into four regions. In the central,northern, northeastern and southern regions, altitude modifies the temperature considerably.It is cool enough in the northern region to produce temperate fruits and vegetables (alsovegetable seeds); cool and dry in northeast region, and modestly humid in the central region.These three regions have three seasons: rainy during late April to October, winter fromNovember to February, and summer from March until April. In the southern region, there isno cool season and the climate is wet, but with less solar radiation than is needed formaximum crop yields. Thailand’s climate is tropical and monsoonal, influenced by thesouthwest monsoon except for the south. Average annual rainfall and temperature vary,ranging from 998-4,603 mm of precipitation and a temperature regime of 24.4-29.3 o C (76-85 o F).Administratively, Thailand is divided into 76 provinces, each headed by a governor.There are 787 districts and district branches, 7,404 sub-districts, and nearly 66,604 villagesin the 76 provinces. The population in 1996 was over 60 million people, and of thispopulation 64 percent reside in the rural areas. Approximately 90 percent of the rural people,or 5.2 million farm families, earn their income through subsistence farming, particularly ricecultivation and other field crop production.In Thailand, 64 percent of the population are engaged in agriculture. Most of themgrow single crops such as rice, cassava, corn, sugar cane etc. The proportion of income percapita of those engaged in agriculture to other sectors was 1:13 in 1997. Severaldevelopment programmes have failed because there were no realistic assessments of thelimited resource base of small farming systems.The survival and social-economic pattern of the householders was not taken into fullaccount. The basic assumption is that small-scale farmers in Thailand will be responsive todevelopment efforts if the technology fits their needs, aspirations and environments.The Department of Agricultural Extension (DOAE) has realized such drawbacks andput more efforts to solve these kinds of problems. The strategy is in line with thegovernment’s policy during the 7 th and 8 th National Economic and Social Development Plan(1992-1996 and 1997-2001) which attempted to restructure agricultural production systems* Deputy Director-General, Department of Agricultural Extension, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives,Bangkok, Thailand.** Senior Subject Matter Specialist, Farm Management Group, Agri-business Promotion Division, Departmentof Agricultural Extension, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Bangkok, Thailand.130