World Food Policy
er with Thailand’s leading agricultural
university (Kasetsart) are developing
systems to monitor food safety all along
the food chain and to train farmers in
safe farming methods enabling them to
gain certification under Good Agricul-
tural Practices (GAP) requirements and
the Hazard Analysis and Critical Con-
trol Point criteria. This will allow Thai
products access to lucrative European
markets (Supaphol, 2010). So far, how-
ever, results of the promotion of organic
farming in Thailand have been mixed.
One analysis of Thai farmers growing
organic rice under contract found their
incomes to be significantly enhanced
compared to conventional rice (Set-
boonsarng, Leung, & Cai, 2006). Other
studies of vegetable growers, howev-
er, have found incomes from organic
farming to be significantly lower than
for conventional farming, largely due to
lower yields (Rattanasutteerakul & Tha-
pa, 2012). “Safe” vegetable growing can
also still produce bias towards already
more well-resourced and well-educat-
ed farmers (Kersting & Wollni, 2012)
and is of course still subject to the fluc-
tuations of market demand for certain
products.
in an influential speech in which he
proposed a “sufficiency economy” phi-
losophy to guide development. There
are many aspects to this philosophy, but
in terms of rural development the aim
is establishing self-reliant households
and communities first before looking
outwards to the market (Seubsman,
Kelly, & Sleigh, 2013). This is at its ba-
sis an anti-capitalist idea and was part-
ly inspired by the Swadeshi movement
of self-sufficient communities in early
twentieth century India, which aimed
to reduce dependence on imported
British products, and by the Kibbutz
commutarian movement in Israel (Is-
ager & Ivarsson, 2010).
In the years following the king’s
speech, the ideas behind the sufficiency
economy were formalized and a royal-
ly approved definition emerged. This
definition had several levels. At the
household level, the aim of the suffi-
ciency economy is for small landhold-
ers to move towards model self-reliant
farms. These farms should be divided
into four zones where farmers could de-
velop water storage, cultivate rice, plant
fruit and vegetable crops, and practice
animal husbandry. The emphasis is also
on practicing low chemical, sustainable
2.2. The Sufficiency Economy
mixed agriculture. Moving forward ru-
ral communities could develop trading
and Sustainable Communities
networks and work sharing arrange-
ollowing the Asian Financial Cri- ments allowing any needs unsatisfied at
sis of 1997, there were growing the household level to still be obtained
calls in Thailand for a reassess- locally. At the regional and national lev-
ment of the outward-looking, growth el, the approach recommends modera-
driven model of economic development tion in expenditure, reducing govern-
which had been followed for the previ- ment debt and reducing vulnerability to
ous few decades. This movement was external shocks through conservative
brought into focus by the Thai monarch macroeconomic management (Unit-
F
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