Lessons learned in Northern Thailand: twenty years of implementation of highland agricultural development and natural resource management projects.

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Abstract This chapter describes how the processes of community participation (including participatory extension) were field tested and became an integral part of two major agricultural development projects and one natural resource management project in the highlands of northern Thailand. The projects were the Thai-Australian Highland Agricultural Project (1972-1980); the first phase of the Thai-World Bank Highland Agricultural and Social Development Project (1979-1987); and the Thai-Danish Upper Nan Watershed Management Project (1997-2003). This chapter also notes that the development experience in the highlands indicates that shifting agriculture is no longer a self-contained system and therefore off-farm income needs more attention.