Organic farming in Thailand : case studies on fruit and flower production in Chiangmai, Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine organic horticultural production in Chiangmai, Thailand, through discovering the farmers' objectives, economic performance, as well as elucidating other impacts including social and environmental effects. Interviews and available data were used to gather information from the people in three villages which were selected as case studies. Forty-five farmers from three categories, chemical-free vegetable farming (CFA), mixed agriculture (MA) and conventional agriculture (CA), were interviewed. The 'chemical-free' farming (CFA) was not strictly totally chemical-free, but the intention is to minimise artificial chemical use. The study found that profit maximisation was the first priority in all production categories. Lower CFA production costs were also a reason for farmers to move away from CA. Few farmers seriously realised the social and environmental impacts caused by conventional farming. However, CFA farmers tended to be more concerned about their health and environment than CA farmers. The economic comparisons indicated that the running costs of CFA farming were less than the running costs of CA farming. The economic and the social cost comparison results varied among the research sites. It could not be concluded that the economic and the social costs of CFA farming were less than for CA farming. Nor could it be concluded that CFA farming gains a higher net farm income than CA farming. However, the study suggested that the net farm income of the CFA farms was greater when the CFA farmers could sell their produce at a reasonable price. In one research site, the negative social net farm income finding indicated that the government CFA promotion project had failed. Social comparisons between CFA and CA methods showed CFA results in education and health benefits in comparison to conventional agriculture. Finally, the environmental comparisons found that CFA had beneficial impacts on the farm environment. The farmers realised that the use of artificial agricultural chemicals resulted in decreases in local wildlife quantity and variety, and they actually noted that CFA seemed to have positive effects on these variables.