The Elimination of Thailand Economic Disparity in the Context of Concretely Tackling Poverty of Rice Farmers

Abstract

The long-time collective problem of poverty has led to the income inequality of more than 17 million rice farmers (56 percent of Thai planters) even greater.  Even though the government has determined rice farming development a priority in the 20-year national strategy i.e., the second strategy promoting competitiveness through smart farming concept and the fourth strategy creating opportunities and eliminating inequality, Thai farmers are still facing poverty. This economic inequality has obstructed the development of Thailand. The researcher is therefore interested in studying 1) the current condition of income problems of Thai farmers; 2) factors affecting of Thai farmers' income; and 3) recommendations for eliminating Thailand economic disparity in the context of concretely tackling poverty of rice farmers.  This study used a qualitative research method with in-depth interviews; sample groups are farmers, stakeholders, and policy-makers, 4 for each; data analyzing tools are SWOT and PESTEL; and the study results are concluded with accordance to the prior-defined research objectives. The findings are as follow: 1) That is, an average farmland of 16.7 rai per person, and 30% of the ‘poverty’ are farmers. There are 8 main reasons for rice supply and demand problems; higher production cost; ineffective irrigation management and soil deterioration; insufficient research and development; lack of serious promotion of farmer skills and competencies.  2) The factors affecting income of Thai farmers are political, economic, social, infrastructure, Agri-tech and laws & regulatory.  3) There are 5 recommendations for the elimination of Thailand economic disparity in the context of concretely tackling poverty of rice farmers including 1) reforming the farming process to use agricultural technology to increase productivity and lower cost; seriously promoting mixed farming and large-scale farming; and develop the skills of farmers; 2) adopting information technology system for a national rice platform by integrating all rice-relating information from various departments with the benefits of rice farming management; targeted poverty alleviation of farmers, etc.; 3) proactive marketing strategies would include (3.1) promoting research on rice-grains and developing processed rice products with the bio-technology;  (3.2) adopting cost-plus pricing strategy, re-structuring fair profit allocation among farmer, mills and middlemen, removing farmers' income compensation policy (approximately 150 billion baht per year), and promoting ‘crop insurance’; (3.3) eliminating complex marketing channel by focusing on “eCommerce”; (3.4) aggressive promoting export market by increasing market share of existing key markets and penetrating new potential markets with potential; 4) laws such as the Rice Act and Farmer's Fund would be issued; and 5) reforming the structure of government agencies, the Rice Department in particular should have its comprehensive management authority, like the Department of Livestock.  While, the Ministry of Commerce is responsible for only price control in domestic market and export marketing. It also emphasizes on encouraging young farmers (Start-ups) to manage their farming professionally, and provide a large-scale farming sandbox in order to demonstrate farmers the positive results of significantly more income generated by the large-scale farming concept and willing to join the large-scale farming project then.  According to the pre-determined objectives i.e., the yield per rai will increase 2 times from the present, the production cost will reduce by 20%, and the profit increases by 3 baht per kg., the income would increase by 132,000 baht per farm.  That means the farmers will have income beyond the poverty line (2,686 baht per month) will have wealthy income, which can take care of their families. and live with dignity. Ultimately, the government will thus be able to eliminate at least 30 percent of the economic inequality of Thai people.