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Thai Agriculture: Golden Cradle of Millennia

By Lindsay Falvey

Book Id: WPLBN0002170328
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
File Size: 4.31 mb
Reproduction Date: 2000

Title:	Thai Agriculture: Golden Cradle of Millennia
Author:	Lindsay Falvey
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Agriculture, Social, Economic, Historical
Collections:	Authors Community, Marketing, Sociology, Religion, Military Science, Literature, Government, Political Science
Historic Publication Date:	2000
Publisher:	Kasetsart University Press

Member Page:	Lindsay Falvey
Citation APA MLA Chicago Falvey, L. (2000). Thai Agriculture: Golden Cradle of Millennia. Retrieved from http://www.self.gutenberg.org/

Description
From hunters and gatherers through agro-cities, State-religious Empires infiltrated by migrating Tai persons with a wet glutinous rice technology, evolved to produce a sustainable agriculture. Rice culture determined administrative structures in a pragmatic society which regularly produced a saleable surplus. Ayutthaya’s ascendancy, continuing today, consolidated the importance of rice agriculture to national security and economic well-being, as Chinese and European influence benefited agribusiness and initiated the demand which would expand agriculture through population increase until accessible land was expended. The resulting central interest in the spoils of agriculture more than its producers pervaded decision-making until recently, and was supported by narrow economic development advocates. As agriculture declined in relative financial importance, it continued to provide the benefits of employment, crisis resilience, self-sufficiency, rural social support, and cultural custody. Technical and economic globalisation forces which assumed a cultural uniformity were eventually revealed to require modification, but had meanwhile allowed unregulated exploitation of community resources and excesses in economic activity, all with at least the tacit approval of development financiers. Agricultural institutions evolved from a taxation and dispute resolution base to provide research, education, and technology transfer at levels below potential as they supported commercial agriculture funded by credit. Agribusiness, both private and government, expanded from the 1960s and small-holders were partly viewed as a past relic which agribusiness could modernise. However, small-holders’ intensive integrated production systems continued to offer efficiencies uncounted in narrow financial analyses, including social benefits which have now caused agriculture to be treated as both a social and financial sector in planning, with increased cognisance of environmental and cultural values. Unique elements of Thai agriculture include: irrigation technologies which spanned a millennium; administrative structures which originated with agricultural water control; its global leadership in production and export of a number of agricultural commodities; its agribusiness sector which includes one of the world’s huge multinational 14 conglomerates; the negotiating approaches of the culture over several centuries; potential for further large increases in productivity from known technologies, and an open culture which has allowed new ideas and peoples to be absorbed at various times, and which can still relate a national cultural ethic to traditional agriculture with its religious and environmental management associations. Now one of the world’s few major agricultural exporters, leading the world in rice, rubber, canned pineapple, and black tiger prawn production and export, the region in chicken meat export and several other commodities, and feeding more the four times its own population from less intensive agriculture than its neighbours, Thailand is poised to benefit from predicted expansion in livestock products demand. Poverty reduction, and improved education, research, and legal and social systems, which may be addressed in the wake of the recent Asian financial crisis, stand to benefit from popular concern for environmentally and socially sensitive alternatives for small-holder farmers to co-exist with commercial agriculture. Unlikely to rapidly industrialise, Thailand will remain one of the world’s major agricultural countries in social, environmental and economic terms for the foreseeable future.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Uniquely Agricultural Golden Cradle The Land of the Thai Soils Water Resources Climate Other Natural Resources Regional Origins Intensification Industrialisation National and Global Responsibilities Current Situation Ingredients of Thai Agriculture Summary Chapter 2 - Agricultural Origins From Gathering to Growing Neolithic to Iron Age Domination of Rice Early Thai Agriculturists Khmer Agriculture Pagan Agriculture Southern Thailand Summary Chapter 3 - Arrival of Tai Agriculture Chinese Tai Muang F Integrating Technologies Tai Agriculturists Migrating Farmers Tai in Thailand Tai Traits Environmental Traditions Tai and Buddhist Environments Summary Chapter 4 - Expansion of Thai Agriculture from 1200 C Agricultural Organisation Agricultural Administration Integrating Irrigation Systems Agricultural Domination Tai to Thai Agriculture 5 Agricultural Life Summary Chapter 5 - Emerging Agribusiness: Ayutthaya to the Early Twentieth Century Agriculture, Environment and Morality Export Rice Cash Crops Foreign Influence Administering the Peasants State Irrigation Development Traders and Early Agribusiness Summary Chapter 6 - Agriculture and Politics: From the 1930s Agricultural Policies from 1932 Policies Post-World War II Agro-Social Change Highland Agriculture Agribusiness and The State The Culture of Irrigation Environmental Change Summary Chapter 7 - Thai Agriculture to the 1990s Agricultural Planning Context Planning History Foreign Fillips to Planning Plans One to Eight Agricultural Growth Cropland Expansion Fertiliser Irrigation, Mechanisation and Credit Social Effects Post-1997 Agriculture A New Agricultural Paradigm Summary Chapter 8: Crops Rice Rice Policy Rice Production Systems Glutinous Rice Rice Breeding Rice Husbandry Maize Mung Bean 6 Cassava Sugar Coconut Rubber Fibre, Extraction and Other Crops Fibre Crops Oil and Extraction Crops Other Crops Fruits and Vegetables Crop Seeds Summary Chapter 9 - Livestock and Fisheries Animal Production Systems Buffalo and Cattle Dairy Cattle Pig Poultry Aquatic Animals Freshwater Marine Brackish Waters and Shrimp Culture Fish Production Goats, Sheep and Elephants The Future for Livestock Summary Chapter 10 - Forestry Frontier Forests Forest Types Forest Destruction Logging Forest Policy Prohibition of Logging Conservation and Social Forestry Agriculture – Forestry Interactions Private Forestry Forest Production and Industries Summary Chapter 11 - Agricultural Institutions’ Development Government and Agriculture Institutional Instruction Origins of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives Agricultural Research Livestock, Fisheries, and Forestry 7 Research Impact Agricultural Education Agricultural Cooperatives Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives Marketing Organisation of Farmers Agribusiness and the Small Farmer Summary Chapter 12 - Agribusiness Agricultural Inputs The Agribusiness Story Charoen Pokaphan Shrimp Agribusiness Forest Agribusiness Rubber Agribusiness Horticulture, Textiles, and Technology Government Agribusiness Future Agribusiness Summary Chapter 13 - Small-holders and Development Economic Context Agriculture and Growth Small-holders as Family Farmers Integrated Crops and Livestock Research and Development Alternatives and Self-Sufficiency De-marginalising Small-holder Agriculture Summary Chapter 14 - Agriculture, Environment, and Values Global Agriculture and Environment State of the Thai Environment Tracing Thai Attitudinal Shifts Global Development Forces Missing the Middle Path Seeking Environmental Traditions Popular Buddhist Thought Conservative Canons Rising Eco-Buddhism Practical Approaches Buddhist Economics Alternative Agriculture Self Sufficiency Summary 8 Chapter 15 - Whither Thai Agriculture? From Past to Present Current Position Policy Outcomes The Asian Financial Crisis The Challenge