Sustainable Thai rice production system

Most farmers owned their land. The average farm size was between 14.4-23.6 rais. They mostly used human labor basis. Main water source for both irrigation was rainy water from the north and the south. Generally, the characteristics of farmers in these four regions are very similar, for instance they had low education and small family size. In terms of resource endowments, farmers in the south cultivated in a rather small area comparing to farmers in the other regions. However, the number of family farm workers seemed to be the same among these study areas. It was also found that farmers in the northeast and the north used the highest amount of management cost while those in the north and in the central owned higher amount of debt comparing to farmers in the other two areas. For rice cultivation, the main techniques found in the northeast and the south were transplanting method, and in the north and the central broadcasting method. Main variety used in the north, the northeast and the central was non-photo period sensitive rice and in the south was photo period sensitive rice. All farmers in the north and the northeast applied chemicals (fertilizer, insecticide, and pesticide) to both dry and wet season crops. It was very interesting to note that at the time of study 30 percent to 40 percent of the farmers utilized a combined harvester for rice harvesting. Utilization of the machine is increasing and will be commonly used in the near future. Significant factors related to adoption of rice technology were recognized and identified as follows; cultivation technique, seeds, chemicals, and post harvest management. From the study result, it implies some suggested solutions for revealed problems such as effective land and production factors utilization; losses of rice grain during harvesting and storing; complex socio-economic problems including price level of production factors, production cost, labor utilization, values, belief and other factors of rice producers and consumers. All of those mentioned measures may help increasing rice yields which result in sufficient amount of rice grains for domestic consumption and exporting to foreign countries.