Spread of Direct Seeded Lowland Rice in Northeast Thailand : Farmers' Adaptation to Economic Growth (<Special Issue>Transformation of Agriculture in Northeast Thailand)

Abstract

The accelerated economic growth of Thailand since the late 1980s has made the urban-rural relationship more direct in terms of people's mobility and the circulation of information and money, and this is transforming landuse and agriculture. A typical example of this transformation is the change in the planting method of lowland rice in Northeast Thailand, which the present study highlights. Two years' field observation of 178 plots and interviews with 100 farmers in the Chi and Mun river basins demonstrated a drastic change in the planting method from transplanting to dry seeding as a result of trial and error by farmers. Northeastern farmers tend to attach greater importance to minimizing labor input to rice cultivation than to maximizing rice production. This change reflects the structural changes in the region : the rise to prevalence of the money-based economy and the disappearance of the rice-based economy.