東北タイ・ドンデーン村 : 内生的農村経済発展とその諸要因(<特集>東北タイ・ドンデーン村)

Abstract

Drastic changes took place between 1964 and 1981 in Don Daeng, a small village located about 20 kilometers south of the rapidly growing town of Khon Kaen, which the Thai government has designated as a decentralized regional development center of the Northeast. Despite the lack of rural development, that is, top-down development sponsored by the government, during this period, the economically rational villagers responded swiftly to the rapidly growing demand in Khon Kaen for off-farm labor and for such agricultural products as hot pepper and pigs. This response, together with small-scale auxiliary government assistance such as a partial subsidy for improvement of feeder roads to the village, brought about drastic changes in the village's economic and social structures. These changes resulting from the villagers' spontaneous and autonomous responses to rapidly increasing economic opportunities in the city are here termed endogenous rural economic evolution. Although 50% of the villagers are still poor, such evolution has considerably reduced poverty in the village. It is, however, yet to extend far beyond Don Daeng and other villages near Khon Kaen. Extension to other parts of the vast Northeast of the government's decentralized regional and rural development strategy, through which cities are designated as regional development centers and auxiliary government assistance is made available for infrastructural work such as construction and improvement of feeder roads to villages, and for decentralization of industry, urbanization, and provision of public services, should prove an efficient means to induce endogenous regional economic evolution based on the quick and spontaneous response of peasants who are eager to increase their economic welfare.