Improving Hill Farming: From Maize Monocropping to Alternative Cropping Systems in the Thai Highlands

Chiranan Senanuch,Takuji W Tsusaka,Avishek Datta,Nophea Sasaki

doi:10.3390/land11010132

Chiranan Senanuch, Takuji W Tsusaka + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/land11010132

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Abstract

Lately, the Hill Pond Rice System (HPRS) is being promoted as a form of alternative farming systems in selected northern provinces of Thailand, in which the land conversion is designed to maximize rainwater harvesting in farmland consisting of forest trees, water reservoirs, paddy fields, and high-value crop cultivation to serve environmental and livelihood needs. This study employed the double-hurdle model and the tobit technique to investigate the farm-level factors associated with land conversion from maize monocropping to the HPRS using primary data collected from 253 households in Nan, Chiang Mai, Tak, and Lampang Provinces. It was found that education, farming knowledge, understanding benefits of the HPRS, access to water sources, access to advis, and workforce sharing raised the likelihood and extent of farmland conversion into the HPRS. In contrast, perceived complexity of the HPRS, experiences with negative shocks, and land tenure security lowered the likelihood and extent of land conversion. The findings suggest that on-farm collective action should be promoted to mitigate labor constraints in implementation and that access to equipment should be enhanced through HPRS advisors’ visits.

Highlights

The Hill Pond Rice System (HPRS) has been promoted as an alternative to the intensive and unsustainable maize monocropping with mechanical soil disturbance, especially in the upland areas that have strategic head waters of Thailand
The present article estimated the factors associated with the conversion of farmland into the HPRS, as well as the adoption of the practices designated under the HPRS by collecting primary data from 253 farm households in four provinces (Nan, Chiang Mai, Tak, and Lampang) in northern Thailand and conducting statistical analyses based on the double-hurdle and tobit techniques
While noting a few relatively minor differences, the results were largely consistent across the statistical models employed, where the positive determinants were farming knowledge, understanding of benefits of the HPRS, access to water sources, access to advisory, workforce sharing, off-farm income ratio, additional training, and household savings, whilst the negative determinants were perceived complexity of the HPRS, experiences with negative shocks, and land tenure security

Summary

Introduction

Over the past several decades, the global need for boosting food production has brought incremental modernization of agriculture in developing countries toward agricultural intensification with increased use of external inputs, such as improved seeds, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, mechanization, and irrigation facilities [1,2,3] as well as traditional land expansion [4,5], resulting in doubled or tripled land productivity and reduced food security concerns [6,7,8].the changes in cropping patterns and production practices in favor of intensive monocropping systems gave rise to outbreaks of pests, weed, and plant diseases, which were treated with increased use of external chemicals. Use of mechanical soil tillage disrupts the natural composition of soil and causes soil erosion, compaction, nutrient runoff, groundwater pollution and eutrophication, and biodiversity loss, which is the underlying cause of ecosystem degradation [20,21,22,23]. These changes contribute to the aggravation of climate change as degraded vegetation reduces its carbon storage capacity and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere [24]. Crops and livestock yields are directly affected by harsh climatic events [28,29,30]

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