Study on Household S Strategies to Diversify Their Activities and Benefits Captured From
Master Research Project proposal
Study on Household’s strategies to diversify their activities and benefits captured from watershed services in Mae Kampong village, Chiang mai Province, Northern of Thailand.
Trainee: Maiyer XIONG
Advisers: Penporn JANKEKARNKIJ, Kasetsart University, Thailand
Didier Pillot, Montpellier SupAgro, France
Christophe DEPRES, VetAgro Sup, France
Contents
I.Introduction and problem statement
1.1.Introduction of the institutions
1.2.Introduction of research
1.3.Problem statement
II.Literature review
2.1.Agriculture policy and economy philosophy of Thailand
2.1.1.Agriculture policy
2.1.2.Sufficiency economy philosophy of Thai King
2.2.Agrarian system
2.2.1.Definition of Agrarian system
2.2.2.Currently Thai agriculture state
2.2.3.Agriculture as a way of life
2.2.4.Characteristic of Thailand’s agriculture
2.2.5.Sustainable development and agriculture development
2.2.6.Agriculture sustainable development of Thailand
2.3.Agro-ecosystem
2.3.1.Ecosystem Services
III.Methodological Approarch
3.1.Conceptual Framework
3.2.Research steps
3.3.Research plan
IV.Study area
4.1.Overview and Short History of Mae Kampong
4.2.Some agriculture production of Mae Kampong
4.3.Community ecotourism in Ban Mae Kampong
References
Annex
I.Introduction and problem statement
1.1.Introduction of the institutions
This internship is a master thesis of second year of IRC (institute des regions chaudes), Montpellier SupAgro. The topic of this research is study on household’s activities and benefits from ecosystems services will be take place in the Mae Kampong Watershed Area, Chiang Mai Province, northern of Thailand. This research was invented under the cooperation between Montpellier SupAgro, France and Kasetsart University of Thailand, according to their Memorandum of Understanding dated February 27, 2008; I am considered as international exchange student and benefited some courses without tuition fee in KU. In this case, Montpellier SupAgro is in charge of financial support and Kasetsart University supported as host institution. The period of the research is 6 months (5 first months in Thailand and the last month in France for complete the thesis and defence) from April to September 2013.
Host Institution
Kasetsart University is a public university where bodies of knowledge and research potential have been continually accumulated for nearly seven decades. Now, as a national research university endorsed by the Commission on Higher Education of Thailand with the vision to become “the world’s leading research university in agriculture, food, technology and innovation”, Kasetsart University is ready to drive to our major goal as a leading university and to deploy networks for the accomplishment to be a world class university in the near future.
In 2010, Kasetsart University strongly takes internationalization as one of her major policies. The University will accelerate strong supports to initiate and conduct various academic collaborative activities with their partners worldwide. Exchange of faculty members, researchers, staffs, students, joint research, seminars, conferences and workshops, as well as other areas of interest are still their commitment to the global academic society.
1.2.Introduction of research
In the pass, people cropped with the objective of high yield, by using chemical fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide, without thinking about the degradation of natural resources. But recently, they met the serious problem of soil degradation, water pollution, etc. so nowadays; the concept of agro-ecology became a very striking subject for numbers of researchers and the government. people turn to think about the cost and benefit of the natural resource use by long terms, not only the yield but also how to maintaining the sustainability of the natural resources.
Agriculture is a Natural Resource-based activity mainly on land use and irrigation. Agriculture created the agro-ecosystem that provides numbers of services to human, such as food, biodiversity and landscape beauty. In Thailand, (Tonmanee & Kanchanakool, 1999) agriculture is the major profession and source of income for the rural poor. By 2007, the economy had become dominated by services and industry. Yet, agriculture still occupied around 50% of the active population and contributed 10% of Thai gross domestic product (GDP). (Adchara, 2004) by the way, Thailand is facing the crisis of agriculture new technologies, with the objective of high revenue by implementing the monoculture to facilitate the sale. These cropping systems were changed the traditional livelihoods such as high investment, use of mechanism instead animal force, peasants indebted because the interest of credit is so high. In addition, these agricultural practices also have the negative impact to the environment and ecology, such as lose of biodiversity (thousand of species were disappeared and replaced by one new specie like monoculture of cassava or sugar cane) in large area of Thailand. Another negative impact is the decreasing of forest cover; since 45 years ago, the forest area was decline from 220 million Ray (60% of the total Thailand surface) to 80 million Ray (20% of the total land). And, these issues created the serious problem as dryness, flooding the more and more. Nowadays, there are more than 50 provinces (Thailand has a total of 76 provinces) meet flood each year. So, these disasters let Thai government and researchers to think about how to maintaining and improve the ecosystem for a sustainable use.
The ecosystem services are created by the interactions of living organisms, including humans with their environment (FAO, 2007). So, to respond to the human well-being, we need the good services from the good ecosystems as well. The rural population has a role very important to preserve these natural resources, because these people live depending on them and generated direct and indirect benefits from its services. So, these people are the users and also the conservators of the natural resources. For the sustainability of natural resource use, it is necessary that these people have a good system of management.
1.3.Problem statement
The rural people are the users and conservator of the natural resources, a good system of management or practices for example eco-friendly farming, agro-forestry, etc. is needed to apply to maintain the ecosystems. The bad system of management or practices can have the negative impact such as loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and water pollution, etc. to the people in local scale and national scale as well.
Mae Kampong village (or Ban Mae Kampong) is a village in Huai Kaew sub-district, Mae On district, Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand. Mae Kampong is a small community locates in the valley of Mae Kampong watershed that surround by mountain. The topographical feature of the area is hilly terrain with an elevation of 800-1,300 m above sea levelsent to cold all year round (ADB, 2012).
Ban Mae Kampong was initiated the ecotourism activities in 1999 by the decision of the village’s leaders (village’s head man said). In fact, it was developed in response to the decline of demand for fermented tea production and as an alternative source of income for local villagers (Readyplanet, 2010). Nowadays, Ban Mae Kampong is a fermented tea- producing community. With the total 130 households or 438 members, about 97% of villagers are currently engaged in fermented tea production, locally called “miang”. However, in recent years, the villagers have turned to growing coffee by planting it in the forest-tea garden. This crop diversification occurred in response to the decline of fermented tea production and to gain an additional income. The average household income from agricultural production was 35,000 baht per annum for villagers (ADB, 2012). So, Mae Kampong is a community that almost be autonomous to improve their livelihoods situation. It is a good traditional management system in the community scale and could be a good example to the sustainable natural resource management, that is the raison why Mae Kampong was chosen as the study area, it could be a good exemplary for the future research or application in the others communities of Thailand, and neighbour countries such as Laos, Cambodia.
This internship will be focused on doing a Research on household’s strategies to diversify their activities and benefits captured from watershed services in Mae Kampong village, Chiang mai Province, Northern of Thailand. Within the following objective:
- In the watershed scale, to understand the household’s strategies, how they diversify their activities or livelihood
- In the household level, how they capture the benefits from the watershed services
- In global scale, to understand the linkage between local and national policy in terms of natural resources conservation.
II.Literature review
2.1. Agriculture policy and economy philosophy of Thailand
2.1.1.Agriculture policy
(Poapongsakorn, Ruhs, & Tangjitwisuth, 1998) Since the early 1980s, the simultaneous occurrence of the end of the land frontier, the fall in agricultural prices, and the industrial boom have confronted Thai farmers with a cost-price squeeze. Concerned about the maintenance of agricultural competitiveness, the government has subsequently launched a number of agricultural policies whose scopes go far beyond those of “traditional government intervention” as justified by economic theory. The most recent policy, falling in this category of extensive and, as we argue, unjustified intervention in agriculture, is the late-1993formulated and approved three-year plan on “Restructuring Agricultural Production Systems” (RAPS), which aims to reduce and replace the production of rice, cassava, coffee, and pepper, with the production of higher value products, such as vegetables, flowers, fruit trees, bamboo (for human consumption), fast-growing trees, cattle, and milk cows. Having picked winners and losers among agricultural commodities, the government attempts to implement its restructuring plan by encouraging cattle production and the replacement of selected crops through the extension of subsidized credits and inputs. A recent assessment of the costs and benefits of the “restructuring policy” concluded that, if price changes, increasing water scarcity, adverse externalities associated with crop production, and non-efficiency objectives, such as poverty alleviation and employment creation for the rural poor, are taken into account, “government intervention in production restructuring may not be as undesirable as it is generally argued”. However, we argue that restructuring policies are bound to be ineffective for at least four reasons. First, the government’s attempt to successfully pick winners and losers crucially depends on its knowledge and ability to forecast markets and prices better than farmers.
However, the government’s record in forecasting prices has been poor. In fact, all four commodities which the government had targeted for an acreage reduction in 1993 saw an upswing in prices in 1994. Second, the promotion of the production of “new” high value added products requires the government to provide farmers with adequate technology. However, the technology available to the government has shown to be insufficient, with the private sector’s role in the provision of technology being much smaller than originally hoped for. Third, the program of planted area reduction of four main crops was incapable of shoring up their prices.
2.1.2.Sufficiency economy philosophy of Thai King
(Voraded, Oraroth, Thanhva, & Phichith, 2008) the sufficiency economy philosophy was created by the King of Thailand in 18 July 1974 (Thai calendar 2517), under the principles of consume and live sufficiency and equilibrium. Then, he (the king) indicated the necessary of the improvement of Thai’s development strategies and he said “the development of the country should be respectively. Initially, we need to create the basic economic such as life sufficiency of the peasants, if we focus excessively on the civilization by emphasize only on the enhance economy rapidly, It will provoke the imbalance in different issues then meet the difficulty and fail eventually (Thai King speech in 18 July 1974).
-Sufficiency economy philosophy meaning and practices by Thai king
Sufficiency economy is a philosophy indicates the peasants’ existences and practices in all levels, from the household, community to the state, in both development and management of the country, by Proceeding along the path of center line, particularly the economy development, to keep pace with globalization. The sufficiency means tolerable, reasonable, including the good immune system in the body to against the effects from the external and internal change. And, it depending on the knowledge, the thoughtful and prudent extremely on the adoption of new technical to use in the work plan and operation in all steps, and by the way we should build up the basic spirit of the people, especially the official men, theorist, business man in all levels to have the good moral, loyalty and sufficient knowledge to adapt to the global change.
-(Pravet, 1999) explained that, sufficiency economy mean at least 7 sufficiency issues as: adequacy for everyone, sufficient mind, sufficient environment, sufficient of community strong, sufficient wit, sufficient of culture base, and have a sufficient of security.
-(Soumeth, 1998) mentioned that, sufficiency economy is the capacity of produces and supply to all need, food and services of a community or region by independence from externals factors. And, the sufficiency economy in individual level is the ability of selves sufficient according to their status and conventionally, doesn’t be passionate to the current materialism.
2.2.Agrarian system
2.2.1.Definition of Agrarian system
(Jouve, 1988) The first agrarian system evokes a more or less collective psychological conception resulting from contributions of a number of generations and including ethnic trends, traditions, personal experiences, exchanges with other human groups. Who adjusts the choice of crops and their combination, that is to say, how to spread over the land? The agrarian system then responds to the organization of work (tools, hitches, labors) we usually denominate train culture. In this article, there are 2 concepts concerning agrarian system.
For the first, an agrarian system is the spatial expression of the combination of production and techniques used by a farm to meet its needs. It expresses in particular the interaction between a bio-ecological system represented by the natural environment and socio-cultural systems, through practical issues especially do the technical achievements.
For the second, an agrarian system is primarily a mode of operating of the environment and sustainable historically constitute a system of forces of production adapted to the bioclimatic conditions of a given area and meet the conditions and social needs times.
In both of these definitions, we find reference to the society as main actor of this level of organization and hence the notion of agrarian system is clearly distinguishable from other farming systems in terms of its area of application.
So, finally we can therefore consider that agrarian system corresponds to the farming methods of a given space by the society resulting from the combination of the natural, socio-cultural, economic and technical factors.
2.2.2.Currently Thai agriculture state
(Adchara, 2004) since 45 years ago that Thailand introduced the cropping system of monoculture in large area, such as mono-cropping of rice, cassava, rubber, etc. these agricultural practices have destroy the biodiversity widely. Besides, these cultivations also created the serious negative impact to the farmers; their self sufficient economy was destroyed, the villagers become poorer, because the price of cassava product is lower than the price of rice (Thai people do not eat cassava instead of rice), they have to sale the cassava then buy rice; finally around 80% of farmers got indebted and they cannot reimburse due to the high interest. The peasants try to solve these problems by selling their lands, animals, and many of them finally sell their daughter (for the sexual service), etc. so, when we calculate the cost and benefit of the economy, we lose many things such household’s economy equilibrium, environmental and biodiversity (thousand of species were disappeared and replaced by one new specie like monoculture of cassava or sugar cane) in large area of Thailand. Another negative impact is the decreasing of forest cover; since 45 years ago, the forest area was decline from 220 million Ray (60% of the total Thailand surface) to 80 million Ray (20% of the total land). And, these issues created the serious problem as dryness, flooding the more and more. Nowadays, there are more than 50 provinces (Thailand has a total of 76 provinces) meeting flood each year and the damage is significantly large. If the disasters happened both dryness and flood in parallel, this phenomena illustrate that we lose the forest, because the trees were slashed for human activities and there have not sufficient plants to uptake the water when it rain. These calamities let Thai government and researchers to think about how to maintaining and improve the ecosystem for a sustainable natural resource use.
2.2.3.Agriculture as a way of life
(Thanwa, 2001) Small-scale farm households, and the rural societies they belong to, usually consider agriculture as way of life rather than as an ordinary occupation. Maintaining resources and a good environment in farm production is therefore a necessary condition for their quality of life. Since small-scale farmers are relatively poor, they benefit very much from farmers' groups and networks, by which they can help each other through the exchange of knowledge and experiences. Farmers' groups can also increase the bargaining power of small-scale farmers in the purchase of inputs and marketing of outputs. Especially during the economic crisis of Thailand, the "middle of the road" philosophy for economic development initiated by His Majesty the King has become the main development concept in Thailand. This was later developed into the philosophy of self-sufficiency based on moderation, reason and security in social development.
For the agricultural sector, self-sufficiency for small-scale farmers starts with a farming system which emphasizes the farm household. Farmers then should combine into groups or cooperatives, in order to exchange goods and services, as well as to increase efficiency in production, marketing and other social activities. Finally, strong farmers' groups and solid rural communities can also expand their investment into outside sectors such as finance and energy, in order to increase the wealth of society. This Royal initiative approach is currently adopted as part of the core concept for agricultural development as well as development in other economic sectors of Thailand, for the Eighth and Ninth Development Plans (1997 - 2001 and 2002 - 2006, respectively).