Diagnosis on Thai Agrarian Systems for Research Prioritization to Improve the Sustainability and Competitiveness of Cotton Production

Abstract

            Since 1980, cotton production in Thailand has been decreasing steadily while the demand for cotton lint from the national textile industry jumped dramatically. Attempts made to raise again cultivated areas and yields were not able to alter significantly this declining trend. To understand the factors and conditions determining such an unfavorable evolution, diagnostic studies on cotton production systems were carried out by the Development-Oriented Research on Agrarian Systems (DORAS) project at the complementary field, farm and regional scales.

              Interdisciplinary teams implemented regional historical analyses and zonations, farming systems characterization and classification, as well as cropping systems surveys and experiments at two contrasted sites: the Maenam Kwae Noi valley in Kanchanaburi province and Chaibadan district of Lop Buri province.

               While insect pests were found to be the most important cause of cotton production declining sustainability and competitiveness at both sites, the findings suggest that the suitable ways to improve the current situation will differ at these two locations. While in the old cotton producing belt of Chaibadan, significant progress can still be achieved through technical improvements in pest, crop and labor management, in Kanchanaburi border area the social status of the migrating Mon cotton growers, very dependent on entrepreneurial village middlemen, makes organizational and social innovations a prerequisite to significant technical advances.

                 An integrated set of agronomic research priorities dealing with cotton plant improvement for pest tolerance and high cottonseed and lint quality, integrated pest management and other decision support tools for better crop monitoring and management came out of these diagnostic analyses and were subsequently used to structure the following phase of DORAS project activities.