Integrating Food and Nutrition Security in a Middle-Income, Globalized,
Food-Exporting Nation: Thailand’s Food Policy Challenge
where production cannot meet con-
tracted amounts. When this occurs
and seed, fertilizers and other inputs
were provided on credit, indebtedness
is often the result. Incomes are also not
always improved by entering contract
arrangements with prices deliberately
set below the market rate, and contract
farmers often earning less than the na-
tional minimum wage (Delforge, 2007).
Some researchers have also observed
that any benefits that are gained through
contract farming are disproportionate-
ly enjoyed by already larger scale and
better resourced farmers (Schipmann
& Qaim, 2010, 2011b). Other research,
however, has shown that small holder
farmers can successfully participate in
some areas of contract farming where
they have particular advantages such
as herb growing which requires more
micromanagement (Boselie, Henson, &
Weatherspoon, 2003).
markets which they would be unable
to do without assistance (da Silva &
Rankin, 2013). International evidence,
however, suggests that contract farm-
ing arrangements, , have in many cases
benefitted food processors and urban
consumers more than the food produc-
ers themselves. Pressures to produce
the lowest possible priced foods for
consumers have been shown to mainly
fall on food producers who trade au-
tonomy for more secure, though lower
incomes (Constance, 2008). The out-
comes for Thai farmers of participation
in contract farming and by extension in
the Kitchen to the World program have
also been mixed. Incomes under con-
tract farming are often more reliable
and transparent, and using contracting
companies as middle men has reduced
wastage and inefficiency in the val-
ue chain leading to increased incomes
for farmers and food companies. Some
food production contracting compa-
nies also provide crop insurance, edu-
cation funds for farmers’ children, and
other social services not provided by
the government, further assisting with
poverty alleviation (Bamman, 2007). In
addition, contract farming is providing
food producers with access to compa-
ny-mediated extension services, techni-
cal knowledge, and ease of credit which
farmers can utilize even if they return
to selling on the open market (Sriboon-
chitta & Wiboonpoongse, 2008).
Contract farming companies
also usually stipulate the use of par-
ticular levels of pesticides and herbi-
cides, often more than would be used
otherwise. This has been observed by
Thai farmers to be a negative outcome
for their own health and that of their
local environments (Delforge, 2007;
Singh, 2006). Interestingly, though this
is a phenomenon which seems to be
changing. International markets partic-
ularly in the rich developed countries
are increasingly demanding “safe,” re-
duced pesticide, or organic food prod-
ucts. An important component now of
the Kitchen to the World policy is for
Thailand to market itself as a source
of “safe” foods. The Thai Ministries of
Agriculture and Public Health togeth-
The outcomes of this participa-
tion in globalized production, how-
ever, are not always positive. Contract
terms can be one-sided, especially over
time as market conditions change, with
farmers being responsible for most risk
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