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Forestland for the people
A forest village project in Northeast Thailand
First Printing:May 1988
Second Printing: June 1989
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS BANGKOK
Foreword
Great interest, both in India and elsewhere, has been shown in the Gujarat forestry experience involving local participation. In 1982, FAO was requested by the Government of India to support a study of forestry activities in Gujarat. This study Evaluation of the Gujarat Social Forestry Programme, was published in 1985. Although it produced new information, it also pointed out the need for case studies which would examine the dynamics of farm forestry, as well as the benefits and costs to farmers, and the perception of these costs and benefits of the rural people involved, especially the poor.
The case studies presented in this document were carried out by Dr . Shobhita Jain under the direction of M. Hoskins. In doing the studies, Dr. Jain has analysed some of the questions raised by previous reports through in-depth case studies of various social groups in different communities and involved in contrasting forestry schemes. She first places each case study in relation to the market economy. Her findings and insights shed light on the complexities of successful farm forestry and on the danger of generalizing, especially on such issues as trees replacing food crops or conflicts of goals between the forest service and participating farmers.
The success she describes of large-scale farmers includes current efforts to diversify species for a broader market. Small scale farmers, on the other hand, are found to be in need of support services such as market information and assistance in the organization of buying and selling cooperatives.
The success seen in the tribal cooperative movement requires support of NGO and government services. Dr. Jain also raises questions of self help and continuity, in situations in which large-scale outside support is used to produce change.
This is one of a series of case studies produced by the Community Forestry Unit of the Policy and Planning Service of FAO. This series is being developed in order to provide insights into the functioning, dynamics and impacts of various community forestry interventions especially as seen by the rural people themselves. The case study series is being funded by the Swedish International Development Authority.
M.R. de Montalembert
Chief, Policy and Planning Service
Forestry Department
Contents
FOREWORD iii Page 2 of 42
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF MAPS viii
TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS viii
PROCESS OF PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION ix
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I: PROJECT BACKGROUND 1
1.1 Project problem and concept 3
1.2 Deforestation and landlessness 4
1.3 Thai policy response to deforestation and landlessness 7
1.4 Forest policy implementation measures: forest conservation and control 7
1.5 Forest policy implementation measures: reforestation 8
1.6 Forest policy implementation measures: use of forestland for poverty alleviation 9
1.7 Elaboration of the RFD/UNDP/FAO Social Forestry Pilot Project 11
CHAPTER II: PROJECT BASELINE: THE PRE-IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT AREA
2.1 Road development and deforestation in Northeast Thailand 15
2.2 Commercial logging in the Khao Phu Luang Forest 18
2.3 The maize boom of the 1960s and 1970s and forest encroachment 18
2.4 Types of cultivators 19
2.5 Role of traders in maize production promotion 20
2.6 Pattern of settlement of forest encroachers 21
2.7 The project area: physical features 21
2.8 The population: socio-cultural characteristics 24
2.9 Living conditions 26
2.10 Land holding, tenurial status, land use 27
2.11 Agricultural enterprise and off-farm work 30
2.12 Income, expenditure, indebtedness 31
CHAPTER III: PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
3.1 Physical infrastructure development 33
3.2 Forest rehabilitation 35
3.3 Village community consolidation and land allocation 38
3.4 Project agricultural development strategies 40
3.5 Crop diversification promotion 41
3.6 Forest tree farming promotion 44
3.7 Legal charcoal production promotion 46
3.8 Silvo-pastoral activity promotion 48
3.9 Fruit tree plantation promotion 48 Page 3 of 42
3.10 Bee raising promotion 49
3.11 Fish raising promotion 52
3.12 Agricultural credit facilitation 53
3.13 Social development promotion 55
3.14 Project staff development 56
CHAPTER IV: IMPACTS AND LESSONS
4.1 Project outcome: the post-implementation project area 57
4.2 The natural environment 57
4.3 The project area society 60
4.4 The project area economy 70
4.5 Forestry project impacts 72
4.6 Problem areas 74
4.7 Lessons of the project 78
4.8 Concluding remarks 79
REFERENCES
List of tables
Table No. Page
1. Forestland and farmland in Thailand 6
2. Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1982 economic survey sample. (1) 28
3. Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1982 economic survey sample. (2) 29
4. Forest rehabilitation achievements of the project 37
5. Project area villages, 1985 39
6. Estimated production of main crops and beans, excluding cassava, in the project area of 43 April 1984
7. Estimated production of main crops in the project area 1985 43
8. The economics of bee keeping in the project area illustrated by the actual accounts of 51 one farmer over 20 months
9. Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1985 economic survey sample (1) 61
10. Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1985 economic survey sample (2) 61
11. Comparison of size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land,1982 and 1985 63 economic surveys
12. Livestock production of the 1985 economic survey 300 household sample 65
13. Net income (gross income minus farm enterprise related expenditures) of the 40 65 household economic survey samples, 1985
14. Mean total household expenditures of the 40 household survey samples (in Baht) for 68 1985
15. Range of loans and credit from informal sector lenders of the 40 household survey 69 Page 4 of 42
samples (in Baht) for 1985
16. Household financial balances (total earnings minus total expenditures) of the 40 69 household survey samples for 1985
List of maps
Map No. Page
1. Central and Northeastern Thailand 16
2. Khao Phu Luang National Reserved Forest 22
3. Project area 34
Terms and abbreviations
ALRO Agricultural Land Reform Office
BAAC Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FIO Forestry Industry Organization
NEROA North-East Regional Office for Agriculture
PEA Provincial Electricity Authority
Phuyaiban village headmen
RFD Royal Forest Department
RTG Royal Thai Government
STK Sor Tor Kor usufructuary land rights scheme
Tao Kae Local maize traders/wholesalers
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
Tambon Sub-District
Kamnan Sub-District headman
LAND AREA CONVERSION FACTORS
Rai Ha Acre
1.0 0.16 0.395
2.532 0.405 1.0
6.25 1.0 2.471
US DOLLAR/THAI BAHT EXCHANGE RATES
US$ Baht Page 5 of 42
Before 15 July 1981 1.00 20
15 July 1981- 5 November 1984 1.00 23
After 5 November 1984 1.00 26
Introduction
The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first is to provide a detailed analysis of the processes and achievements of an FAO-assisted project to rehabilitate a degraded area in the Khao Phu Luang National Reserved Forest in Northern Thailand through the community forestry approach. In this respect, the study is written for development planners and foresters in Thailand as a means of helping these national experts evaluate the results of their efforts in this area, and to make appropriate decisions regarding the expansion of the community forestry approach throughout rural Thailand.
The second, more far-reaching purpose of the case study is to draw attention to elements of international relevance. Although it refers to a single, specific campaign, many of the experiences reported in the case study can be applied in a wide variety of socio-economic conditions. As a still relatively new concept, every community forestry effort has lessons to teach about forestry as a tool and a resource for rural development.
The forest village project in Thailand is attempting to address a number of common problems with an approach which is not at all common and contains unique elements which merit study for their applicability in other situations and other countries. First, it is attempting to provide a socio-economically viable stable alternative to shifting cultivation through an integrated land use approach combining food crops and forestry activities. It is also addressing the dual and sometimes conflicting goals of forestry, i.e. watershed protection/ reforestation and utilization of forestry resources to provide a better livelihood and socio-economic environment in a basically land poor agrarian society. Finally, it is a voluntary resettlement scheme based on providing roads, water points and other social service and production supports thereby allowing isolated forest encroachers an opportunity to enter the mainstream of Thai society.
The case study by Dr. Jacques Amyot first describes the area and the economic process through which it arrived at its present degraded state. It then details the achievements of the first two phases of the project, covering the period from early 1979 through mid-1986.
The first phase of project activity concentrated on infrastructure development. A large part of this effort was road construction and it is significant that many of the local forest dwellers considered this one of the major benefits of the project. The value of starting the project with an activity that immediately was viewed as worthwhile by the local inhabitants should not be overlooked.
The second phase of project implementation initiated a broad range of activities using forestry as the lead agency, and gave foresters, who had long been feared in the region, the role of advocates for rural people (see chart of project activities, page XX).
The author then presents the complexities, the achievements and the weaknesses of the project. This detailed account provides valuable insights into community forestry development. In many respects, the project must be judged to have been a success. All activities scheduled under the four components -- forest rehabilitation, socio-economic development, project staff development, and infrastructure development -- were executed and in most cases the target was achieved or exceeded. Of particular note, the project was instrumental in the formation of seven new forest villages, settled with residents who had previously practiced shifting agriculture, lived in poor conditions, and brought forestry resources under increasing pressure. In his analysis, the author highlights the skills and flexibility of project staff and the strong commitment of both the Royal Forest Service and the Royal Thai Government as important factors contributing to the success of the project. In this respect, the author also discusses the importance of such supports as credit and health facilities, of staff training and the inclusion of farmers in both the in-country and international study tours.
Dr. Amyot also examines areas of the project in which problems were encountered. For example, planting targets for reforestation were underachieved by some 20 percent. The labour pool was limited and payment for Government reforestation work tended to lag behind performance. As a result, the few farmers who were able to take on work in addition to their own subsistence farming chose to work for other farmers, by whom they were paid immediately. This highlights the challenges inherent in attempting to develop agriculture and forestry on the same, limited tract of land.
Finally, the author discusses problems, the resolution of which are beyond the capability of this type of project, for example equitable land redistribution. The study also brings out the need for time in institutionalizing such a project into the local community, as well as the complexities the staff faced in implementing in a participatory way a project with predetermined national goals.
These unresolved challenges clearly demonstrate that community forestry is a complex and still-evolving approach to resolution of the problems of rural development. However, the overall achievements of the project show that community forestry unquestionably has a significant role to play in an approach which combines improving the living conditions of forest dwellers through an integrated development effort together with restoring a degraded forest.
Chapter 1 Project background
1.1 Project problem and concept Page 6 of 42
Khao Phu Luang National Reserved Forest, located some 250 km northeast of Bangkok, covers an area of 1 178 km 2 of rolling hill country. As recently as 40 years ago, the whole area had a dense natural cover of dry evergreen and dipterocarp forest with many streams flowing in the valleys between the hills. It was largely uninhabited except for a scattering of isolated forest dwellers who gathered forest produce as a livelihood. A few farming communities also existed along the edges of the reserve.
By 1980, however, less than 10 percent of the natural and undisturbed forest remained and many of the streams had run dry; Khao Phu Luang was forestland only in the legal sense of an area reserved for forest. Successive waves of encroachment by legal and illegal loggers were followed by subsistence farmers who penetrated the forest along the loggers’ trails to practice shifting cultivation, and by commercial farmers and entrepreneurs who exploited the forest land for cash crop production. There was a considerably larger resident population but it was mostly dispersed throughout the area rather than concentrated in village communities. The people were poor and lived in generally depressed conditions. As encroachers on a national reserved forest, they were illegal squatters with no status or rights. Government infrastructure and services such as health, education and agricultural extension services were virtually non-existent.
During this period, the Government in Thailand (as in most countries) focussed on either the role of forests in maintaining the ecological balance of the environment -- to protect watersheds, to reduce erosion or deforestation, etc. -- or their productive role to provide timber for industry. The main concern of foresters and of forestry departments was to safeguard the forests, especially in environmentally sensitive areas, to regulate the felling of trees for industry and to monitor and promote replanting schemes to assure the regeneration of forests for future use. Trees were the foresters main concern. How people were affected by forestry measures was not considered part of their professional responsibility.
More recently, however, there has been a growing awareness among development planners of the need to also consider the potential social role of forests in forestry strategies. It is felt that the pursuit of environmental and industrial objectives should be balanced against socio-economic and political issues. But these issues are complex. In a country such as Thailand where agriculture dominates the economy, forestry is sometimes in competition with agriculture for land resources. Past forestry production has mostly benefited the urban-industrial sector, often at the expense of rural populations. Well-planned forest-based activities, however, have significant potential for alleviating poverty in rural areas. To develop this potential, foresters and forestry departments must extend their concern and interest beyond the trees to the people.
This concept is usually referred to as community (or social) forestry. Community forestry provides forest products and trees for rural people who no longer have access to them and finds ways of increasing the benefits of forest resources to people who live in or near them. Community forestry centres on the idea of people’s participation -- getting local populations to plan and execute their own projects on a self-help basis. Although opinions vary as to what should be included under the term, it generally covers all activities which intimately involve local people in forestry: growing trees on farms; processing forest products at household, artisanal or small in dustry level; establishing local woodlots, etc. Community forestry activities involve individuals, households or local communities which take prime responsibility for planning, implementation and management. Outputs include small timber and poles for buildings and fences, fuel-wood, leaves for fodder and organic fertilizer, and fruits and other edible forest products.
The project reviewed in this study clearly falls under the community forestry umbrella -- it is a voluntary resettlement scheme based on an integrated land use approach combining agricultural and forestry activities.
1.2 Deforestation and landlessness in Thailand
The seriousness of the problem of deforestation in Thailand is dramatically illustrated in national forest data (see Table 1). In 1961, 53 percent of the total land area (273 628 km 2 out of 513 115 km 2) was forested. In 1982, forest covered only 31 percent of the country. Even more disturbing, the rate of deforestation increased sharply over time. Between 1961 and 1975, the average annual loss of forested area was 4600 km2 whereas in the period 1975-1982 it was 7 492 km 2.
The most frequently cited cause of deforestation in Thailand is excessive and uncontrolled tree felling by the commercial lumber industry. Vast areas of valuable forests including teak, yong and other preciouslumber have been cut. Even stocks of commoner forest resources such as those used in construction have been depleted. There are now an estimated 10 million hectares (10 000 km 2 ) of formerly forested land which are denuded and lying idle. Thailand, an important exporter of lumber in the not distant past, is now a net importer.
The conversion of forest land for agricultural purposes also figures importantly in the process of deforestation. Here we can distinguish two phases. The first relates to the historical penetration of unoccupied forestland by subsistence farmers as a normal process of territorial occupation and of community expansion. The second or modern phase is that of the agricultural exploitation of the forest for profit.
There is evidence to suggest that, historically, when the population of an established farming community got too large for the carrying capacity of available village agricultural land, a number of families moved out as a group to clear land and start a new settlement in a neighbouring area. The population of the original community was thereby restored to a size that was manageable in relation to its territory. Over time, however, the territory became fully occupied and there was no room for further local expansion. Landless farmers were forced to migrate over longer distances, often to till land that was only marginally suited for agriculture.
The major change is that access to forestland is now restricted by law; settlers are technically illegal squatters subject to eviction. In spite of this, however, migration to forestland rather than to Bangkok or to other urban centres continues to be the preferred option of landless farmers. If this were not so, given the rate of internal migration in Thailand, the population of Bangkok and of other cities would be at least doubled.
In the last 30 years or so, forestland encroachment and clearing for crop production has not been limited to poor landless farmers. With the growth of agricultural export markets and the relatively high agricultural prices of the 1960s and 1970s, cash crop production, especially of maize and cassava, became highly profitable. Many established commercial farmers, as well as urban and town entrepreneurs using hired labour, cleared vast tracts of forestland for cash cropping. The encroachment and deforestation of the Khao Phu Luang reserved forest described in Chapter 2 provides a striking example of this process. Nonetheless, the rate of increase in area of farmland for the whole country from 1975-1982 was only about one-third the rate of deforestation for the same period (see Table 1). Page 7 of 42
Table 1 Forestland and Farmland in Thailand
Year Forestland % of total Loss per Farmland km 2 % of total Gain per (km 2) area; 513 115 annum km 2 area; 513 annum km 2 115 km 2 km 2
1961 273628 53.3
1973 221707 43.2
1975 209220 40.8 179538 35.0
1976 198417 38.7 180979 35.3
1977 186518 36.4 182074 35.5
1978 175224 34.1 186306 36.3
1979 170229 33.1 188165 36.7
1980 165470 32.3 190398 37.1
1981 160932 31.4 194070 37.8
1982 156775 30.6 197739 38.5
1961- 5564 1982 7492 2600 1975- 1982
Source: Narinchai Patanapongsa, n.d., p5
1.3 Thai policy response to deforestation and landlessness
Thai policy makers have long been aware of the need to protect national forests. The Protection and Reservation of Forest Act (1938) set aside about 50 percent of the total area of the country as reserved forestland with Crown property status. Forestry policy on the management and protection of this forestland was further defined in subsequent forest acts (1941, 1957, 1964, and 1978), as well as by a number of less formal but legally binding Cabinet decisions. The main points covered by these documents are: provisions for the demarcation of areas identified for reservation; establishment of national reserved forests; designation within reserved forests of disturbed forests for reforestation, of national parks, wildlife reserves, and areas in which logging concessions are to be granted; and determination of conditions regulating tree felling by concessionaires. Specific guidelines and targets for forestry policy implementation have been set out in the National Five Year Economic and Social Development Plans from 1961 onwards.
The first National Development Plan (1961-1966) provided for the area of forestland to be reduced from 50 to 40 percent of the total land area in response to population increases. A number of land settlement projects on forestland in the 1960s and 1970s were authorized by the Cabinet. A landmark in this respect was the 1974 decision in principle of the Kukrit Government to grant usufructuary rights to forestland dwellers. The 1978 Forestry Act specifies conditions under which disturbed forestland may be used for non-forestry purposes, including agriculture. The Royal Forest Department (RFD) land licensing scheme, authorized by Ministerial Order (Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives) in 1981, empowers the Director General of the RFD to grant usufructuary rights to up to 15 rai (2.4 ha) of reserved forestland to qualified petitioners. This scheme, known as the Sor Tor Kor (STK) programme after the Thai acronym of the usufructuary title created for this purpose, became a regular feature of RFD-sponsored forest village projects. It is described in greater detail in Chapter 4. The Fifth National Development Plan (1981-1986) departed from its predecessors by stressing income distribution and poverty alleviation more than economic growth. Its forestry measures aimed at conservation rather than commercial exploitation and tried to compromise with the Population pressure causing encroachment, for example, by fostering the extension of forest villages under the STK programme.
1.4 Forest policy implementation measures: forest conservation and control
The RFD has consistently lacked the personnel and financial resources to effectively protect reserved forests, national parks and wildlife preserves, or to enforce forestry laws in relation to encroachment and damage . Although removal of settlers from encroached areas has been considered, there has always been much reluctance to move in this direction as such measures are politically unpopular and inconsistent with the image of Government commitment to the welfare of the people. The 1941 Forestry Act defined forest as "land which is unowned according to the Land Act", that is, land which is not under the jurisdiction of the Lands Department, a definition which still holds. Since much of the originally designated forestland area has long since been deforested, the legal definition of forest in such places no longer makes sense and is a source of considerable confusion. In the layman’s view, land on which trees have been removed is no longer a forest and therefore forestry laws do not apply. Page 8 of 42
In the past, many long-term logging concessions were awarded in reserved forestland, with the objective of making the concessionaires responsible for the care and preservation of the forest. In practice, however, these areas have proven to be too large for adequate super- vision by the concessionaires, even in the case of the Forest Industry Organization (FIO),a Crown corporation which generally acts in accordance with Government policy. An alternative supply to meet the increasing demand for wood has been provided by illegal loggers who, operating outside of the law, have been much more destructive to natural forests. In 1979, the Government reduced conceded logging areas by 50 percent to conserve wood supplies but illegal logging continues, operated by local organizations which resort to bribery and violence to silence would-be informants and obtain the cooperation of local authorities.
1.5 Forest policy implementation measures: reforestation
Of particular relevance to community forestry project implementation in Thailand are the remedial measures taken to deal with deforestation and forestland encroachment by landless farmers, i.e. reforestation and allocation of public forestland for agricultural purposes, including agroforestry.
The Government has been involved in reforestation for a long period but over a relatively limited area. RFD has been the main agency responsible for this but the FIO has been involved with the forest village approach since 1967. In the 12 years from 1973-1985, 3 267 km 2 of disturbed forest were replanted 1976-1982 period, by the RFD. In the FIO established 469 km 2 of plantations, both independently and in cooperation with provincial lumber companies. At this rate, the total area reforested in the past decade has been substantially less than that deforested in a single year. In a statement made at the end of 1985, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives noted that the total area then being reforested was only 10 percent of the annual rate of natural forest destruction.
Many factors contribute to this state of affairs, the most frequently cited being budgetary constraints and lack of equipment. Others include technical problems such as insufficient attention to species/habitat relationships and accurate timing of reforestation activities, especially in harsh climatic zones such as that found in the northeast of Thailand. Survival can be as low as 50 percent. Managerial factors, such as inadequate attention to worker-supervisor ratios in plantation operations are also significant.
Other factors may be grouped under the general heading of failure to take into account and to relate to the populations affected by the reforestation programmes . Local people have consequently been reluctant to cooperate with officers engaged in reforestation and at times (especially in the case of insurgents) have openly resisted them. Complicating the situation, foresters have been ill-equipped by their training to understand and deal with rural people. The importance of these people-related problems has been recognized by the RFD and measures such as those discussed below are being taken to overcome them.
1.6 Forest policy implementation measures: use of forestland for poverty alleviation
Government programmes initiated since the 1960s to implement the policy of using disturbed public forestland to solve problems of rural poverty and landlessness can be divided into two broad categories: those planned in relation to reforestation activity; and those designed principally to provide farmland to landless farmers. Prominent among first category programmes are those using the forest (or agroforestry) village approach to involve villagers in reforestation while at the same time providing them with land to cultivate. The FIO operating in its own forestland concessions pioneered in this field in 1968 but other projects have been implemented directly by or with the strong involvement of the RFD. In all cases, forest village project sites remained under RFD jurisdiction as reserved forestland.
Second category programmes, on the other hand, were executed by the Department of Public Welfare (Self-Help Land Settlement Division), Ministry of Interior, and by agencies of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives including the Agricultural Cooperative Promotion Department (Land Settlement Cooperatives Division), and the Agricultural Land Reform Office. These programmes have been implemented on degazetted forestland, over which jurisdiction was transferred from the RFD to the implementing agency concerned. Although the Government allowed the private use of forestland under these programmes, it did not transfer outright ownership to the beneficiaries. Certificates were issued under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture which gave temporary rights to the land. This issue will be discussed further when the implications of the policy are considered in relation to the implementation of the STK programme in the social forestry project site.
The forest village concept as developed by FIO in its concession areas stemmed from the need, on the one hand, to control shifting cultivation by forestland encroachers and, on the other, to create a pool of workers to work on tree plantations. The basic concept was to group the encroachers of a plantation area in one location and to provide work and living conditions that were sufficiently attractive to convince them to abandon shifting cultivation and join the work force of the FIO replanting project. The approach used was a modification of the Taungya system and was described as a socio-agri-sylvic system.
The plan involved setting up villa gesites for 100 households, each complete with infrastructure: water, electricity, drainage, roads and provisions for schools, temples and cooperative stores, provided with-out cost to village members. Employment was guaranteed for at least two members of each household as was the right to use 10 rai (1.6 ha) of plantation land a year to produce one’s own crops by intercropping with plantation trees and provision of 0.5-1 rai (.08-.016 ha) in the village area to build a house. Each household had to assume responsibility for at least 10 rai (1.6 ha) of tree plantation a year. If a household planted at least 30 rai (4.8 ha) of trees which survived the first three years, it was entitled to a special bonus of Baht 1 500 (US$75 at 1967 prices). Thereafter, if the household continued to plant at least 10 rai of surviving trees per year, the bonus was Baht 1 200 ($60) a year. Also included in the package of benefits was: the provision of agricultural credit to farmers -- Baht 200 per rai under cultivation ($62.50 per ha) paid in five installments; the free use of FIO vehicles to transport agricultural produce to market outlets; and the provision of health care by FIO medical personnel and facilities.
By all accounts, the record of the FIO forest village approach is excellent, both in terms of cost effectiveness of reforestation and of benefits to forest village members. However, it falls far short of meeting the demand for reforestation and the needs of the rural poor. Currently, FIO forest villages accommodate only about 2 000 households. In recognition of this fact, the Fifth National Plan established a national policy supporting the creation of forest villages with a target of 100 new villages for the planning period. Moreover, by Ministerial Ordinance, the RFD was directly involved in forest village project implementation and by 1984 had set up about 75 villages. Theoretically, RFD forest villages should have the same welfare and infrastructure benefits as FIO villages. However, as a Government agency, it has lacked the managerial flexibility of the quasi -private sector Commercial enterprise -based FIO. A distinguishing feature of the RFD villages Page 9 of 42
is that members are given usufructuary rights to designated agricultural land set aside for permanent cultivation within the village territory. In FIO villages, members have no such permanent holdings but intercrop in the plantation area on a rotating basis corresponding to the growth cycle of the trees planted. Theoretically, therefore, the RFD villages have greater potential for the villagers to achieve self-reliance and independence because their land holdings provide more opportunity for self-generated income.
In this context, second category programmes dealing with the provision of degazetted forestland for agricultural enterprise are not without relevance. The early agricultural land settlement projects run by the Public Welfare Department met with little success. Existing regulations established that only unoccupied deforested land could be made available for the relocation of landless poor. By implication, this land was invariably of poor quality. This, combined with the fact that little was provided in the way of development inputs, created a situation that was not viable for the settlers. Later land settlement projects of the Public Welfare Department and of other agencies have been more successful because they have given more realistic consideration to economic viability from the settlers’ point of view. Land settlements in the South, for example, were organized in the context of tree crop plantations: rubber, oil palm, etc. Current land reform projects of the Agricultural Land Reform Office on encroached forestland are planned with the assumption that the provision of land alone is not enough. Beyond making available a minimum economically viable size holding, a development package includes the provision of agricultural credit to ensure that even the smallest holders can earn an adequate income from their land.
1.7 Elaboration of the RFD/UNDP/FAO Social Forestry Pilot Project
The RFD approached the UNDP/FAO for assistance in the early 1970s. Several options were examined and the alternative seen as most feasible was an integrated interdisciplinary effort originally formulated as a project involving "small scattered fuelwood plantations in combination with agro-forestry and resettlement." The Government agreed that a pilot project should be implemented and, if successful, replicated throughout northeastern Thailand. A project document for a project planning phase (Phase I) was prepared and signed in March 1979 by representatives of the Royal Thai Government (RTG), the UNDP and FAO, and work began soon afterwards.
Several tasks related to project preparation were accomplished during the planning phase which lasted one and a half years. These included the identification, demarcation and survey of the area for the pilot project. The site selected was an area of some 9 600 ha located within the Khao Phu Luang national reserved forest . It was characterized by a relatively harsh climate but was nevertheless suited to upland agricultural crops. The site was deemed to be representative of the problems of deforestation of northeastern Thailand. Several surveys and studies were conducted to gather and collate data of relevance to project preparation, including socio-economic surveys; a soil and potential land use survey; a forest inventory; a review of forest policy and legislation; and agroforestry application studies. Contact was established with Governmental and other agencies having expertise and services which could be useful to the project including provincial and district Government offices, agricultural extension, community development, public health, non-formal education, fishery, as well as banks.
Meetings with residents of the project area were arranged at household,- village and sub-district (tambon) levels to discuss the project with them and elicit their reaction. Meanwhile, the RFD proceeded to lay the foundation for Phase II of the project. This included a 16 km road to improve access to the project area; a tree seedling nursery on an area of about 1.6 ha; a small trial planting to test the suitability of available species; and constructing semi-permanent field offices and staff accommodations.
The project document for Phase II set out the objectives under four headings: forest rehabilitation; socio-economic development; project staff development; and infrastructural development. The immediate objective of the project was rehabilitation of degraded natural forest resources in the project area by reforestation in 40 percent of the total area, harmonized with socio-economic development (or alleviation of poverty) of forest encroachers as a precondition for the establishment of man-made forests . The socio-economic aspects of the project (in the form of inputs leading to in-creased cash benefits, land allotment, infrastructure and services to forest encroachers) were intended to attract the forest encroachers to resettle permanently in and farm the remaining 60 percent of the project area and, in the end, to become willing participants in forestry activities (using agroforestry techniques) to complement cash earnings from agricultural production.
The project laid strong emphasis on staff development, especially in different aspects of community development. The foresters were also intended to play a leading role in getting agencies concerned with rural development to actively cooperate with foresters and, at the appropriate time, take over the responsibilities in these new settlements that are theirs by custom.
Institutional arrangements for implementation of the project provided for two cooperating components, the RFD and the UNDP/FAO technical advisory group. The former included a National Project Director and his Deputy, a Project Field Director and his three Deputies, technical support staff, auxiliary staff and a complement of labourers. The technical advisory group was composed of a Chief Technical Adviser, two short -term Associate Experts, an Administrative Assistant and a number of part-time consultants or experts drawn from local universities. Provisions were also made for the involvement of locally -based units and staff of the Ministries of Interior, Agriculture and Cooperatives, Public Health and Education in an auxiliary capacity. Those which actually became associated with the project in a significant manner included:
Provincial Administration Office, Korat District Administration Offices, Pak Thong Chai and Pak Thong Agricultural Extension Offices: Korat, Pak Thong Chai and Pak Chong Public Health Office, Korat Non-Formal Education Center, Korat Community Development Offices: Korat, Pak Thong Chai and Pak Chong Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, Korat Agricultural Cooperative Office, Korat.
Based on the original projection of a project duration of four years, the project agreement was for a RTG contribution in local currency of Baht 30 579 950 (US$1 528 998 at 1981 prices). In fact, it was to be much higher than that as this amount covered only the participation of the RFD in the project and not that of other Government agencies which provided funds for roads, schools, health stations, extension services, etc. out of their own budgets. The UNDP budget for the project was US $1 100 000.
The Project Document for Phase II of the project was approved for implementation and signed by representatives of the RTG and of UNDP/FAO in October 1981. It was placed under the responsibility of the Royal Forest Department, the designated RTG implementing Page 10 of 42
agency, and its official title was: Development of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation in North East Thailand (UNDP Project No. THA/81/004). The project duration was subsequently extended by one year to September 1986.
Chapter 2: Project baseline
The pre-implementation project area
2.1 Road development and deforestation in Northeast Thailand
This chapter describes the physical and socio-economic environment in the project area at the start of activities in late 1981. The intent is to create a better understanding of the problems to be dealt with and to provide a baseline against which the accomplishments of the project can be measured.
Nakhon Ratchasima Province (also known as Korat) in which the project is located is the gateway province of the Northeastern Region of Thailand. The Northeast is the poorest of the four regions of Thailand and is characterized by poor soils, harsh climate and shortage of water. Early travelers describe the region as forbidding and traveling in it as an extreme hardship. Although a 200 km railway began to operate between Saraburi (some 150 km north of Bangkok) and the provincial capital of Korat in 1900, it was not until 1926 that the railway was continued to the east as far as Ubon Rachatani, some 100 km from the Laotian boarder. The rail line to the north to Nongkhai and the Mekong River at the northern border of the country with Laos was not completed until 1955. The breakthrough in road transportation came with the opening of the US-funded "Friendship Highway" from Saraburi to Korat in 1958. Until the mid 1960s, there were still practically no hard -surface or all-weather roads in the whole of the Northeast.
Many writers have commented on the relationship between road development and deforestation. Given the situation just described, it is not surprising then that deforestation was not a serious problem in the northeast of Thailand until the 1960s. According to Royal Forest Department data, forested area totaled 70 904 km 2 or 42 percent of the land area of the Region in 1961. Loss of forests in the years that follow d averaged 2 334 km 2 a year. In 1973 the forest area was 50 671 km 2 or 30 percent of the total area In 1976 it was 41 494 km 2 (24.6 percent) and it 1978, 31 221 km 2 (18.5 percent). Although Nakhon Ratchasima Province originally had larger than average forest area for the Region (55.4 percent of the total or 11 355.85 km 2 in 1962), the rate of deforestation was particularly rapid. In 1982, the forested area was down to 3 036 km 2 or 14.8 percent of the total.
Studies conducted by the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute in 1977-1978 in Pak Thong Chai District, Nakhon Ratchasima, help to clarify the process of deforestation in the Region. These studies are particularly relevant to the project in that they were conducted along the eastern edge of the Khao Phu Luang Forest Reserve in which the project area is located. Many of the developments tie in with the history of what is now known as Highway 304, a national first class highway running south from Korat through Pak Thong Chai to Kabin Buri in the neighboring province of Prachin Buri, and then south to Rayong on the Gulf of Thailand (See Map 1).
Map 1: Central and Northeastern Thailand Page 11 of 42
The first dirt road from Pak Tnong Chai to Kabin Buri District was built in 1952. At that time, there were a number of settled villages in the lowlands of the area growing paddy and sugar cane. The area was entirely converted to paddy after the completion of the Lam Phra Phloeng Dam (at the edge of the project area) in 1967 when irrigation water became available. In the then heavily wooded hills, other groups practiced a highland culture. They were hunters and gatherers of forest produce such as scented wood (Hopea odorata) and lacquer which they bartered in a market center in Prachin Buri. They also practiced slash and burn agriculture and cultivated upland crops including dry rice, chilies, tobacco and taro. As these settlers exploited and cleared the forest, patches of land clearings began to appear in different locations.
At the same time, some forest area was also being eroded by wet rice farmers in villages around the periphery who cleared forestland in the vicinity to grow upland crops such as maize as a supplementary source of income. It was an attractive undertaking which involved no great hardships. The land was fertile and there was a ready outlet for produce at the Pak Thong Chai market which was not far away and reasonably accessible over the newly built dirt road. This process was a gradual one and it appears that there were no significant forest losses at this early date.
2.2 Commercial logging in the Khao Phu Luang forest
Commercial logging operations, both legal and illegal, began at an early date in the Khao Phu Luang forest. A sawmill started operating in the area "(Ban Po Daeng) in 1949. Its owner and other sawmillers in Kabin Buri and Korat hired workers from Nakhon Nayok Province to the south to fell trees. Some local villagers also derived income by supplying logs to the sawmills. The logs were hauled through the forest to the road by elephants, and were then loaded onto trucks for transport to the sawmills.
In 1958, the road from Pak Thong Chai to Kabin Buri was given a late rite surface and an increasing number of simple roads and trails built by local villagers and loggers began to penetrate into the interior. These road improvements were paralleled by an intensification of logging operation. Concern about deforestation led to the first boundary surveys of the National Reserved Forest of Khao Phu Luang in 1962 but it was only in 1973 that the area was officially designated a reserved forest. A logging concession in the reserved forest area was granted to the Nakhon Ratchasima Wood Company. From 1972 to 1977,this company felled and extracted 34 500 trees from the Khao Phu Luang forest, some 36 percent of the total removals from Nakhon Ratchasima Province over the period 1972-1980.
In 1980 an inventory conducted of the 8 997 ha project area found that only 659 ha, or 7.3 percent of the project area could be classified as undisturbed natural forest, and this was mainly on rocky and hilly areas. In the period from 1975 to 1980, 1 400 ha or 68 percent of the natural forest in the project area had been disturbed, an annual rate of destruction of 10.9 percent. Page 12 of 42
2.3 The maize boom of the 1960s and 1970s and forestland encroachment
Although tree felling for the lumber industry was a major factor in the deforestation of the area, the promotion of maize as a major export commodity from the mid-1950s onwards was also critical. According to the Department of Business Economics (Ministry of Commerce), the value of maize exported by Thailand before 1957 was less than Baht 100 million (US$5 million) a year. By 1964, it had increased to Baht 1 147 million ($57 350 million) a year, making it the country’s third most important export commodity. Pak Thong Chai began to emerge as a maize trading center in 1957,but the rapid expansion of maize growing began in 1964. Tractors were introduced in 1966. Construction of Highway 304 began in that year and was completed in 1969. This highway considerably enhanced the importance of Pak Thong Chai as a trading center. A second trading center emerged on the highway at Ban San Chao Pho some 50 km to the south and became known as the Kilometer 79 Market. Maize traders from other locations such as Musk Lek and Pak Chong on the Friendship Highway flocked to this market to set up maize buying depots. The maize boom peaked in 1973-1975 when maize prices on the Korat market reached Baht 2.70 ($0.135) per kilogram. Profits from maize cultivation were high in the early years as the soil of newly cleared forest was rich and yields were good even without application of fertilizer. Profits decreased considerably after 1976, however, as the soil became impoverished and as the cost of motor fuel and fertilizer rose significantly.
Precise information on the movement of the population into the forest during the maize boom is difficult to obtain but the overall picture is clear. After the original forest and plain dwellers penetrated the forest, a second group to play a significant role in the area was the road construction workers, especially those employed for the construction of Highway 304 from 1966 to 1969. Many had been maize growers who stayed behind to grow maize after the highway was completed. Through them, word spread quickly to their home villages that new fertile land was available in the Khao Phu Luang forest. The result was a large influx of maize growers who came to settle permanently on land that they either purchased from previous occupiers or cleared themselves, mainly by burning whatever trees and brush remained. The site of the project at the western end of the forest had already begun to be penetrated in the 1960s but at a much slower rate, apparently because road communication was so poor. It was possible at this time to drive a heavy duty vehicle from Pak Thong Chai through the project area to Pak Chong only during the dry season. Early settlers in the project area relate that in the mid-1960s, the site was still heavily forested and that it took a full day to reach the Pak Chong market. The rate of penetration of the western portion of the forest was presumably accelerated as a result of the construction of the Lam Phra Ploeng Dam, completed in 1967,and of the all-weather road linking it with Highway 304. The reservoir created by the dam is at the very edge of the project area. Even today, an alternative still used by the local population to travel from the project area to the town of Pak Thong Chai when heavy rains make the regular road difficult to negotiate is to go first to Khok Samran on the western shore of the reservoir, cross the reservoir by boat, and continue on by public transportation to Highway 304.
2.4 Types of cultivators
According to Napa Sirisambhand (1978),there were three distinct types of cultivators in the eastern half of the Khao Phu Luang forest area in 1978. The first included the permanent residents described above. The second type was seasonal residents, mostly from wet rice growing areas of the Central Region (Aytthaya, Sing Buri) and the Northeast (Pimai District in Nakhon Ratchasima, Ubon Ratchathani). They would come into the area from March to May to plant maize, then return to their home villages from June to August to plant rice. They would come back to harvest the maize in September and October and return home to harvest their rice from November to February. Some of the seasonal residents were land owners and others cultivated rented land. Some of the land owners were said to have large holdings, renting some out and speculating in land while coming irregularly depending on the market price of maize.
The third category of cultivators was that of seasonal wage labourers. These were mostly poorer wet rice farmers from the Northeastern Region. Many came from surrounding districts of Nakhon Ratchasima Province and others were from Surin, Si Sa Ket, and Buriram. They also came during the rice off-season to earn wages in the maize fields, then going on to wet rice areas in season to seek wage labour. After some time, however, quite a few managed to rent or buy holdings of their own and become permanent residents.
According to a 1977 study of forest intruders in Tambon Sakaerat, Pak Thong Chai District, less than 15 percent of the members of the farming households sampled were born locally. About 50 percent of the immigrants came from the Northeast, mostly from Tambons in Pak Thong Chai or other districts in Nakhon Rachasima. About 40 percent came from the Central Region (Lop Buri, Saraburi, Prachin Buri, Chon Buri) and the remainder came from the North (Petchabun, Nakhon Sawan).
2.5 Role of traders in maize production promotion
Once maize became a major export commodity and many traders (known locally as Tao Kae) moved into the area, the Kilometer 79 Market, and Pak Chong itself became the main maize purchasing centres for the growers in the Khao Phu Luang forest area. Large-scale traders with at least Baht 500 000 (USS25 000 - 1978 prices) bought maize which was bulked in depots in market centres and then sent to Bangkok. As traders dealt directly with exporters, they were well informed of market prices and, in practice, set local maize purchase prices.
Small-scale traders were general merchants in market areas who also dealt in maize. Large or small, these traders played an important role in promoting maize production in the area. Not only did they purchase the farmers’ production, they actually financed the farmers’ operation by providing cash, consumer goods and production inputs such as fertilizer and insecticide on credit. In some cases they provided tractors to plough the fields and vehicles to transport the harvested corn to their mills. In 1978, the cash outlay needed to grow maize in the area was about Baht 2 188 ($109) per ha. Agreement sentered into with the farmer stipulated that he sell all of his maize harvest to the trader (at the price set by the trader) who provided the services mentioned. When the harvest was delivered, the amount of the debt plus 5 percent a month interest was deducted from the sale price. In some instances, the farmers defaulted either because they could not or chose not to pay the debt. In this case, the farmer simply abandoned his fields. To forestall such practices, some traders sent henchmen to the farmers’ fields at harvest time. Generally speaking, producers of cash crops such as maize are much more dependent on such sources of credit than rice farmers who at least produce their own food. It is not uncommon for maize traders to keep stocks of rice to supply to their clients on credit during the maize growing season.
The institution of the Tao Kae is still very much alive in the project area in spite of efforts by project implementors to encourage farmers to Page 13 of 42
use the formal sector for credit in order to avoid usurious interest rates.
2.6 Pattern of settlement of forest encroachers
Even though cultivator settlers had already begun to occupy the Khao Phu Luang forest area, a 1976 US Army map based on aerial photography gives no indication of villages in the area. In early 1982, it was still difficult to identify meaningful village community units and the area was characterized mainly by scattered homesteads spread over the countryside. Local people do, however, make reference to new settlers coming in groups from the same village of origin, perhaps purchasing land together and settling down as a group. As original holdings lost their fertility, they were abandoned and new land was sought elsewhere. The most common form of penetration was for individual farming households or small groups of households to acquire land and build their huts close to sources of water or by the side of a road track. As more and more newcomers came in from different locations, each household tended to cultivate an independent and self-sufficient style of life. All spoke the same language and shared a common culture, but the bonds based on kinship and long association characteristic of older and traditional Thai rural communities were absent. There was less motivation therefore to engage in cooperative ventures serving group interests. As the population grew, new local Government administrative units were created. Thus, for example a new tambon was carved out of Tambon Takhop which formerly included much of the reserved forest area and was called Raroeng. All homesteads were assigned to named village groups and given house numbers. All village groups were required to select village headmen (phuyaiban) and to form village councils which were duly confirmed by the Pak Thong Chai District Office. It was some time before these administrative entitles took on some sociological reality, however.
2.7 The project area: physical features
The project area extends over approximately 9 440 ha in the north-western sector of the Khao Phu Luang reserved forest (See Map 2). Hills running northwest/southeast form the eastern boundary of the project area. The highest of these, Khao So, rises 807 metres above sea level. The rest of the area is low-lying at 300-450 metres. The hills around the project area form an important watershed. Most of the area is in the territory of Pak Thong Chai District and occupies virtually all of the newly created tambon of Raroeng and a small portion of Tambon Takhop. There is some overlapping into Pak Chong District to the west in Tambon Khlong Muang and Tambon Wang Ka Ta.
Map 2: Khao Phu Luang National Reserved
The natural vegetation of the area is dry evergreen and mixed deciduous forest. Aerial photos taken between 1975 and 1977 were used as a basis for ground checking and forest inventory on a line plot system in 1980 which resulted in the following land classification of the project area:
Class Percent of Total Area Page 14 of 42
1975 1980
Undisturbed dry evergreen forest 22.8 7.3
Disturbed dry evergreen forest 1.6 1.6
Agricultural land 41.6 58.9
Swidden areas 33.9 32.0
Water resources 0.1 0.1
The remaining forest supported an average of 59 trees per ha and 30 m 3 per ha of marketable timber volume, showing the low quality of even the undisturbed forest. Forests were rapidly becoming disturbed while disturbed forestland was being converted to agricultural use. Illegal felling by timber merchants, farmers and charcoal producers was widespread. The disturbed forest contained hardly any trees of commercial value. Some of the agricultural land and swiddens had recently been abandoned due to soil exhaustion and were being invaded by imperata grasses.
A soil capacity study using aerial photos, army maps and ground survey was carried out in 1980. Borings, pits, road cuts, excavations, etc. were used to evaluate the soils of the area. Land use classes were identified and a theoretical land use plan was drawn up as follows:
1. 18.1 percent of the area (1 705 ha) consists of mountainous and hilly slopes with gradients exceeding 16 percent and should be kept under permanent forest cover to prevent erosion. 148 ha of disturbed dry evergreen forest on slopes steeper than 35 percent, on rocky out crops and river banks are to be enrichment planted without felling the existing cover. The remaining 654 ha of undisturbed forestland is to be retained and protected. The rest of the area is to be planted with forest trees. 2. 21.6 percent of the area (2 039 ha) consists of soils which are shallow, of poor fertility, or on slopes. It is to be used for forest plantation of fast growing tree species with some agroforestry. 3. 32.1 percent of the area (3 020 ha) consists of shallow slopes or soils which may become degraded. Recommended use is a mix of perennial fruit trees, annual crops and village woodlots. Good management is necessary to maintain soil fertility. 4. 28.2 percent of the area (2 658 ha) is made up of flat land with deep soils and should be used for permanent agriculture. Limitations of fertility, soil structure and erosion must be taken into account and the land managed accordingly.
2.8 The population: socio-cultural characteristics
A survey conducted in 1979 put the population of the area at about 249 households or 1 560 individuals. According to a 1982 survey, the number of households was 1 293 for a total population about 8 000. Although under enumeration seems probable in the case of the 1979 survey due to the physical difficulty of conducting the survey -- poor or no roads, dispersion of homesteads, security problems, etc. -- there are reasons to believe that there was a highly accelerated inflow of population between the two studies. Some 1 000 people had recently been evicted from Ban Nong Takhu, a security sensitive location some 25 km from the project area. Some old residents of the project area with large holdings reported selling portions of their land to relatives, friends and others who moved in. By this time the Lam Phra Ploeng Dam and water reservoir at the eastern edge of the project area and its access road had been completed, making the area more attractive to prospective migrants. According to the 1982 survey, 69 percent of the residents interviewed had migrated to the project area in the preceding one to two years while the remaining 31 percent had been there three years or more, some for as long as 30 years .
The village structure of the project area was still very amorphous and as new settlers moved into an area it was not always clear to which administrative villages they belonged. Village territorial boundaries were vague and there was little sense of community identification due to the dispersion of homesteads and to the problems of group formation among unfamiliar people. Only 25 percent of the men interviewed had participated in the activities of any village organization. Because of communications difficulties, there was very little contact with local Government authorities at the district and provincial levels or with Government officers providing development services such as agricultural extension.
Although the communities described had little in common with traditional long established rural communities, their culture was remarkably homogeneous. All spoke central Thai as well as the Korat version of the northeastern dialect. All adhered to the beliefs and practices of rural folk Buddhism which also included animistic or Brahmanical rituals associated with agricultural and life cycles. There was relatively little temple-centered religious observance but this was because temples were few; many temples were built in the two or three years that followed. The world view profile of this population provided by the social survey is typical of Thai rural people generally. Given the commonalties, there were grounds to hope that, given time, these people would cease to look upon one another as outsiders and that their villages could evolve gradually into more normal and functional communities.
The families in the area at the start of project activities were predominantly (85 percent or more) nuclear rather than extended families. The average age of the household head respondents to the 1982 social survey was 41.6 years. Sixty five percent of their spouses were in the 20-39 years age group, hence in the child-bearing period. This is of particular significance given the fact that families were already large with a mean of 4.7 children per family.
The level of education was generally low; 11 percent of the house-hold heads and 19 percent of the spouses had never attended school and of those who had attended school, the overwhelming majority had completed less than four years of primary schooling. There were three elementary schools in the area at that time.
Page 15 of 42
2.9 Living conditions
Information on the physical living conditions of these households is provided by a village study conducted in a new community in the area (Ban Sai Ngam) in September 1984. At that time, over 90 percent of the households lived in houses of their own which had been built from local lumber. Although it was illegal to fell trees for this purpose, the practice was tolerated as there were no other options available to the villagers in the way of building materials. About 60 percent of the houses had corrugated metal roofing and the remainder had that roofing. The main disadvantage of the latter was that it could not be used to collect rain water, the main source of drinking water in the area. If a household had enough pottery or cement jars to collect rain water in season, there was enough to supply the family for the whole year. Otherwise, water had to be drawn from ponds and streams, which was a health hazard as such water was not treated before being consumed. Fewer than 10 percent of the homesteads had toilets of any kind. Garbage was usually disposed of by burning.
Eighty-three percent of those surveyed replied that their diet consisted principally of rice, vegetables and chili sauce. Those living close to streams had better access to fish. Native chickens raised in relatively large numbers were as a source of meat and eggs. Breast feeding was the norm for infants. but more than 50 percent of them received weaning foods such as banana and rice earlier than four months and 35 percent were given such foods in the first month of life.
Common ailments in the area at this time were malaria, influenza and stomach disorders. Adults appeared to suffer more from malaria (52 percent of the sample) than from influenza (28 percent). Among infants the tendency was reversed, the incidence of influenza was 67 percent, and that of malaria was 23 percent. The villagers would attempt self treatment using medicines purchased from village stores when such illnesses occurred. If this failed, there were two Government -supported health centers in the project area, one at the tambon seat, Ban Raroeng, and the other, a malaria identification and eradication center, at Ban Khlong Kum. However, given the level of services provided and the desperate lack of medicines, the seriously ill were compelled to visit the hospitals in Pak Chong or Pak Thong Chai for treatment. This situation notwithstanding, only 5 percent of the sampled households reported a death among its members during 1981.
More than 60 percent of all children were born in the home with traditional granny midwives and/or husbands in attendance. The remainder were handled by trained personnel, usually in health stations, clinics or hospitals, but sometimes at home.
Notwithstanding difficulties of road communication, all reports on the population of the project area at this time indicate that it was not isolated and was subjected to considerable urban influence. Most farmers traveled to the Pak Chong market area frequently to get supplies either for crop production or for home consumption, or to deliver crops at harvest time. They also presumably had to stay in touch with their Tao Kae patron in Pak Chong, the rice trader with whom they had contractual arrangements for the provision of credit and the sale of their crops. It appears that they also went to Pak Chong for recreational purposes, for example, to visit cinema halls. The cinema was already a favorite form of entertainment and open-air all-night showings of films organized by outside entrepreneurs in the project area villages were already fairly frequent. There were also battery-operated TV sets in local shops where villagers could watch news broadcasts and movies.
2.10 Land holding, tenurial status, land use
The 1979 and 1982 surveys both provide information on the amount of land occupied for farming by households interviewed in the project area. According to the December 1979 survey, none of the farmers interviewed held less than 10 rai (1.6 ha) of land. Farmers were grouped into two categories, those holding from 10 to 49 rai of land (79 percent of the sample),and farmers holding 50 rai (8 ha) or more. Table 2 which summarizes this data shows significant changes over time. The first is the emergence of a category of marginal farmers holding less than 10 rai. In 1982, they were 15 percent of the sample with a mean size of holding of 5 rai. Second, the proportion of large- scale farmers had decreased from 21 percent to 12 percent and the mean size of their holding was 59.5 rai (9.5 ha). There appears to have been a rapidly increasing rate of migration.
The overall distribution of farmers sampled in the 1982 economic survey into marginal, small (10-19 rai), medium (20-49 rai), and large farmers is shown in Table 3. The mean size of holding for the whole sample was 24.9 rai (4.0 ha). It was estimated that in 1981, the land occupied by some 1 300 farming households was about 30 300 rai (4 848 ha). This was 85 percent of the land considered suitable for agriculture.
From the point of view of the size of farm holdings, the situation of the farmers interviewed appeared fairly satisfactory in 1981. However, although most farmers interviewed in 1982 claimed ownership over some or all of the land they farmed, in fact, all these claimants were liable to be evicted as they were illegal squatters on public land -- National Reserved Forest. It should be noted, however, that claims to ownership were recognized by the local population so that the claimants could dispose of their land just as any other owner would -- exploiting it, selling it, renting it out, giving it in inheritance to heirs, etc. Almost one half of these "owners" even paid the land tax for their holding at the District Office and the fact that this was accepted and a receipt issued for the payment was taken as at least implicit recognition by a Government office of their rights as owners. The discussion of ownership that follows should be interpreted in the light of these qualifications.
Table 2 Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1982 economic survey sample (1)
Farm size group Number of Percentage Total area Percent of area Mean size holdings of total farmed by the farmed by all per holding (rai/ha) holdings group (rai/ha) groups (rai/ha)
1-9/0.2-1.4 18 15 90/14.4 3 5.0/0.8
10-19/1.6-3.0 33 28 452/72.3 16 13.7/2.2 Page 16 of 42
20-29/3.2-4.6 26 21 589/94.2 19 22.7/3.6
30-39/4.8-6.2 18 15 568/90.9 19 31.6/5.1
40-49/6.4-7.8 11 9 450/72.0 15 40.9/6.6
50+/8+ 14 11.7 833/133.3 28 59.5/9.5
All size 120 100.0 2982/477.1 100 24.9/4.0
Source: Sumeth Kaenmanee, et al. 1982, p. 11
Table 3 Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1982 economic survey sample (2)
Farm size group Number of Percentage Total area Percent of Mean size holdings of total farmed by the area farmed per holding (rai/ha) holdings group (rai/ha) by all groups (rai/ha)
Marginal farmers 18 15 90/14.4 3 5.0/0.8 (1-9/0.2-1.4) 33 28 452/72.3 16 13.7/2.2 Small farmers (10- 19/1.6-3.0) 55 46 1607/257 53 29.2/4.7
Medium farmers 14 11 833/133.3 28 59.5/9.5 (20-29/3.2-7.9) 120 100 2982/477.1 100 24.8/4.0 Large farmers (50+/8+)
All size
Source: Sumeth Kaenmanee, et al. 1982, p. 11
Of the 2 982 rai (477 ha) of land occupied by the farmers interviewed in 1981, 2 639 rai or 89 percent were owner-operated and the remaining 11.5 percent was either rented or used rent free. Of the sampled households, 19 percent claimed that they rented land ranging from about 5-45 rai.
A question often raised in relation to encroached land, especially when large tracts are involved, is the extent to which such land is actually put to use or, relatedly, the extent to which the encroachers have the ability to effectively crop the whole area. The implication is that if they cannot effectively make use of the whole area, a portion should be made available to others who have little or no land. According to the 1982 survey, the area occupied was 2 982 rai (477 ha) while the area cropped was 2 689 rai (430 ha). However, two crops of maize were harvested in a year and both crops may have been grown on the same plot. This would mean the area of holdings that was used in fact to grow crops (maize) was actually smaller than the figures given above for area cropped. How much land actually lay fallow is not known.
2.11 Agricultural enterprise and off-farm work
In the 1981 crop year, although other crops such as cassava, cotton and mung bean were grown, this production was negligible compared to that of maize. Maize was by far the most important single crop and the main source of income. Two crops were grown a year and even without the application of fertilizer, yields averaged about 470 kg/rai (75.2 kg/ha). Maize yields for Nakhon Ratchasima Province as a whole were 130-320 kg/rai (20.8-51.2 kg/ha) which indicates that soils in the project area were still relatively fertile. The mean annual production of maize per household was 8 800 kg but, for 37 percent of the 108 maize producers surveyed, the annual production was less than 4 000 kg. The total maize production of the sampled farmers in 1981 was 1 020.8 metric tonnes of which 8 903.7 tonnes or 89 percent was produced for sale. The balance was stored at home for use as seed in the following planting season. It was estimated that the total quantity of maize produced and sold by all farmers in the project area was about 9 474 metric tonnes.
Approximately 20 percent of the sampled households had fruit trees on their land covering areas of from less than one rai to two and one - half rai. Most households raised native chickens on their homesteads in fairly large numbers: 17-44 per household according to the survey report. The report makes no mention of cattle but some were certainly raised as bullocks were still commonly used with ox-carts; however, these were rapidly being replaced by tractors to plow the fields. Fish were caught and trapped in the several streams in the area.
A small percentage of the population was made up of non -farmers. According to the 1982 survey data, 6 percent of the sampled Page 17 of 42
households did not occupy farm holdings. They were casual labourers, storekeepers, carpenters, tractor operators, etc. About 30 percent of the farmers interviewed engaged in non-farm work as a subsidiary occupation, especially outside of the cropping season.
There is a huge demand for agricultural labour during the maize cropping season for planting, weeding, and harvesting. In 1982, labour was the farmers ’ second largest expense item after tractor hiring and averaged Baht 2 709 (us$118) per household per year. The cost of hiring agricultural labourers was about Baht 30 per day at that time and household demand was 90 man/days per year, not including the contribution of unpaid family workers. It seems likely that the project area labour force could not satisfy this seasonal demand for agricultural labour at a time of peak demand and workers belonging to the category of seasonal wage labourers had to come in from elsewhere.
2.12 Income, expenditure, indebtedness
The writers of the economic survey report estimated the mean household gross annual earnings for 1981 to have been approximately Baht 15 700 ($686) of which Baht 14 575 or 93 percent was derived from maize production. The other components were income from other agricultural activities (Baht 121) and non-farm income (Baht 1 004).
However, based on the maize production data cited earlier, household income from maize in 1979 for 37 percent of the growers interviewed was less than Baht 8 000 a year and for almost 10 percent it was less than Baht 2 000. For these small producers to survive, the share of household income from non-farm employment had to be significantly higher than the average. Per caput income of the sampled households was only about Baht 2 175. This 1979 figure was less than half (44 percent) of Bank of Thailand figures of the same year for the Northeastern Region which itself was the poorest region in the Kingdom, averaging only 18 percent of the national figure.
Three items dominated the maize production expenses Of most of the farmers interviewed: tractor hiring, labour, and transportation of the maize harvest to the market outlet. Average per household expenditure for these items was Baht 3 360 ($146), Baht 2 708 ($118), and Baht 1 536 ($67) respectively, for a total of Baht 7 604 ($331) per year. Other production expenses were relatively insignificant and can be disregarded in the calculation of a rough estimate of the mean farm household net income which would then be about Baht 7 500 ($326) per year. Fertilizer was not used and insecticide was applied in minute quantities and usually for crops other than maize.
Recurrent household expenditures listed by the social survey report in order of magnitude were food, medicine, clothing and schooling. An average family would consume one tang (15 kg) of rice per week. At 1981 prices, a year ’s supply of the cheapest quality of milled rice would represent an expenditure of about Baht 3 960 ($170), already more than half of the mean household net income of the sample households.
It follows then that farmers in the lower and average income ranges had exhausted all of their earnings by the end of a cropping season . They were therefore completely dependent on creditors to obtain cash advances to pay for tractor hire and labour to initiate a new cropping season and perhaps even to buy food. In 1981, the only source of credit available was the informal sector and normal rates of interest were 5 percent per month. Only 21 percent of the farmers interviewed had no debts with roughly the same percentage having savings of over Baht 2 000 ($87). These, one would assume, were all large farmers with holdings and income well above the mean of the sample.
Chapter 3 Project implementation
3.1 Physical infrastructure development
The project site was divided into three sectors, Sector I in which the project field headquarters was located (in Sai Ngam Village) comprising the northern arm of the area, and Sectors II and III covering the eastern and western portions respectively of the southern section of the area (see Map 3).This arrangement facilitated contact with the population and contributed to better monitoring of project activity by the Deputy Field Project Directors who were based in the field offices of each of the three sectors. The arrangement also made it possible to plan project activity more realistically and deal with the unique characteristics of each sector. During the course of the project, two other offices were added in more remote locations. Communication was maintained between the field offices and field headquarters and between the field headquarters and the Korat office of the project in the compound of the Divisional Forest Office through the use of two way radio equipment as there was no telephone service.
As mentioned earlier, the road network in the area was so poor that a stretch of road had to be built before project implementation (Phase II) could begin. As soon as the necessary heavy equipment became available in early 1982 and workers were trained in its operation, high priority was given to road building. Approximately 70 km of simple but adequate roads were built, providing direct access to most villages. Most roads were built by project workers using project equipment but some were constructed on a contract basis because of the demands on equipment for other purposes such as plantation and village site preparation. The District Offices of Pak Chong and Pak Thong Chai cooperated in the paving of 30 km of the 45 km Local Administration road connecting Pak Chong with the project area and the groveling of the remaining 15 km, greatly facilitating travel to this important market centre. As roads were completed, local entrepreneurs were quick to seize the opportunity to operate a public transportation service using small trucks for both passengers and freight.
Weirs and dams were also constructed in conjunction with road construction to impound water in reservoirs for local use. Whenever the topography permitted, rather than building an ordinary bridge or culvert over a stream while constructing roads, a dam the width of the road was built, thereby creating an artificial pond. The original plan was to construct dams only in the vicinity of the planned villages but the number built far exceeded the number of villages. A total of 17 dams or weirs was constructed, 14 by the project RFD staff. One dam and reservoir with a capacity of 330 000 m3 was contributed by the Royal Irrigation Department. The other two were built as a Department of Community Development initiative using village labour and funds provided by the Government Rural Employment Creation Programme. Page 18 of 42
Electricity was not yet available in the project area at the end of 1986 but as the power lines of the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) were only about 20 km away, it would be fairly easy to introduce. There is a growing desire among the village population and some village leaders have contacted the PEA in this respect. The condition laid down for extending the lines to the project area villages is that the villagers pay 15 percent of the costs. This is being actively discussed.
Map 3: Social Forestry Project Area
3.2 Forest rehabilitation
The need for forest rehabilitation for environmental protection and economic benefits was a central concern of the project. The approach followed included deliberate efforts to enlist the cooperation of the local people. The definition and implementation of forest rehabilitation activities were guided by the land use plan described in Chapter 3. A work plan was drawn up for establishment and maintenance of nurseries to produce the tree seedlings needed for forest plantations; for establishment, maintenance and scientific management of project forest plantations; and for protection of the remaining pockets of natural forest in the project area.
The species selected for planting in the project area were mainly Eucalyptus camaldulens is (Petford and Katherina provenances) and Leucaena leucocephala . Both species are fast growing and thrive in northern Thailand. Seeds were germinated in boxes and subsequently potted in black polyethylene bags 17 cm high and 7 cm in diameter. Each bag contained a uniformly mixed medium of four parts topsoil, two parts burnt rice husk and one part manure. The seedlings were watered daily. Each year, 200-300 ha of degraded natural forestland were prepared for the planting out of three-to-six month-old seedlings raised in the nurseries. Ground vegetation was cleared using hand tools and/or tractors and woody vegetation was cut up and stacked for use as fuel wood or timber. Burning of debris was kept to a minimum to avoid creating a fire hazard. Gentle slopes without protruding rocks were ploughed. Those likely to be waterlogged during the rainy season were ridged to allow free flow of excess water. Approximately 50 grams of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer were applied to the seedling three to four weeks after planting out and again a year later. If no ploughing or ridging was done before the planting, the soil was loosened within a radius of about 50 cm around the seedling. The planting configuration was 2 m by 3 m in places where agroforestry could not be practiced, and 2 m by 4 m, or 4 m by 4 m in soils suitable for agroforestry. Beating up of areas planted in previous years was also carried out.
In areas where agroforestry was practiced, the tending was done by the farmers themselves. In other areas, labourers were hired for weed removal by line cleaning along one metre wide planted lines, circle cleaning within a radius of 50 cm from individual plants, or 100 per -cent cleaning of the whole area planted, depending on the nature of the weeds, the age of the plantation, the danger of fire, etc. Page 19 of 42
Roads were constructed through blocks of plantations to facilitate access and to serve as fire breaks. Villagers were educated as to the dangers of using fire for land preparation. A proposed project for the Fire Protection Unit of the RFD to train labourers and village volunteers to serve as a fire protection squad was not carried out because no funds were allocated in the Government budget.
A project report refers to a workforce of 120 in forest plantation and tending, paid out of the RFD budget. Project area residents were given priority for these positions as it was intended that this employment opportunity should be part of the overall socio-economic development plan for the area. However, it was never possible to recruit local people in sufficient numbers to meet plantation work requirements due to conflicts with farming schedules. Many outsiders had to be hired. Bureaucratic complications contributed to the lack of local participation as payment often lagged several months behind the performance of the work. As a result, persons requiring supplementary income preferred to work for other farmers. The majority of wage labourers appeared to be women.
The main cause of the 20 percent shortfall in achieving the project target of 1 452 ha of forest plantation was the de facto rights of squatters in project area reserved forestland. The reforestation programme could only proceed with their consent and this required time- consuming discussion and persuasion. In the meantime, large areas of continuous blocks of plantations could not be established except on very steep hilly slopes, and planting schedules had to be extended. Nonetheless, the planting achievements of the project remain impressive. They suggest that although targets were over-optimistic, the project staff was successful in eventually overcoming the resistance of the encroachers and gaining their cooperation in the rehabilitation of degraded portions of natural forest (See Table 4).
Table 4 Forest rehabilitation achievements of the project
Activity Target 10/81- Achievement Percent of target 9/86 10/81-9/86
Nurseries (’000 seedlings) 3060 3531 115
Site preparation (ha) 1264 1576 125
Planting out (ha) 1452 1163 80
Tending in plantations (ha) 1656 1360 82
Fire protection in plantations (ha) 1656 1360 82
Protection of natural forest (ha) 660 360 55
Source: THA/81/004 Progress Report, Oct. 1985 - Mar 1986, P. 10
3.3 Village community consolidation and land allocation
The socio-economic development strategy of the project rested upon the double foundation of village community consolidation in an agro- forestry context and land allocation in terms of the STK programme. As indicated in Chapter 3, in 1982 the project area population was 293 households (approximately 8 000 individuals). As most numbered village administrative units were composed of homesteads scattered through their territory without any obvious nucleus, their identification as village communities was difficult to determine.
New surveys were conducted in late 1985 and it was found that the project area population had grown to 1 500 households (about 9 516 individuals), an increase of 267 households. Compared to the period immediately preceding the 1982 surveys, this rate of increase was relatively low. Because of the project, a much more visible RFD presence in the area made new permanent encroachment difficult. In addition, as the 1982 population already occupied an estimated 85 percent of the tillable land, there was little land remaining to attract newcomers. The 1985 surveys also revealed a change in the configuration of village communities. The social survey report lists 23 villages (see Table 5). Although most of these villages still included scattered homesteads, there was evidence to suggest some consolidation of homesteads into enucleated communities. This was actively encouraged by the project staff in relation to the forestry village programme. Independently, several new village clusters were formed as a result of private initiative around new infrastructures - roads, water reservoirs. Although the new villages have names and are recognized as separate entities by the local population, as yet, not all have been granted official administrative status by the District Office.
The main thrust of the project to achieve village community consolidation was the development of forest villages. The original target was the creation of six such villages. The activity combined both forest rehabilitation and rural development objectives by grouping isolated forest encroachers who practiced shifting cultivation into viable communities to undertake settled agricultural activities. To achieve this, each community was provided with basic physical and social infrastructure, a package of agricultural development inputs and essential services in relation to health, education and the like. Anticipated benefits were an increase in income, a reduction in costs of transportation and of essential commodities, and improved social amenities, with the ultimate result of creating in the population a stronger sense of belonging to their rural environment.
The rate of occupation of the new villages was slower than anticipated due to problems in persuading some farmers to relocate and the problems some groups had in selecting leaders. At the end of Phase II of the project, 317 households or roughly one-fifth of the project area population had been accommodated in seven new forest villages.
The land allocation activity of the project was carried out in accordance with the Government-sanctioned STK programme. By law, the STK certificate can cover only up to 15 rai (2.4 ha) of land and this land can be transferred only by inheritance to direct descendants. It cannot be rented, given away or sold. STK holders are required to report to the forestry authorities all illegal activities which they observe in their neighborhood. Failure to do so can result in revocation of their occupier rights without recourse to appeal or compensation. This Page 20 of 42
clause makes many STK holders uneasy. Besides the allocation of 15 rai of land per household under the STK programme, the project also had provisions for the allocation of an additional 10 rai (1.6 ha) per household on a communal basis, mainly for the establishment of fruit trees.
Table 5 Project Area Villages, 1985
Village name No. of Village Sub-District District (Amphoe) households number (Tambon)
Nong Mark 55 2 Khlong Muang Pak Chong
Mo Hin Khao 35 (2) " "
Pong Wua Daeng 110 6 " "
Phai Daeng NA 1 Wang Ka Ta "
Khlong Makha Hin 80 3 " "
Khao Keaw NA 10 " "
Pong Kathing 70 12 " "
Raroeng 155 1 Raroeng Pak Thong Chai
Khlong Ki 75 2 " "
Khlong Hin Rong 55 3 " "
Khlong Nueng 40 (3) " "
Khlong Luek 35 (3) " "
Wang Sapparot 80 (3) " "
Sapplakang 85 4 " "
Khlong Kum 95 5 " "
Nong Mai Sak 85 6 " "
Sai Ngam 85 7 " "
Pong Talat 45 8 " "
Khlong Sombun 90 9 " "
Pong Khang 45 11 " "
Khlong Din Dam NA 12 " "
Khao So 50 (10) Thakop "
Wang Khan 15 " "
Unrecorded (NA) pop. 180 estimate 1,560 Total households 267 Increase since 1981
Source: Thanavadee Boonlue 1986, p.30
Claimants were screened to establish their eligibility, for example, those who owned farmland elsewhere did not qualify. If the residence registration of a claimant had not been transferred to the project area, this had to be done before an application for a usufructuary certificate could be acted upon. The most time-consuming part of the exercise by far was the discussion needed to get the people to accept the rule limiting land entitlement to 15 rai. Those who resisted most, of course, were big land holders. Whenever possible, these Page 21 of 42
larger holdings were divided among older children and siblings, each making an individual claim to his portion of the land. In order to avoid dealing with the land negotiation process altogether, some simply sold their land on the informal land market to interested farmers for prices as low as Baht 500 per rai ($156 per ha). Another thorny issue was how to deal with the land of absentee claimants, for example land acquired by influential town-based entrepreneurs as a result of debt defaulting. The RFD officials responsible for administering the programme chose to be flexible and pragmatic, identifying packages of land for allotment that could be acted upon without too much difficulty and leaving the final disposition of problem cases for a later date.
Because of these problems, the process of land allotment and of conferring usufructuary certificates took longer that anticipated and targets had to be reduced. Actual accomplishments were 1 832 ha of land surveyed prior to allocation and 920 STK documents issued. In relation to the total project area, this covered 32 percent of the 5 704 ha found to be suitable for agriculture and affected 59 percent of the 1 560 households residing in the area at the end of 1985.
In the period immediately following the end of Phase II of the project, the use of as yet non-allotted land by resident farmers continues to be tolerated pending its eventual disposition either as land held in terms of the STK document or as communal land. Farmers are also allowed temporary use of land ear-marked for forestation but not yet planted.
3.4 Project agricultural development strategies
Past experience in all land settlement programmes in Thailand for rural poverty alleviation has shown that the allocation of land to poor farmers is a necessary but not sufficient condition to ensure success. There is a need to guarantee that the situation created is indeed financially viable, i.e. that sufficient support is provided to make it possible for the farmers to generate adequate income from their farms. The special challenge of the forest village project was to create a financially viable situation for farmers having exclusive cultivation right to only 2.4 ha of agricultural land while at the same time meeting the forestry objectives of natural forest protection and forest rehabilitation.
Several approaches were possible. Theoretically, the simplest though not the most efficient way would have been an orderly increase in the area cultivated by individual farmers by 10 rai (1.6 ha), to be used on a communal basis as provided for by the regulations of the STK programme. This would have brought the total area under cultivation by each farmer to 25 rai (4 ha). In practice, this was very difficult to achieve and even at the end of Phase II in September 1986, the project was still faced with a de facto situation of the majority of farmers cultivating or at least holding considerably more than 25 rai while, at the same time, many others had less than 15 rai. A more workable approach and, in fact, the one pursued by the project was to get the farmers to make more efficient use of available land by better farm management and to introduce various sideline activities to supplement farm income, for example, cottage industry and part-time off-farm work on tree plantations.
The strategy employed by the project implementors to help the farmers to enhance their income earning capacity drew heavily but not exclusively on agroforestry. For most types of farm production, the promotional or extension package included several components: training; demonstration; provision of necessary production inputs including improved seed strains or planting material for new crops; and follow- up by extension workers. All villagers were expose to this activity as much of it was conducted in the project site and all villages were regularly visited by extension workers. A number of village leaders or outstanding farmers were selected to receive more intensive or more specialized training and were taken on study tours to successful development projects in various parts of Thailand. Six were sent to visit projects in other countries of the region - two to Indonesia, two to the Philippines, and two to the Republic of Korea. A number underwent training in specialized institutions such as the North East Regional Office of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Pak Chong Agricultural Research Station, etc. These specially trained farmers were then expected to return to their home villages and share their experience within the community.
3.5 Crop diversification promotion
Given the disadvantages and inefficiencies of maize monocropping, diversification of annual cropping was seen as an important measure to improve efficiency of farm management practices. Introduction of other crops grown in rotation would help maintain soil fertility and provide a reasonable income continuously throughout the year thereby encouraging shifting cultivators to practice a settled form of agriculture. Promotion of diversified cropping activity was coordinated by the project agronomist and executed mainly by the staff of the Agricultural Extension Offices of Pak Thong Chai and Pak Chong Districts in conjunction with local and regional agricultural experimental stations. Back-up extension activity was also provided by locally based staff of the Department of Community Development. Farmers were given instruction on improved practices including choice of strains, cropping pat terns, use of fertilizer, pest control, post -harvest practices, etc. for a variety of appropriate crops.
Maize continued to be the most important crop and efforts were made to improve hybrid strains. Programmes were initiated through which the Farmers could exchange some of their grain for improved seed grain. The culture of baby corn which can be grown in all seasons was introduced and proved quite popular. Cassava was also a fairly important crop but following Government policy, efforts were made to substitute it with sorghum.
The main additional crops proposed were cotton, mung bean, soybean, castor bean, ground nut (peanut), upland rice and kenaf. The introduction of upland rice had some importance as it addressed the problem mentioned earlier of maize farmers having to spend a significant part of their income on food because they did not produce rice. The soybean promotion programme using rhizobium, a nitrogen-fixing soil bacterium, was supported by SVITA, a Bangkok-based non-government development organization. A small number of farmers were trained in mushroom production.
Demonstration was an important component of the promotional programme and by mid-1986, demonstration plots had been established on a total area of about 15 ha. One plot divided into three sub-plots, for example, demonstrated the results of rotation between three crops: soybean, maize, and upland rice. Another planted to hybrid maize demonstrated the effect of the correct application of NPK fertilizer. Some were used to demonstrate the method of preparing compost fertilizer. In some cases, e.g. for soybean, school gardens were used to demonstrate not only how to grow the crop but also its profitability; proceeds from the sale of the crop were used to pay for the children’s school lunches. Production inputs such as planting materials, fertilizer, insecticide, etc. were provided to poorer farmers free of charge by the District Agricultural Offices and by the project. Page 22 of 42
Estimates of crop production in the project area for 1984 and 1985 are given in Tables 6 and 7.
Table 6: Estimated production of main crops and beans excluding cassava in the project area of April, 1984
Crop Area (ha) Yield (kg/ha) Total Yield (metric Price/kg tonnes)
Maize 4224 1560 658.9 Baht 2.5($0.11)
Mung bean 50 750 37.5 10 ($ 0.44)
Ground nuts 145 750 109 10 ($ 0.44)
Soybean 22 750 16 3 ($ 0.13)
Upland rice 111.2 1560 173 -
Source: THA/81/004 Progress Report Nov. 1983 - April 1984
Table 7: Estimated production of main crops in the project area 1985
Crop Approx. area 1 st season Rai % Approx. area 2 nd season Rai % (ha0 (ha)
Maize 29000 (4640) 88 24863 (3978) 75
Cassava 1500 (240) 5 800 (128) 2
Cotton - 2900 (464) 9
Mung bean 1300 (208) 4 1100 (176) 3
Soybean - 350 (56) 1
Ground nut 800 (128) 2 1050 (168) 3
Upland rice - 1517 (243) 5
Kenaf - 40 (6) -
Vegetables 450 (72) 1 320 (51) 1
Total 33050 (5288) 100 32940 (5270) 100
Source: THA/81/004 Progress Report Apr. - Sept. 1985
3.6 Forest tree farming promotion
Project-initiated agroforestry included forest and fruit tree planting by the people for their own use; forest pastoralism; forest-related apiculture; and charcoal making. Extension was provided by project staff and Associate Experts as well as by locally-based workers from the Department of Agricultural Extension.
In the case of forest trees, the project produced its own growing materials and conducted research and field trials to determine which tree species were most appropriate in relation to local environmental conditions and to their usefulness to the people in an agroforestry context. All species promoted in the project area were fast-growing varieties. Although there were others, the main varieties promoted were the same as those used for forest rehabilitation, i.e. Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Lucaena leucocephala . In bee-raising areas, Calliandra calothyrsus and Eucalyptus deglupta were also promoted as a source of nectar and pollen. The project supplied 167 950 seedlings to farmers and to schools, both in the project area and outside in response to demand. Instruction was provided in the planting and care of trees. Schools were a focus of this activity. Some project staff taught agroforestry lessons and the school children planted trees on the school grounds. Several agroforestry trials were established both as experimental and demonstration plots, e.g. Leucaena hedges on contours of steep hillsides intercropped with maize.
Response to forestry extension efforts was lukewarm at first for several reasons. As there was no critical shortage of fuelwood in the Page 23 of 42
area, there was little perceived need to plant trees for this purpose. In addition, the people felt it would not benefit them to plant trees for, in their experience, it was illegal to fell trees in a reserved forest area. The very concept of agroforestry was alien to these maize farmers who felt that planting trees in their fields would interfere with tractor plowing. Gradually, however, interest in planting trees began to gain momentum. According to a sample survey conducted in 1985, 56 percent of the sampled farmers had at least started to establish hedgerows around their homelots and 51 percent had started to plant forest trees. Only 3 percent, however, had ever at any time participated in establishing or managing village woodlots.
Although the practice of planting trees had become fairly well established by 1985, silviculture as such had not yet become a source of income. Some farmers did indeed market some of their trees but the income generated was so insignificant- mainly because the trees sold were small -that they lost all motivation to continue. Clearly, the economics of silviculture had not been worked out for the project area. To help remedy this situation, the project retained the services of a marketing expert who conducted a study on supply and demand for wood products in northeast Thailand in December 1985.
The study confirmed that farmers in Nakhon Ratchasima Province producing the fast-growing trees recommended by the project for sale faced many problems. They were currently selling predominantly to only two buyers : the Phoenix Pulp and Paper company in Khon Kaen Province (Northeast Region) and the Thai Plywood Industry Co. in Samut Prakan Province (Central Region). Prices received were low in relation to production and other costs including middlemen brokerage fees and transportation costs (one quarter of the sale price). Farm gate prices which excluded the cost of felling, preparation, loading and unloading, and transportation were Baht 450 (US$17.30) per tonne while factory gate prices were Baht 600 (US$23.08) per tonne. Nonetheless, the study concluded that in spite of initial difficulties in this enterprise, in the longer term, the net profit per unit of land used for tree plantation would be high compared to its use for other crops. Assuming a 2 m by 2 m spacing of trees on three -year rotation and a minimum price of Baht 450 per tonne, the internal rate of return would be between 20 and 25 percent.
This optimistic view of potential economic opportunities from silviculture was bolstered by the study's projections of greatly increased demand over the next 15 years for trees for housing and furniture, pulp and paper production, fuelwood and charcoal. In order for the benefits in terms of income of this increased demand to reach the producing farmers, however, other conditions would need to be met, for example, the provision of low interest loans to tide farmers over the period before trees reach maturity, and the promotion of more wood consuming industries in the Northeast.
From a policy perspective, the marketing study concluded that private sector (farmer) tree plantation should be promoted, especially because the only alternatives were meeting the increased demand by increasing wood or wood products imports leading to a worsening national balance of trade situation; or drawing on existing forest resources, the result of which would be an increasingly rapid rate of deforestation.
3.7 Legal charcoal production promotion
While the idea of planting trees for sale to wood-based industries might have been viewed with skepticism by the forestland encroachers, the alternative of transforming the trees into charcoal for their own use or for sale was immediately attractive. Farmers had considerable understanding of the economic value of charcoal and were familiar with the production process. The prevailing market price of charcoal was Baht 45 -60 ($1.73-2.31) per 50 kg bag, the price differential due apparently to transportation costs. According to a survey of 244 of households conducted in early 1986,more than 60 percent of the house-holds depended exclusively on charcoal for cooking; another 27 percent used a combination of charcoal and fuelwood. Some 13 percent used only firewood for cooking. The average annual charcoal consumption per household was about 14 bags (700 kg). Although 28 percent of the households interviewed purchased their charcoal, most of the charcoal consumed was produced from local forest wood by the people themselves.
This situation entails problems of considerable consequence for the forest resources of Thailand. The exploitation of forests for firewood and charcoal production is illegal in terms of existing forest legislation and consequently, the charcoal trade has always been viewed with suspicion by the RFD. Any sizable movement of charcoal is, in principle, presumed to be related to the illegal felling of trees. On the other hand, charcoal is an essential commodity in Thailand, especially in rural areas where alternative sources of energy for cooking use such as electricity or liquefied gas are unavailable or too expensive. There is therefore an urgent need to normalize its production. The project provided an ideal setting to work out a solution that was consistent with both the forestry and developmental objectives of the project and which could be replicated by rural charcoal producers in other parts of the country.
Al though this element of the socio -economic development component of the project was included in the original project document, its implementation was delayed to the last few months of Phase II of the project in 1986 because of difficulties in recruiting a suitable local dendro-energy expert. The approach adopted was a two-pronged effort. First, local charcoal producers were encouraged to shift from dependence on natural forests to the use of their own plantation trees. Second, the project attempted to introduce more efficient but inexpensive charcoal production technologies. A minimum objective was to meet local domestic demand for charcoal on the basis of legitimate enterprise.
The most popular types of charcoal kilns in use in Thailand are the brick beehive kiln, the mud beehive kiln, and the earthmound/rice husk mound kilns which, according to RFD figures, account for 17 percent, 37 percent, and 36 percent respectively of all charcoal production in the country. The brick kiln is the most efficient -- it has a 35 percent rate of recovery of raw material in the form of charcoal - - but it is less popular as it involves an initial investment of Baht 3 kiln (from about 2 m 3 to 8 m 3 ). The earthmound kiln is preferred by 000-5 000 ($115-192) depending on the size of the many, especially in forestland areas, because it is inexpensive, requiring only family labour, and is not very conspicuous -- an important consideration in illegal activity. On the other hand, it is very inefficient with only a 13 percent rate of recovery. According to RFD figures, this type of kiln consumes 52 percent of the annual total wood raw material for charcoal production to supply only 36 percent of what is produced.
The third type of kiln, the mud beehive kiln, is twice as efficient as the earthmound kiln with a 25 percent rate of recovery. This is lower than that of the brick kiln but family labour is the only investment required for its construction. If this kiln replaced the earthmound kiln on a national scale, it would mean a saving of nearly five million tonnes of wood raw materials per annum for charcoal production.
The mud beehive kiln was therefore selected for promotion in the project area. Two sizes of kilns were proposed with capacities of 2 m 3 and 3.7 m 3 respectively. Larger sizes would have been unacceptable to the RFD, presumably because not enough trees were grown privately to supply them and they could not be operated without drawing on the natural forest or on the reforestation plantations. Seven of Page 24 of 42
each size kiln were built with at least one of each located in each of the three sectors of the project area.
Fourteen farmers were trained in mud beehive kiln construction and operation in the first half of 1986 with the expectation that these would later train others. In addition, more than 300 persons from the project area as well as from outside came to observe the operation of the kilns. A simple illustrated manual on the construction and operation of the kilns was prepared and distributed to farmers.
A survey of 68 project area farmers was conducted to determine their willingness to build the kiln. The response was less than enthusiastic but inconclusive because it was based mainly on inaccurate perceptions of the cost of construction, space requirements, and legality of the kilns. If the responses were candid, they indicate that more time and more extension efforts are needed for the kilns to gain acceptance. There could be deeper reasons for the resistance, however. As mentioned above, charcoal is used extensively in the project area and there is sufficient illegal production using the simpler though less efficient kilns to meet demand.
3.8 Silvo-pastoral activity promotion
The reforestation programme of the project provided considerable scope for the promotion. of silvo-pastoral activity in tree plantations. Surveys conducted at the inception of the project reported little cattle raising but when the project area was visited in mid-1986, there was evidence that this had become a rather important activity, especially in the southern sectors. One farmer interviewed in Khok Samran/Khao So village had a herd of more than 200 head of cattle. This was exceptional but herds of 40-50 were not unusual if not yet very common. Even though not used locally, some farmers even raised water buffalo for sale to farmers in lowland paddy growing areas. The project supported this activity by allowing the farmers to graze their cattle in tree plantations under controlled conditions. This was mutually beneficial as it contributed to weed control. Moreover, about 16 ha of forest plantation were planted in guinea grass and other forage plants to improve forest grazing.
It should be mentioned here that agricultural extension for animal production was not limited to cattle raising in the forests. Local raising in the village environment was practiced and special attention was given to upgrading this enterprise as well as to duck raising in and around the water resources of the area. Government services were made available to the farmers to assist them in all aspects of animal raising, for example, the North-East Regional Office for Agriculture (NEROA) staff provided training in breeding and the Livestock Department extended treatment to the animals including vaccination of fowl.
3.9 Fruit tree plantation promotion
Besides promoting village-level forest tree plantations, the project also supported planting of fruit trees and the establishment of orchards. Fruit trees provided a kind of psychological point of convergence catering to the interest of both foresters and local people, and leading to better mutual understanding and more positive attitudes. This was encouraged, especially in relation to the new forest villages and other consolidated villages, as a means to foster permanency of settlement. Local people were already growing some fruit trees and did not need to be convinced of their value.
Fruit tree seedlings were distributed to the farmers at the very beginning of the project as a good will gesture. Twenty-eight farmers and two project staff were trained in plant propagation in May 1982. After the training, the farmers were supplied with grafting material from good varieties of mangoes to do their own propagation. In addition, the project supplied four grafted mangoes of popular varieties to most households to grow and to use as a source of grafting material. Many farmers subsequently produced their own grafted trees, especially mangoes, instead of paying Baht 50-100 per seedling to purchase them.
As of April 1986, approximately 60 000 seedlings had been distributed to the farmers and the area in fruit orchards was estimated to be 590 ha. Many different kinds of fruit as well as other tree crops such as coconut, cashew, and bamboo ( to be harvested in the form of edible bamboo shoots) were grown. The most popular fruits were mangoes, jackfruits, custard apples and sweet tamarinds, but papayas, bananas and limes were also produced. An agri-business firm tried to get the farmers in one village (Pong Wua Daeng) to establish 32 ha of cashew plantation and supplied 200 kg of cashew seeds but the seedlings proved too delicate to handle. While by the end of the project, the acreage in fruit orchards was still relatively small compared to that in field crops (about 11 percent), it had grown significantly in the lifetime of the project.
By 1986, several farmers who had planted fruit trees at the beginning of the project were deriving an income from them. One farmer visited in mid-1986 had sold Baht 40 000 ($1 540) worth of mangoes and bought his own pick-up truck to deliver them to the market in Pak Chong.
3.10 Bee-raising promotion
Apiculture was included in the project socio -economic development plan and arrangements were concluded with the Faculty of Agriculture of Khon Kaen University for provision of a staff apiculture expert. At the end of March 1982, eight farmers were sent to Khon Kaen University for a one week training session covering basic knowledge of bee keeping and the production of boxes for bee hives. Each farmer was loaned three bee hives with colonies purchased by the project and beekeeping commenced in early April using the European bee Apis mellifera . Three project staff members were also trained in bee keeping to assist in extension work. By the end of the year, 30 hives had been purchased for use in the project area. Success in bee raising was highest in the south-western sector, apparently because fewer crops there required heavy applications of insecticide. It was decided not to increase the number of bee keepers for the time being until the problem of providing alternative sources of feeding during periods when pollen supply is inadequate could be overcome. In the meantime, 3 570 seedlings of Calliandra calothyrsus and 500 seedlings of sunflower were produced for supply to interested bee keepers to provide bee forage during the dearth period from May to September.
1984 was the take-off year for apiculture in the project area. Ten additional farmers were trained in bee keeping in June but the growth of the industry soon became a self-sustaining process as other farmers were trained by those already trained. New bee colonies were formed from existing colonies. Even bee -keeping boxes and frames were produced by local farmers for sale. The October 1984 - March Page 25 of 42
1985 Project Progress Report describes this development as follows, "There were 11 bee keepers in July 1984; by December the number of bee keepers had risen to 18; between January and March 1985, the number had further increased to 28. Within a period of nine months (July 1984 - March 1985) the number of bee keepers had increased from 11 to 28; the number of bee colonies increased from Mr. Nong’s ten colonies (in 1983/84) to 211 colonies." By March 1986, the number of beekeepers had reached 41, and the number of colonies, 350. It is interesting to note that although the training in bee keeping had been given to men, it came to be practiced almost exclusively by women who presumably acquired the skill from their menfolk.
Table 8 provides an illustration of the economics of bee keeping in the project area in early 1985 from a single bee keeper who specialized in honey production. Total honey production of five out of the six villages from October 1985 to March 1986 was 2 522 kg. However, at this level of production, the farmers were beginning to experience marketing problems. The price of honey varied from Baht 70 ($2.70) per kg at the peak of the production period in January -February to Baht 100 ($3.85) after the end of March. During this production period, the project office in Korat assisted in the sale of 595 kg of honey through informal channels and was exploring the possibility of developing more regular and permanent marketing arrangements which would continue after termination of Phase II of the project. Honey producers interviewed in mid-1986 expressed concern about falling prices but were still optimistic about prospects. Even at Baht 70 per kg, the margin of profit was attractive enough to motivate them to expand their operation.
Table 8: The economics of bee keeping in the project area illustrated by the actual accounts of one farmer over 20 months
Inputs Baht
Timber for production of 9 colonies 270
9 boxes of 9 frames each with metal cover 900
250 wax foundation sheets at Baht 25 each 6250
Sugar for supplementary feeding in May-July when pollen is 50 scarce (10 kg at Baht 5)
Paint for painting the boxes 900
310 Bottles (approx. 750 ml) at Baht 1 310
labour cost 8 days/month for 22 months at Baht 40/day 7040 (shadow cost)
Miscellaneous 1000
Total 16720 ($ 643)
Returns
Nov. 1983 - Apr. 1984; 250 bottles honey at Baht 100 from 25000 9 colonies
Nov. 1980 - Mar. 1985: 200 bottles honey at Baht 100 20000 (colonies increased to 17)
Sale of: 15 colonies (1 queen bee+5 full frames) at Baht 22500 1500 each
2 colonies (full) at 3000 each 6000
wax produced: 4 kg at Baht 150 600
50 queen bees at Baht 200 1000
Total 75100 ($2888)
Net Income
a. Including shadow labour cost 58380 ($2245) b. Discounting shadow labour cost 65420 ($2516)
Source: THA/81/004 Progress Report Oct. 1984 - Mar. 1985
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The success of the project in promoting apiculture has contributed to its spread beyond the project area to other villages of Pak Chong and Pak Thong Chai Districts. The RFD has adopted apiculture promotion as a regular feature of its forest village projects throughout the country and some 40 staff members assigned to these villages were trained by the project. A video tape and manual on bee keeping were produced as training aids. However, marketing issues are yet to be adequately addressed.
3.11 Fish raising promotion
Fish raising was another option introduced to the area by the project. At its simplest, it involved supplying fingerlings provided by the Korat Fisheries Station to the various public ponds and water reservoirs created by the project in the area. In order to promote more scientific fish raising,18 farmers and two project staff were given a five-day training course in practical aquaculture at the Korat Fisheries Station in May 1983. At the close of training, the trainees were provided with fingerlings to raise in their own ponds.
Very little resulted from this exercise for several reasons. Although the Korat Fisheries Station staff continued to make themselves available to advise farmers on aquiculture and to provide fingerlings as needed, no follow-up was made in the project area because of station staffing and budgetary constraints. In addition, the farmers were not motivated to set up ponds of their own as fish were already available for catching in the public ponds. Moreover, fresh fish from the large Lam Phra Phloeng reservoir was regularly brought to the villages for sale by small traders on motorcycles. There were exceptions that demonstrated the potential of aquaculture in the project area, however. One enthusiastic farmer of Khlong Hin Ron Village was in regular contact with the Korat Fisheries Station for advice and fingerlings and was raising several species of fish in four beautifully maintained fish ponds on his property.
3.12 Agricultural credit facilitation
The dependence of local farmers on informal sector creditors was discussed in Chapter 3. A major stumbling block in dealing with formal sector credit institutions such as commercial banks was the routine requirement of collateral for loans, usually in the form of a land deed in the case of a farmer. As has been pointed out, the project area farmers initially had no land holding rights whatsoever. Gradually they were issued STK usufructuary certificates which legitimized occupation of the land but rights were not transferable except to natural heirs. Because of this limitation, land thus held was normally unacceptable as loan collateral to commercial banks for the obvious reason that in the case of debt defaulting, such land could not be claimed in lieu of repayment.
In late 1982, discussions were initiated with the Government Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) on the prospects of providing loans to farmers in the project area. Following the issue of 237 STK certificates to farmers in the project area in early 1983, bank officials came to the area to hold discussions with farmers on loan conditions and loan issues generally. Credit application forms were given to 70 STK certificate -holding farmers. In July, one group of 13 and another of 24 farmers were asked to complete joint liability forms in order to qualify for consideration for loans. Of these, six of the first group and 13 of the second group (19 out of the original 70 applicants) eventually received loans of Baht 1 500- 2 000 ($58-77) each. BAAC loans could only be used for agricultural production and not, for example, for the purchase of household consumer goods such as food. Loan funds were used for labour hire, field preparation, fertilizer and insecticide. Reasons for disqualification, apart from credit risk, included age, failure to produce a marriage certificate, and lack of local residence registration. District Office personnel were instrumental in helping to correct these irregularities. In one week, for example, the Pak Thong Chai District Officer issued marriage certificates to 170 couples. All loans were repaid on time.
In the meantime, 60 new applicants were proposed to the bank for credit consideration of which 24 were accepted after screening. The previous 19 applied for new loans which were granted. Because of the perfect repayment record of the first group, the loan ceiling was raised to Baht 3 000. The loan repayment level for the second round was also 100 percent and the bank raised the ceiling to Baht 4 500 ($173).
In the second half of 1983, the Pak Thong Chai District Agricultural Extension Officer arranged for 63 project area farmers to join the newly formed Lam Phra Phloeng Cooperative, one of many cooperatives set up by the Department of Agricultural Cooperatives of the Ministry of Agriculture. Its main purpose is to make agricultural credit available to its members who are required to pay a fee of Baht 250 ($9.62). These fees are paid into the loan fund but the bulk is supplied by the BAAC. Cooperatives are popular because loan ceilings are higher than those of the BAAC and the policy with respect to the use of the loan funds is more flexible. They can be used to obtain rice for home consumption, for example. There are usually more applications than can be accepted. In 1983 and 1984, 203 loans were made to 140 project area beneficiaries in amounts ranging from Baht 5 000- 7 000 ($192-269). Payments were made partly in cash and partly in kind in the form of fertilizer, seed and rice. The loans were used for land preparation, fertilizer, seed and family sustenance. As in the case of the BAAC loans, the performance of the borrowers was monitored and guided by the project agronomist and the repayment rate was again 100 percent.
Overall achievements of the efforts to make agricultural credit available to project area farmers exceeded project targets by 21 percent. Between July 1983 and March 1986, a total of 303 loans were granted by the BAAC and the Cooperative in the cumulative amount of Baht 2 173 500 ($83 596).
While the project demonstrated that it was possible for farmers without land ownership title deeds to escape the grasp of private loan sharks, it does not follow that all had succeeded in doing so by the end of Phase II of the project. A survey of 390 households of the project area conducted in September 1985 revealed that 247 (63 percent) of these had sought and obtained loans at the time of the survey. For 60 percent of these borrowers, the loans had been obtained from the informal sector. The survey also covered 138 households in three villages just beyond the southwestern boundary of the project area in which the STK programme was not implemented. Here, 103 (75 percent) of the sampled households had obtained loans, 93 percent of which where provided by the informal sector. Although less than in other areas, the proportion of project area borrowers dealing with the private sector was still very high. An obvious explanation is that more time was needed for the farmers and the banks to fully appreciate the new opportunities. Many were probably intimidated by or impatient with the complicated screening procedures. In many cases, the farmers did not qualify for loans. Finally, although borrowing from town traders was financially disadvantageous, it does not follow that the farmers’ relationships with them were necessarily bad. In many cases, there were enduring relationships based on mutual trust and understanding with which the farmers were quite comfortable. Transactions were uncomplicated and the traders provided services the formal lending sector could not. For example, in a single visit to his regular trader in Pak Chong, a farmer could get an immediate loan, obtain fertilizer, insecticide and even food supplies, make arrangements, for a tractor to plow his land, for a truck to pick up his produce, etc. If funds were needed for a Page 27 of 42
wedding reception, funeral, or a Buddhist merit -making ceremony, these were also provided. The personal touch, the informality and the flexibility all contributed to dispose the farmers to go to the traders for their credit requirements rather than to an unknown, regulation- bound bank official.
Before concluding this section, mention must be made of another credit scheme which was launched at the end of 1985 in Khlong Kum, one of the new villages in the project area. Sponsored by the Department of Community Development, the Savings for Production Group was organized with an initial membership of 45 farmers. The first of these multi -purpose cooperatives was set UP around 1975 with the cooperation of the Krung Thai Bank, a Government-owned commercial bank. Basically, it is a scheme to organize groups of people who make regular deposits into a group savings plan. This amount is deposited in the group savings account in a branch of the Krung Thai Bank and earns interest (8 percent per annum in 1975). As this capital builds up, it is used as collateral for the savings groups to receive loans from the bank at the rate of interest of 10 percent per annum (in 1975). The actual cost of loans to individual members is the difference between the income derived from the interest on the savings and the rate of interest for the loan, namely 2 percent per annum in this case. The total of all loans at any given time cannot exceed the total amount deposited in the group savings account. As of mid- 1986, the Khlong Kum savings group, had not yet accumulated enough savings capital to guarantee loans to its members.
3.13 Social development promotion
Although the main thrust of the project was economic development through agriculture and agroforestry -related enterprises, several activities bearing on social development/social welfare were also part of the programme. Most important were those dealing with health care and education. In most instances, the programmes were carried out by the staff of the relevant Government agencies. The activities were coordinated by the project social scientist and subsidized by project funds .
The national health development policy stated that medical services, primary health care, vaccination of children, and health and sanitary education were to be provided to rural areas lacking such services due to remoteness and poor road conditions. The Korat provincial health authorities had planned to implement this policy in the project area in 1985 but given the clear need for these services, they agreed, at project request, to advance their schedule by two years.
Beginning in January 1983, a mobile medical team made up of two physicians and six health workers from the Korat Provincial Maharaj Hospital visited the area once a month. In the first nine months, 1 026 people were treated. Although periodic medical visits would continue, the plan was to transfer responsibility of this service to the three Government Sub-District Health Stations operating in the area (Raroeng, Wang Katha and Khlong Muang). These in turn would be assisted by a corps of village health communicators and health volunteers working under their supervision.
The selection process of project area village health communicators began in late 1983 and involved consultations and interviews with prospective candidates. Four years of primary education and ability to read and write in the Thai language were minimum requirements. A total of 117 candidates from 13 villages of the project area were given a one -week training course in April 1984. On their return to the villages, the performance of these trainees was monitored on a monthly basis through December 1984.
A major health -related issue is that of the quality of drinking water. Normally, the population uses stored rainwater for drinking and cooking and water from wells or ponds for other household purposes. The method of storing rainwater is to collect the run-off from the house roof in a large cement jar. A farmer having several of these jars can store enough water to last him until the next rainy season and not have to draw on stagnant and unhealthy sources of water for drinking. At the beginning of the project period, there was an acute shortage of storage jars in the area, at least partly because those sold in the market towns were too expensive. To remedy the problem, farmers were taught how to make the cement jars themselves and the availability of good drinking water on a year-round basis greatly increased in the project area.
3.14 Project staff development
RFD foresters trained in traditional forestry were often poorly equipped to cope with the human, socio-economic development aspect of community forestry. They needed to be trained in the "forests for people" idea. The persons most directly targeted by this activity were RFD staff assigned to work full time on the project in the project area, i.e. the Project Field Director and his Deputies. Other RFD staff were also involved in project staff development and efforts were made to integrate the learning experience of the project into the RFD system as a whole. Finally, the staff of other cooperating Government agencies were invited to participate in many of the exercises.
RFD field staff were constantly under a form of on-the-job training. They were involved in virtually all development activities of the project and often joined the farmers in training exercises, e.g. in apiculture, in order to be better able to assist them in putting theory into practice. Project staff always accompanied area farmers on the study tours. Because of the camaraderie that developed, the staff were able to get to know the farmers better and hence to work with them more effectively.
Formal training was also provided within the framework of the project. Two of the Deputy Field Directors were given scholarships for study at the Master's level, one in social forestry at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños, and the other in rural development planning at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. Shorter term (2-3 month) traveling scholarships were also awarded to other Deputies. Five took short courses in community forestry at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños. The Project Field Director was scheduled to take a three-month course in rural research and rural policy planning at Sussex University in the U.K. Finally, four external study tours to the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal were sponsored by the project to study the experiences of these countries in community forestry Four project staff and two project area farmers participated in each study tour.
As the project greatly emphasized development support communication, the Faculty of Communication Arts of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, was requested to organize and run five training workshop on this theme.
Page 28 of 42
Chapter 4 Impacts and lessons
4.1 Project outcome: the post-implementation project area
It is clear from the review of project implementation made in Chapter 3 that the project implementors merit a high grade for project administration. The project had four components: forest rehabilitation, socio-economic development, project staff development, and infrastructural development. All activities scheduled under each component were executed and the target achievement performance for each activity was, by and large, excellent. However, the project must be judged by the extent to which its forestry and socio-economic objectives were met. Were the design and implementation of the project such that they brought about marked improvements in the project area from the point of view of both the forest environment and the condition of the people?
The best way to answer the question and to judge the impacts of the project is to consider the changes that have taken place in the project area since 1981.
4.2 The natural environment
The reforestation of 1 163 ha of degraded forestland reported in Chapter 3 has considerably improved conditions in the project area. Land use for tree plantations or for cropping in the project area was planned on the basis of soil suitability studies and on the basis of ecological considerations such as watershed protection. The objective was the achievement of a land use pattern which was acceptable from both forestry and socio-economic development perspectives. As noted previously, there was considerable resistance by the people to the implementation of this plan, especially in the first years of the project. In most cases, the resistance was gradually overcome. Although a new physical survey would be required to fully document progress, the economic analysis of agricultural enterprise that follows shows clearly that much has been achieved in the improvement of land use in the project area. However, as late as 1986 there were still farmers laying claim to and cropping agriculturally marginal land earmarked for reforestation. More time is needed to convince all farmers so that both tree plantation and agricultural development can profitably proceed according to plan.
4.3 The project area society
The sections that follow describe the 1986 project area society as reflected by socio-economic sample surveys and studies conducted in late 1985 and 1986, complemented by the writer’s own observations during visits to the project area in mid-1986. The most frequent references are to the economic survey of 300 households in 16 villages (Wuthipol Haomuangkaew, 1986), the 40 household economic survey (RESEARCH 1986),and the social survey of 277 households in 20 villages (Thanawadee Boonlue, 1986).
No formal census of the project area population was taken but the number of households is estimated to have increased by 267 to about 1 560 households. Given the mean household size of 5.3 members supplied by the economic survey (down from 6.7 members in 1981), the total population then would be about 8 145 persons. The demographic characteristics of this population were not very different from those noted for 1981. The average age of the head of household was 41 and there was naturally a slight increase in the 60 and older age group. On average, three of the five household members were of labour force age. The number of children per family had dropped from a mean of 4.7 in 1981 to 4.1 in 1985.
The educational level of heads of households and their spouses as regards Formal schooling remained substantially unchanged with 13 percent of the former and 20.2 percent of the latter never having attended school and the remainder having only four years or less of elementary schooling. The social survey report provides no information on the educational status of other household members of the sample but as several new schools had been opened since 1981 and as most schools teach the full six years of the elementary cycle, one can assume that the younger generation was getting more education than had its parents. An FAO-commissioned nutrition study reporting on the nine elementary schools in the project implementation area in 1985 indicates that there were 349 pupils in grade 1 and 195 pupils in grade 6. It should also be noted that although adults had not completed much formal education, many had taken advantage of non- formal educational opportunities provided by the project to acquire a wide range of new vocational skills.
The pattern of villages was less amorphous than that reported earlier as resulting from spontaneous or planned consolidation of scattered homesteads into cluster villages, mostly in relation to new physical infrastructure development such as roads and weirs. Although the population increased only slightly, the number of such concentrations almost doubled since 1981. However, when the new forest villages were visited in mid -1986, it was found that in many cases, the families actually living in the new settlements were only a part of the total village administrative unit population. The others lived scattered throughout the village territory.
Many of the new villages were developing service infrastructures and institutions catering to the needs of the community as a whole. This development, brought about mainly as a result of villager initiative, revealed the extent to which the transition to the status of a normal Thai rural community was being achieved. Villagers began building simple temples at such a rate that religious authorities had to moderate their ardor as there were not enough people to support clergy in all desired locations. There were nine elementary schools in the project implementation area in 1985. For two of these (in Khlong Makka Hin and Khlong Hin Rong villages), the school houses were built at the initiative and expense of the villagers themselves who also contacted the Government authorities to provide a teaching staff for them. These same authorities were also being petitioned to provide a secondary school in the area. Many of the villages also had small shops selling household necessities, and food stands providing places for villagers to meet and socialize.
The earlier studies had commented on the lack of cohesiveness and of community spirit of the 1981 population in the project area, a situation that was attributed to the fact that most were recent migrants from different villages and consequently viewed one another as strangers. Although project staff and villagers continued to indicate that the population was individualistic, untrusting and lacking in community spirit, the examples of community action in relation to school and temple building indicate that community consciousness was not lacking. There are other examples. Traditional cooperative labour-exchange groups for crop planting and harvesting were found to operate in some of the villages visited. The formation of joint liability groups for the purpose of obtaining agricultural credit described in Chapter 2 necessitated a high degree of mutual trust among members.
As a result of road development and the availability of public transportation, communications within the area and with the outside had Page 29 of 42
vastly improved. Although access to some more remote communities remained difficult and travel during the rainy season was still a problem, there was much more mobility than in the past. It was easier for the villagers to travel to other villages and to the market towns, and more outsiders came into the villages.
The physical living conditions, at least of the households living in the new forest villages, had improved as the villages were well planned by RFD architects and properly landscaped. Complaints were still heard about water shortages due to problems with the water reservoirs but the capacity to store rain water had increased as the villagers were now producing their own cement water storage jars. The percentage of households having toilets had risen from less than 10 percent to about 25 percent. Most were water-sealed cesspool toilets.
In 1985, FAO undertook a systematic survey of the food intake of 484 families in the project area. The major dietary components were found to be rice, fermented fish, and the three vegetables which grow well, leucaena, basil and morning glory, along with bananas, oranges and papaya. Pork lard or vegetable oil was used frequently to fry foods. Many other foods were consumed on a less than daily basis, including fresh fish, eggs and, surprisingly, bread. Child nutrition was still inadequate, however; according to the records of the medical team working in the area in 1984, almost 75 percent of the toddlers treated suffered from some degree of malnutrition and anaemia was common among children.
According to the same records, common ailments among children were bronchitis, anaemia and typhoid. Among adults, the common ailments were headache, backache, peptic ulcer, otitis media, chronic eczema, acute tonsillitis, abdominal and chest pain, muscle pain, insomnia, etc. Significantly, there is no mention of malaria which was common in 1981.
As noted earlier, a primary health care system had been operating in the project are since mid -1984. There was also much greater use made of sub-district health stations, now three in number, mainly because in the past they could only be reached with great difficulty because of lack of roads.
In 1981, in most cases, the population resorted to self-treatment when illness struck, but according to the social survey report, self- treatment was practiced in only 17 percent of the cases in 1985. The rest received professional treatment either at the health stations or at hospitals outside the project area. Likewise, more and more women went to these institutions for child delivery. A related development was an increased interest in family planning. The number practicing birth control went from 25 to 53 of the sampled households.
4.4 The project area economy
4.4.1 Land holding, tenurial status, land use
The data of the economic survey on agricultural land holding in 1985 are summarized in Tables 9 and 10. Table 11 provides a comparison of these data with those yielded by the 1982 economic survey. While these two sets’ of data are not strictly comparable because they were derived from different samples, they do provide indications of the changes taking place.
The mean size of holding for all categories of farmers had increased from 25 to 31 rai. Most significantly, those of the marginal farmers went from 5 to 8.16 rai. Mean holdings of small farmers went from 13.7 to 16.7 rai. The situation of medium farmers was relatively unchanged but for large farmers, the mean size of their holdings increased dramatically from 59.6 to 92.9 rai. This latter statistic is quite serious given. the goal of the project to help farmers earn a livelihood from 15 rai plots and thereby address the problem of forest encroachment.
While in 1981 the largest proportion of the sample farmers (46 percent) were in the medium farmer category, in the 1985 sample, their proportion had shrunk to 36 percent. Increases in the large farmer category were marginal, from 12 to 13 percent, but the proportion of the marginal and small farmers as a group jumped to 50 percent of the whole sample, i.e. half of the sampled farmers (as compared to 43 per-cent in 1981) held less than 20 rai of land.
Increased disparity among the sampled farmers is most clear when differential access to available land is considered. In the 1985 sample, marginal and small farmers (50 percent of the group) occupied 22 percent of the area of all holding. Large farmers (13 percent of the sample) occupied 40 percent of the total area. Farmers in the medium category were 36 percent of the sample and held 39 percent of the total area.
How this situation of greatly expanded area of land under cultivation developed in the 1981-1985 interval and, more specifically, how the relatively small number of 1985 large farmers were able to so dramatically increase the size of their holdings and consequently the extent of their control over the whole area, requires further examination. As the earlier surveys were conducted under very difficult conditions, the possibility of enumeration error cannot be ruled out. If, however, the facts are as reported and 85 percent of the surface of the project area set aside for agricultural exploitation was already occupied in 1981, there was simply not enough left to account for the level of expansion of land holding taking place in the years that followed. This suggests that it was accomplished by further illegal encroachment of forestland.
Table 9 : Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1985 economic survey sample (1)
Farm size group Number of Percent of Total area farmed Percent of Mean size per (rai-ha) holdings total by the group area farmed holding (rai/ha) holdings (rai/ha) by all groups
01-09/0.2-1.4 54 19 441/70.5 5 8.2/1.3 Page 30 of 42
10-19/1.6-3.0 89 31 1488/238.0 17 16.7/2.7
20-29-/.2-4.6 53 19 1400/224.0 16 26.4/4.2
30-39/4.8-6.2 33 12 1253/200.5 14 38.0/6.1
40-49/6.4-7.8 17 6 800/128.0 10 47.1/7.5
50+/8+ 38 13 3527/564.3 40 92.8/14.9
All sizes 284 100 8908/1,425.4 100 31.37/5.02
Source: Wuthipol Hoamuangkaew 1986, p.6
Table 10 : Size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1985 economic survey sample (2)
Farm size group Number of Percent of Total area farmed Percent of Mean size per (rai-ha) holdings total by the group area holding (rai/ha) holdings (rai/ha) farmed by all groups
Marginal farmers 54 19 440.8/70.5 5 8.2/1.3
(01-09/0.2-1.4)
Small farmers -89 31 1487.8/238.0 17 16.8/2.7
(10-19/1.6-3.0)
Medium farmers 103 36 3453.0/552.5 39 33.5/5.4 (20-49/3.2-7.9)
Large farmers 38 13 3527.0/564.3 40 92.8/14.9 (50+/8+)
All farmers 284 100 8908.5/1425.4 100 31.4/5.0
Source: Wuthipol Hoamuangkaew 1986, p.6
As explained previously, despite the fact that, at best, they held usufructuary rights, land holders continued to claim ownership rights and dispose of land as if they were legal owners. According to the economic survey report, of the 300 sampled households, 236 (79 per-cent) claimed ownership of all their holding, 58 (19 percent) owned some and rented some of this land, and six (2 percent) were renters only. About 88 percent of the area of all holdings of the sample was claimed by the occupiers as their own land, roughly the same situation as in 1981. These figures include 16 households of the sample who did not engage in crop production and extend to all land held including house ground.
No new detailed data are available on the extent to which the total area of holdings was actually utilized for crop production. The 40 household survey provides the figure of 18 percent as the mean proportion of uncultivated land per holding in this sample.
4.4.2 Farm and non-farm enterprise
In the 1985 crop year, maize continued to dominate farm production but other crops which represented an insignificant quantity in 1981 were beginning to take on more importance. According to the 40 farmer survey, the mean distribution of crops as a proportion of the total area cultivated was as follows:
Maize 84% Cotton 3%
Cassava 3% Tobacco - Page 31 of 42
Mung beans 3% Groundnuts -
Fruit trees 3% Rice 2%
Chili -% other 2%
This distribution is generally consistent with the project estimate of crops given in Table 9 which, however, omits fruit tree growing. Most of the new crops were grown instead of maize during the August to February second season. Maize still greatly predominated in the first season (March-July).
As reported by the economic survey, annual maize production increased considerably, from an average of 8 800 kg per household in 1981 to 12 653 kg per household in 1985. As average crop yields per area planted were virtually identical for both years, about 470 kg per rai, it would appear that the increase in production was due to the expansion of the area planted under maize, a rather depressing conclusion given the project extension efforts to increase production on a constant land base. However, the fact that crop yields were maintained for some at 1981 levels despite continued maize monocropping leading to soil nutrient depletion is an accomplishment in itself, probably explained by the use of better seed strains and chemical fertilizer application. More than one half of the farmers sampled in the’ economic survey reported using more than 90 kg of fertilizer with a mean of 309 kg per household in the 1985 crop year. There was, however, great disparity in productivity, probably relating to inputs and land quality. The 40 household survey shows that almost 40 percent of the sampled maize producers obtained yields at least 500 kg per rai, 17 percent had yields in the 600-700 kg range and 2 percent achieved yields exceeding 1 000 kg per rai. On the other hand, almost 17 percent of the farmers had yields of less than 200 kg per ha. One suspects that they were cropping agriculturally marginal land.
Table 11 Comparison of size and distribution of holdings in agricultural land, 1985 economic surveys
Farm size group Percent of total Percent of area Mean size per holdings (rai/ha) holdings farmed by all groups
1981 1985 1981 1985 1981 1985
Marginal farmers 15 19 3 5 5.0/0.8 8.2/1.3
(1-9/0.2-1.4)
Small farmers 28 31 16 17 13.1/2.2 16.7/2.7
(10-19/1.6-3.0)
Medium farmers 46 36 54 39 29.2/4.7 33.5/5.4
(20-49/3.2-7.8)
Large farmers 12 13 28 40 59.5/9.5 92.8/14.9
(50+/8+)
All farmers 100 100 100 100 24.9/4.0 31.4/5.0
Sources: Wuthipol Hoamuangkaew 1986, p. 6;
Sumeth Kaenmanee, et al. 1982, p. 11
Table 12 summarizes the data on livestock production generated by the 1985 economic survey. In 1981, only chicken production was deemed important enough to report on. The main development is the considerable increase in cattle raising -almost 20 percent of the sampled farmers reported owning at least one animal; however, this source provides no information on the size of herds.
Non-farm activities provided another source of income for the project area population. Those listed by the economic survey report include: employment by the project to tend tree plantations; casual labour; trading; charcoal making; fishery; and other. This last item presumably includes such activities as bee raising, carpentering, vehicle operation, dress-making, etc. The only activity engaged in by a substantial proportion of the 300 sampled households (52 percent) was casual labour, presumably working for hire on larger farms, followed by employment by the project and trading (31 households or 10 percent of the sample each). Each of the remaining activities employed 8 households or less. The most remunerative of these (engaged in by 8 households) was that in the "other" category said to provide a mean annual income of Baht 40 533 ($1 560) per household. The seven households engaging in fishery were said to have earned an average income of Baht 19 764 from this enterprise. Data on the number and income of households involved in charcoal production tend to be unreliable for, as practiced, it was illegal and for a farmer to admit engaging in it would be self-incriminating. It is known however that it was widely practiced. Farmers interviewed in mid -1986 estimated that income that could be derived from charcoal Page 32 of 42
production was in the order of Baht 20 000-30 000 a year.
Table 12. Livestock production of the 1985 economic survey 300 household sample
Kinh of livestock No. of livestock Producers No. (% of sample)
Cattle 273 59(20)
Buffalo 69 17(6)
Swine 56 22(7)
Chicken 4703 231(77)
Duck 286 21(7)
Note: Some farmers raised more than one type of animal.
Source: Wuthipol Hoamuangkaew, 1986, p. 16
Table 13. Net income (gross income minus farm enterprise related expenditures) of the 40 household survey samples, 1985
Range of income (Baht) Percent of households
less than 7 000 15
7 000 - 14 000 15
14 000 - 21 000 24
21 000 - 28 000 5 Mean: 29 369
28 000 - 35 000 16 Min: 30
35 000 - 42 000 8 Max: 115 250
42 000 - 49 000 5
49 000 – 56 000 4
more than 56 000 8
Source: RESEARCH 1986, p. 20
4.4.3 Income, expenditure, borrowing
The analysis that follows is based on the data of the 40 household survey report, the only source supplying comprehensive and consistent data. Qualifications are made as appropriate on the basis of the data provided by the larger economic survey. The analysis provides a reasonably accurate and reliable account of the 40 household sample and its conclusions illustrative of trends in the project area population as a whole 1
Income in the project area can be grouped for purposes of accounting into four broad categories. The first and most substantial is maize production. The second is the production of other crops, the most important of which are cassava, fruits (mostly mangoes), cotton and mung beans. The third category is livestock production: cattle, buffaloes, pigs, chickens and ducks (birds as well as eggs). The last category groups all other on-farm or off-farm activity including agriculture, fishery, charcoal production, trading, casual labour, etc. The mean gross income per household in the 40 household survey study was Baht 41 322 (US$l 590). The breakdown by source is as follows:
Page 33 of 42
(Baht)
Maize 24936 (60%)
Other agricultural products 3626 (9%)
Livestock 3142 (8%)
Other 9593 (23%)
This is considerably higher than the corresponding figure for 1981 of Baht 15 700 (US$686). Although mean income from maize production had greatly increased (from Baht 14 575 to Baht 24 963), while maize production accounted for almost 93 percent of the total gross income in 1981, in 1985, 40 percent of this income was derived from other sources.
The 40 household survey study puts the mean expenditure for farm enterprise-related inputs per household at Baht 11 953 (US$460). The expenditures relate to out-of-pocket expenses as opposed to the use of items which are available on the farm but not paid for in cash, for example, family labour or seed stored from a previous crop. Given the relative importance of maize in overall production, it is not surprising to find that expenses for maize made up almost 88 percent of the total. Items selected by the study for inclusion in this category of expenses and their share of total reported expenses are as follows:
(Baht)
Seed 281 (3%)
Chemical fertilizer and insecticide 2649 (22%)
Labour hire 3521 (29%)
Tractor hire 2616 (22%)
Transport of produce and inputs 1591 (13%)
Other costs 1296 (11%)
Here again, the sum of these expenses is considerably higher than the mean reported for 1981. At that time, production-related expenditures were dominated by labour hire, tractor hire and transportation, the costs of which added up to an average of Baht 7 604 (US$331) per farmer.
After deducting mean farm enterprise -related expenses per house-hold (Baht 11 953) from mean gross income from these enterprises (Baht 41 322), the mean net annual income per household for the 40 household survey for 1985 was Baht 29 369 (US$l 130) (see Table 13). This is nearly four times that of the 1981 sample, Baht 7 500 (US$326).
It should be noted that these calculations do not include loan interest payments which perhaps should be counted among the farm enterprise expenditures costs because virtually all borrowings were made for this purpose. The issue of loans and debt servicing is examined in more detail in the context of overall household finances but the findings of the survey indicate that the average loan interest payment per household in 1985 was Baht 3 3965. If this item is included in the enterprise input costs, then the mean net annual income per household was Baht 25 973 (US$999). There are no 1981 data available for comparison.
About 40 percent of the sample households achieved the mean range of income and 60 percent earned less that that. The largest number (24 percent) were in the Baht 14 000-21 000 range. About 31 percent earned less than Baht 14 000. More than 80 percent of the sample achieved net incomes that were higher than the 1981 mean of Baht 7 500. In order to understand the full implication of these statistics in terms of relative wealth or poverty, they need to be related to the cost of living of the households in this environment. These are summarized in Table 14 for the 40 household survey samples.
Essential household expenditures include on1y those made to provide family members with day-to-day necessities and not those for "luxuries" such as sweets for children, liquor, cigarettes, etc. The costs listed also do not include the value of household farm produce consumed by the family. Average annual essential household expenditure was Baht 12 990 (US$500) in 1985. Almost 70 percent of this was for food, about two -thirds of which was rice. Other items in order of importance were health care-related expenses, clothing, children’s schooling, fuelwood and/or charcoal. The mean value of Baht 91 cited for this last item is clearly unrealistic and under-reported. According to another survey cited earlier, average charcoal consumption per household was some 8 500 kg, worth approximately Baht 765.
The writers of the report estimate the mean value of household farm produce consumed in the home of the producers to be Baht 3 342. The main items were fruits, poultry, fish/game and charcoal. The last item was valued at Baht 458 which again appears to be low. If the value of these items is added to that of the essential household expenditures, total average cost in cash and in kind of essential goods and services per household is Baht 16 332 (US$628). Page 34 of 42
Other expenses reported in the household accounts include loan interest payments, donations and taxes. Of these items, loan interest payment is the largest, averaging Baht 3 400 per household with a very wide range of variation. Given the importance of this issue in evaluating the economic situation of this population, it is discussed in greater depth later in this report. The content of the donation item averaging Baht 1 091 per household is not spelled out. Presumably, this refers mainly to "merit-making" activity which is a standard feature of Thai rural society. Land rent payments are not mentioned specifically but might have been included in the "other" category under essential household expenditures of Table 14, since on1y 7 percent of the total land was reported as rented land. Land rental cost for the area in 1985 was Baht 200 per rai.
Table 14. Mean total household expenditures of the 40 household survey samples (in Baht) for 1985
1. Essential household expenditure 12 990 (74%)
Rice 5 272 (41%)
Other basic food 3 584 (28%)
Health care 1 506 (12%)
Education 532 (4%)
Clothing 1 221 (9%)
Fuelwood/charcoal 91 (1%)
Other 779 (6%)
Sub-total (100%)
2. Loan interest payments 3 400 (19%)
3. Donations 1 094 (6%)
4. Taxes 110 (1%)
Total 17 594 (100%)
minimum: Baht 3130
maximum: Baht 158800
source : RESEARCH 1986, p. 21-23
The mean total cash household expenditure of the 40 household survey samples was, therefore, Baht 17 594 (US$677) in 1985. The smallest amount spent by a household was Baht 3 130 and the largest, Baht 158 800. It would seem that the main factor accounting for this variation was fund borrowing for agricultural production to which we now turn.
This source does not indicate how many of the sampled households received loans in 1985 but on the basis of the larger economic survey finding of almost 75 percent of its sample receiving loans, we can assume that it was in the same order in this case and therefore high. Thirty-one of the 40 household sample borrowers received their loans from informal sector lenders, predominantly traders in Pak Chong. The distribution of loaned amounts from this source is shown in Table 15. About 50 percent of the loans clustered in the Baht 2 000-6 000 range but 22 percent of the loans exceeded Baht 10 000 which accounts for the high mean amount of Baht 14 188 for all samples. Interest rates on loans from this source were high; for about 50 percent of the loans it was 5 percent per month, but for 40 percent it was even higher. A few respondents claimed that they had received interest- free loans but one suspects that such loans were made as part of a contractual arrangement with a trader whereby crops harvested would be delivered to him at lower than open market prices.
Table 15. Range of loans and credit from informal sector lenders of the 40 household survey samples (in Baht) for 1985
Range of amounts Percentage of borrowers
0 - 1 000 3
1 000 - 2 000 9 Page 35 of 42
2 000 - 3 000 17
3 000 - 4 000 7
4 000 - 5 000 20
5 000 - 6 000 7
6 000 - 7 000 3
7 000 - 8 000 0
8 000 - 9 000 3
9 000 -10 000 9
more than 10 000 22
Mean: Baht 14 188
Max.: Baht 300 000
Source: RESEARCH 1986, p. 28-29
Table 16. Household finacial balances (total earnings minus total expenditures of the 40 household survey sampled in 1985
Range of balances in Baht Percent of households
More than (10 000) 6
(10 000) - ( 5 000) 8
( 5 000) - 0 22
0 - 5 000 12
5 000 - 10 000 10
10 000 - 15 000 10
15 000 - 20 000 10
20 000 - 25 000 4
25 000 - 30 000 2
30 000 - 35 000 8
more than 35 000 8
Mean: Baht 11 775/$ 453
Min: " (43 550) / ($ 1 675)
Max: " 74 520/$ 2 866
Source: RESEARCH 1986, p. 25-26
Note: Fingures in parentheses are negative balances
More information than that provided by the 1986 studies is needed to fully evaluate this situation. From a study of covariation between the most important interactive variables, the researchers of the 40 household survey found that the ratios of correlation between total amount of loans and credits, size of holding, total inputs value, and income are significant. Minimum implications are that income is related to the correct use of agricultural inputs which in turn underlies the necessity of a credit system enabling the farmers to buy the inputs. One should add that a critical factor in the linkage between agricultural credit and income is the capacity or ability of the farmer to manage Page 36 of 42
credit to one’s advantage, especially in the case of high cost loans provided by the informal sector. Large farmers are at an advantage in this regard in the sense that they have enough land to absorb added inputs made available by loans that generate greater income. Al though it is more difficult, a small farmer with minimum required factors of production can also make a profit. Relationships with town traders providing loans even at 5 percent per month can be businesslike and mutually beneficial, even if usurious rates of interest are not justified. However, one suspects that it was mainly the poor credit risk small farmer, hard pressed for cash to survive, who paid the exorbitant 10-15 percent per month rates of interest.
4.4.4 Household financial balances
The overall financial balances of the 40 households are summarized in Table 16. According to these data, in 36 percent of the sampled households, household expenses exceeded household earnings. In about two-thirds of the cases, the negative balance was Baht 5 000 or less. Some 12 percent of the households had surpluses of Baht 5 000 or more, and about 30 percent had surpluses of Baht 5 000-20 000 range.
If the negative balances are interpreted as debts, (true unless deficits could be covered by household savings), one could venture the following financial classification of the sampled farmers:
Indebted farmers (5000+) 14%
Break-even farmers (5000) - 5000 34%
Middle income farmers 5000 - 20000 30%
Upper income farmers 20000+ 22%
The disparity in financial position of these farmers was very wide indeed but most were at least coping and one-half of the sample was doing very well by local standards. It would be valuable to know what use was made of the financial surpluses, for example how much was invested in farm enterprise improvement or retained as savings, but unfortunately this information is not available.
4.5 Forestry project impacts
Reforestation accomplishments of the project and their impact on the natural environment have been described earlier in this report. This section focuses on the extent to which the specific forestry objectives of the project were achieved.
On the whole, the population affected was very positive about the project. Questioned about the interventions they were most appreciative of and felt most important, invariably road construction was ranked first, followed by the advocacy role of the project in obtaining development benefits from many sources.
A most visible and outstanding accomplishment of the project was the transformation of the area from a disorganized and backward frontierland to what by Thai national standards is a nearly normal rural social environment. The people enjoy legitimate status as occupants of the land. They live in functional village communities with normal community social infrastructures and participate in normal community activities. As they are now national mainstream rural communities, standard Government services (education, health, local administration, security and agricultural support) are provided. There is normal interaction between communities within the area and with market and urban centers outside. Although the level of social development still leaves room for much improvement, at least mechanisms by which it can be brought about are in place.
Considerable improvement has been achieved in the sphere of economic development. The land-holding situation of marginal and small farmers has improved and is much closer to the 15 rai norm set by the project STK programme. There is increasing diversification in cropping resulting in reduced risk from market price fluctuation of the still-dominant maize crop. Although maize crop yields are low for many, spectacular harvests have been achieved by an important segment of the farmer population through improved practices. The average income of this group has nearly tripled in the lifetime of the project. More and more farmers are gaining access to formal sector agricultural credit.
One of the major challenges of the project was to assist farmers having full access to only 15 rai of land to achieve economic viability. A number of agroforestry-related enterprises which were introduced to the area show promise in this respect. Beekeeping, fruit tree plantation and forest grazing of cattle seem to belong to this category.
Hopefully, other proposed forestry-related innovations will prove to be important in the future. These include: private forest tree plantations for sale to wood consuming industries, use as construction material or for fuelwood and charcoal production; or intercropping cash crops with trees. Although some enthusiasm for forest tree plantation was generated in the final years of the project, it appeared to be waning for lack of demonstrated profitability. Clearly, improved markets and more time as well as more forestry extension efforts are needed for such enterprises to really begin to take off.
Community forestry is fostered with the expectation that popular participation in tree plantation will not only contribute to an increase in resources for local farmers but will also contribute to the replenishment of national forest resources. This is beginning to happen in the project area; enthusiastically in relation to fruit trees, much more haphazardly for other species. Page 37 of 42
4.6 Problem areas
Most of the problems referred to so far might be described as transitory and correctable within the capacity of current project procedures. As stressed often in these pages, the forestry project does not end with the phasing out of technical assistance. It will be carried on following the same tested procedures by the RFD as part of its routine mandate here and in its other forest village project areas. The implication then is that over time, the activities which are presently lagging will achieve their planned objectives.
The solution to other more serious and unanticipated problems which called into question a basic concept of the project is more problematical. Reference is made here to the huge disparity in income and size of land holding among project area farmers. The problem in the project area is that maize cultivation continues to be the farmers' basic enterprise and though income enhancement on this basis has been achieved to some extent by improved practices, it is accomplished mainly by expanding the area under cultivation. The increase in level of mean income of this population over the past few years is clearly linked to this practice. It follows then that disparity of income is likewise a direct consequence of disparity in farm sizes. The position of farmers with marginal-size holdings engaging only in cash cropping is untenable. The only way to achieve an equitable distribution of income would be a more equitable distribution of land, but this is not possible given present Government forestland policy in the project area.
By present STK regulations, only smal1 farmers holding STK certificates are fully legitimate. There is reason to believe that most also belong to the "break-even" category of farmers, coping, but poorly. These low levels of income have hampered the performance of the forest village projects, causing them to grow more slowly and be less stable than anticipated because the farmers want more and seek better opportunities in other contexts. The same problem is also reported for other RFD forest village projects, including those of the FIO. The long-term solution built into the project is to bring all project area farmers under the STK programme, each 15 rai holding becoming financially viable through the practice of agroforestry-related enterprises. Any land left over would constitute a communal pool to be rented out for orchards, village woodlots, etc. While theoretically sound, the practical difficulties of implementing such a plan are formidable. The STK programme policy in relation to permissible size of holding has never been popular in the project area and it is unrealistic to expect farmers controlling the 68 percent of as yet unallocated agricultural land (as of 1986) to cede their claim to it without recourse to legal and police action.
Official land policy in relation to making forestland available to landless farmers is currently under review and has been the object of several studies since 1980. There are those who question the appropriateness of land licensing programmes on the basis of usufruct concessions in general, and of the STK programme in particular. It is argued that in areas designated for implementation, STK programme regulations are neither observed nor enforceable. It is further argued that although the purpose of awarding STK certificates is security of tenure for the forestland encroachers, the effect is often the opposite. Before project implementation, the encroachers felt reasonably secure on their holdings in the knowledge that although they occupied the land illegally, no one would physically expel them because of the political consequences. Now they have become a focus of attention and the possibility of retaining more than 15 rai of land is questionable.
The land reform programme of Thailand administered by the Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives provides an alternative to the STK programme model that is worthy of consideration in this context. It also operates in degraded forestland areas, the difference being that these areas have been degazetted as reserved forestland and jurisdiction over them has been transferred from the RFD to ALRO. It also is involved in reforestation as ALRO rules require them to reserve 20 percent of their implementation area for this purpose. Likewise, occupation of the land is legalized on the basis of a usufructuary right certificate but, as opposed to the STK certificates conferred thus far, the ALRO certificates grant permanent rights.
Another basic difference between the two programmes is that the ALRO programme recognizes Squatters ’ rights so that any occupier required to cede part of his holding is entitled to compensation. The maximum permissible size of holding is normally 50 rai (8 ha). Any land held in excess of that must be sold to ALRO. A minimum size of holding is set by the local Provincial Land Reform Committee. Land up to the minimum viable size is made available to farmers lacking it but they must purchase it from ALRO.
Long-term credit is provided at low interest rates for this purpose. The current (1987) trend in ALRO is to make possible the transition towards the full normalization of the land tenure rights by giving farmers regular land ownership titles from the Department of Lands in place of their usufructuary right certificates.
While this approach appears to be more realistic, the issue requires more study and reflection. An evolution in this direction would require some redefinition of the role of the RFD and logically of the involvement of ALRO in community forestry project implementation. At present, the RFD has neither the staff nor the budgetary structure to implement this style of land redistribution programme. However, this approach does not in any way conflict with the pursuit of the forestry and socio-economic objectives of the project.
4.7 Lessons of the project
It is clear that despite some negative outcomes due to factors beyond the control of the implementors, the achievements of the project have been substantial. The project was not designed as an isolated activity, however, but was planned in relation to on-going. RFD forest village programmes to generate and demonstrate improved procedures for more effective implementation. To the extent that they proved to be successful, these were to be replicated in all such RFD programmes. It is useful then to examine the procedures and styles of operation of the project and their relationship to its performance in order to identify the lessons learned from this activity.
A major problem with the project was that it was planned and imposed from the top on a population that was not consulted and which was not given a choice to accept or reject it. Although planned with the benefit of the people in mind, it was not so perceived by them. Initial reactions of the forestland encroachers to the project were very negative, stemming from their perception of foresters as law enforcement officers. They were naturally suspicious and fearful that the project would lead to their eviction and the loss of their land and livelihood. A first major task of the project implementors, therefore, was to reassure them that this would not happen, and to develop relationships of trust. Second, the people had to be persuaded to acceptor at lease not to resist the reforestation activity planned for the project even when it was carried out on land claimed by the encroachers. They also had to be persuaded to accept the land -holding scheme set down by the STK programme regulations. Finally, the project implementors had to obtain the active cooperation and involvement of the people in the various activities pertaining to their own socio -economic development. At this point, nothing was imposed and full scope was given Page 38 of 42
to people’s participation, based on the provision of a variety of development options.
The degree of success achieved in these various tasks has already been noted. That it was accomplished without violence, especially in the more sensitive areas of intervention, bears witness to the effectiveness of the approach used. Basic to this approach was a deliberate effort to establish meaningful communication between project staff and the project area population. Most dialogue and communication with the people was conducted in village settings rather than in formal meetings which might have inhibited spontaneous and frank exchanges. A number of goodwill gestures were made to convince the people of the seriousness of the intention of the project implementors to help them and not just to work at forest rehabilitation.
The public relations strategy bore fruit in that several progressive village leaders gained an understanding of both the forestry and rural development objectives of the project, and of their benefits to the people. They supported the project, helped convince their fellow villagers of its usefulness and provided project staff with advice and feedback from the population on appropriate project implementation approaches.
Given its socio-economic development objectives, a special concern of the project was RFD staff development in community forestry and in forestry extension. The formal training which was provided in these areas is difficult to evaluate at this point as it took place only toward the end of Phase II of the project. More basic than formal knowledge, however, was the creation of a new state of mind in the foresters, a willingness to empathize with the population and to attend to their welfare in the pursuit of their duties as foresters. This was stressed continuously by project management, especially by the Chief Technical Adviser. An opinion survey of the project area population included in the social survey gave the project foresters a high rating in this respect.
Another characteristic of the project which should be highlighted is its coordinating role in relation to cooperating Government agencies and its advocacy role in favour of the people. The mechanism built into the project to involve local development-oriented Government agencies in its activity was a Cabinet-approved coordinating committee chaired by the Provincial Governor and including senior officials of the agencies concerned. Rather than rely on calling formal meetings with set agendas to discuss and approve project work plans, the Chief Technical Adviser of the project found it more convenient and fruitful to meet the committee members individually to discuss and finalize actual participation arrangements.
The potential problem in relation to the involvement of the several Government agencies participating in projects is sluggish cooperation and poor coordination. Government departments are traditionally jealous of their autonomy and there is a reluctance to act on directives from another department or to make contributions to a project for which another agency will get the credit. Coordination mechanisms tend to be weak and ineffective. When effective interagency coordination takes place, it is usually on the basis of personal relationships.
Beyond the commitment of the Royal Thai Government, two other factors also contributed to the success the project achieved in marshaling cooperation and fostering coordination in this multi-agency venture. There is no doubt that two factors were of particular importance; the special status of the project as a United Nations-sponsored enterprise; and the effectiveness of the FAO Chief Technical Advisor both because of his personal qualities and because of the prestige of his position. Requests to cooperating agencies for action tended to be acted on more rapidly than in other Government projects. The project also had the flexibility to support the work of cooperating agencies. For example, the work of agricultural extension workers was constantly hampered by inadequate fuel supply for their vehicles. The project supplied additional fuel to ease the situation. The project also set up its own coordinating mechanism. Meetings of project and associated staff of all agencies were held monthly either in Korat or in the project area to review work in progress, consider problems and their solutions, and to generally share experience.
The advocacy role of the project staff also included that of drawing attention to specific needs for services for the project area population and of providing the population with information on which services were available and how they could be obtained. An example is the key role played by the project in securing loans to the farmers from the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC).
Finally, but not least importantly, an aspect of project implementation that contributed significantly to its overall effectiveness was the flexibility of management style. Without deviating from the pursuit of essential objectives and the execution of programmes activities, actual work plans were constantly revised in light of new opportunities and/or constraints. For example, the boundaries of the project area selected in the preparatory phase of the project were modified as deemed appropriate during the lifetime of the project. Three of the seven forest villages were established outside of the original project area. The provision of infrastructure and of agricultural support services was to be concentrated in the new forest villages. In practice, most communities in the project area were recipients to various degrees, the effect of which was the development and enhancement of the area as whole as a broader settlement system or regional sub-unit.
Given its present commitment, there appears to be little doubt that the RFD will strive to continue the next phase of the community forestry project in this area and then replicate it in other areas. It has a motivated and experienced cadre of officials to draw upon, and has retained the services of a distinguished Thai expert to assist with the planning of both forestry and socio-economic aspects of this activity. It has an excellent study commissioned by the project providing guidelines and recommendations for the establishment and practice of forestry extension in the RFD.
The main task of the RFD in the follow-up phase of the project will be to assume full responsibility for the coordination of the continued interdisciplinary development of the project area including the establishment of working relationships with other rural development agencies. There is also the unfinished business of fully developing the practice of agroforestry as a profitable enterprise for farmers through the continued supply of inputs and the provision of improved forestry extension.
4.8 Concluding remarks
In the course of this study, the author had conversations with representatives of the several Government cooperating agencies who had personally been involved in the implementation of the project. All were unanimous in the view that the project was worthwhile and had generated many benefits. All were concerned about the future of the project under RFD management without UNDP/FAO involvement. Most had reservations reflecting biases derived from their own specialized backgrounds and perhaps, to some extent, from inter-agency rivalry. Some of their concerns were as follows: there was overemphasis on cash crops to maximize income, and not enough attention was paid to the production of food to improve the people ’s nutrition; there was overconcern for material development and not enough emphasis was placed on social development and, in particular, the development of rural institutions; the UNDP/FAO intervention was too Page 39 of 42
paternalistic and did not sufficiently stress popular participation and the need for residents to assume the responsibility of doing things for themselves instead of relying on the project staff; participating Government agencies took advantage of the special status of the project as a United Nations- funded activity and redirected their budget allocations to other areas under the pretext that this project was already provided for; RFD officials are hard to work with because of their proprietary attitudes towards forestland.
Perhaps the most significant of these comments is that concerning the need to stress active involvement of the people in the development process. The implication is that by taking more initiative and by assuming more and more responsibility in relation to the improvement of their condition, residents will progressively reduce their dependence on external interventions and achieve self-reliance. Granted that there may have been grounds for complaints, the project was supported by substantial Government funds and several of the RFD officials involved in the project were seen to be highly motivated and close to the people. On the other hand, were we to depict the project as faultless and an unqualified success, that also would be an exaggeration. The best of plans and strategies are constrained by individual and group choices. Effective socio-economic development takes time; it is a process in which even limited accomplishments must be deemed worthwhile, even though all possible efforts must be made to maximize them.
1 Methodological note. The only major difference in the data sets from the two studies is the distribution of the important variable of farm size. The distribution of marginal/small, medium, and large farms in the 40 household sample is in the ratio of 25-50-25, while that of the larger economic survey is 50e-36-14. It seems likely that the distribution of farm sizes derived from the larger study is more representative of the population of the project area as a whole. Because smaller holdings are underrepresented and larger holding are over -represented, some distortion in the analysis is likely to appear in the mean value of related variables at the upper and lover ends of the distribution scale, end overall sample means will inevitably be somewhat inflated.
References
Note:By Thai custom, persons are identified primarily by their first rather than by their family name. The alphabetical order under
which Thai authors are listed here conforms to this custom.
Chudchawan Sutthisrisinn,
1986 Farmers’ perceptions and attitudes toward the Development of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Project in Northeast Thailand. MSc thesis, Graduate School, University of the Philippines at Los Banes, August.
CUSRI, 1982 Report on Forestry Development (1982-1986) Project. Bangkok, Chulalongkorn University social Research Institute.
1987 Land ownership status of farmers under the land reform programme. Bangkok, Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute for the Agricultural Land Reform Office, February.
Danso, L.K. nd Framework for effective participation of national and international staff. Project document.
Danso, L.K., and Pairote Pinyosorasak,
1980 Report on future application of agro-forestry in the pilot reforestation project in Khao Phoo Luang forest. Project document.
1984 Paper on Development of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Project, Northeast Thailand, to Workshop on Management of Forest Village Project, Korat and Chiang Mai, 1-7 September, 1984.
Dormer, Wolf, The five faces of Thailand; an economic geography. St. Lucia, Queensland, University of Queensland Press. 1982
FAO 1980 Towards a forestry strategy for development. Secretariat Note COFO-80/3, April.
1981 Forest resources of tropical Asia. Rome, FAO.
Feder, Gershon, Tongroj Onchan, Yongyuth Chalamwong, Chira Hongladrom
1986 Land ownership security, farm productivity, and land policies in rural Thailand. Bangkok, World Bank, Kasetsart University, Thammasat University, August.
Kobkul Phutaraporn.
1977 Socio-economic condition of intruders of the reserved forest area at the Environmental Research Station of Sakaerat. Bangkok, Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute (in Thai).
Kuchelmeister, Report on alley cropping in agroforestry. Project document Page 40 of 42
Guido n.d.
Manat Nualcharoen, Chalerm Wongvisitrangsi, Maitri Singhavara, Poonya Paosrithongkhlam
1980 Soil survey of pilot reforestation area, Khao Phoo Luang forest , Amphoe Pak Thong Chai, Nakhon Ratchasima Province. Project document.
Monti Phothai
1984 "Forest villages of the forest Industry Organization". in: RFD, Workshop on Forest Village Project. Bangkok, Royal Forest Department (in Thai).
Napat Sirisambhand
1978 History of the settlements in the Ban Sam Chao Pho (Km.79) area. Unpublished typescript. (Edited version in Uhlig 1984).
Narinchai Resources and constraints of forestry in Thailand: guidelines for the establishment of forestry extension in the Potanapongsa Royal Forest Department, Thailand. Project document (1986). n.d.
Narong Srisaard, Pairote Pinyosorasak
1980a Socio-economic survey of farmers living in the vicinity of National Reserved Forest of Khao Phoo Luang, Amphur Paktongchai, Changwat Nakhon Ratchasima. Project document.
1980b Socio-economic survey of farmers living in the pilot reforestation area of Khao Phoo Luang Forest Reserve, Amphoe Pakthongchai, Changwat Nakhon Ratchasima. Project document.
Prem Boonruang
1985a Marketing of farm products: a case study for Khao Phoo Luang Project. Project document.
1985b Supply and demand for wood products in Northeast Thailand. Project document.
Project THA/81/004
1980-6 Progress reports, September 1980 - March 1986.
1981-4 Reports on seminars and training programmes, 1981 - June 1984.
1985a Briefing notes, July 1985.
1985b Tripartite project review, 3 December 1985.
Rao, Y.S. 1984 "Community forestry: requisits and constraints". In: Community forestry: some aspects. Bangkok, FAO/RAPA.
Research (Consulting Firm)
1986 Farms and fuelwood in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand; analysis of costs, benefit, problems and prospects of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation in Northeast Thailand. Consultancy report for project THA/81/004. Project document, August.
Sa-ard Boonkird
1987 Forest fire management in Thailand with special reference to project THA/81/004: Development of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Northeast Thailand. Project document.
Sathit Wacharakitti, Pairote Pingyosorasak, Prasong Sanguantham
1980 Report on forest inventory of the pilot project area for development of reforestation, Northeast Thailand. Project document. Page 41 of 42
Siri Weerathum
1984a The study of a rural community: Ban Sai Ngam, Changwat Nakhon Ratchasima. Bangkok, Asian Institute of Technology.
1984b Forest village development in Thailand. Bangkok, Asian Institute of Technology, March.
Stuckey, Andrew, Uthen Charanasri, Thanawadee Boonlue
1985 Building nutrition considerations into Project THA/81/004: Development of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation in Northeast Thailand. Bangkok, FAO/RAPA.
Sumeth Kaenmanee, L.K. Danso, Guido Kuchelmeister
1982 Economic survey of the area covered by the Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Project, N.E. Thailand. Project document.
Thanawadee Boonlue, L.K. Danso
1982 Report on social survey of the project area. Project document.
Thanawadee Boonlue
1986 A comparative study of the socio-economic conditions between 1982 and 1985. Project document.
Thompson, Introducing nutrition considerations into the Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Project, Northeast Thailand. FAO Brian n.d. consultant report, Bangkok, FAO/RAPA.
Uhlig, Harald (Ed.)
1984 Spontaneous and planned settlement in Southeast Asia. Hamburg, Institute of Asian Affairs.
UNDP 1981 Project THA/81/004 Document: Development of Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Northeast Thailand, signed October 1981
Vera Songboonkaow
1986a A case study of the present level of fuelwood and charcoal production and consumption in Thailand substantiated by data from action search in Nakhon Ratchasima and field visits. Project document.
1986b How to build a charcoal making kiln appropriate for rural areas. (Do-it-yourself manual in Thai). Project document.
Vergara, Napoleon T.
1984 " Expanding populations and shrinking resources". In: Community forestry: socio-economic aspects. Bangkok, FAO/RAPA.
Wuthipol Hoamuangkaew
1986 The comparative study between the economic conditions of the villagers living in the area covered by the Diversified Forest Rehabilitation Project, N.E. Thailand, in 1982 and 1985. (Preliminary first draft report of economic survey conducted 19-27 November 1985). Project document
.
The publications below form part of a series totally or partially funded by a special Swedish Trust Fund: Forests, Trees, and People. This programme is coordinated within FAO by M.Hoskins, Community Forestry Unit, Policy and Planning Service, Forestry Department.
Workshops Page 42 of 42
Planning Forestry Extension Programmes Regional Wood Energy Development Programme in Asia, GCP/RAS/111/NET, Field Document No. 8, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, May 1988.
Planning Self-Help Fuelwood Projects in Asia, based on the Workshop on Planning Self-Help Fuelwood Projects in Asia, Chaing Mai and Khon Kaen, Thailand, 2-13 February 1987, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 1988.
Case Studies
Case Studies of Farm Forestry and Wasteland Development in Gujarat, India. FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 1988.
Charcoal in Northeast Thailand. Rapid Rural Appraisal of a Wood-based, Small-scale Enterprise. Regional Wood Energy Development Programme in Asia, GCP/RAS/111/NET, Field Document No. 9, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 1988.
Community Forestry Lessons from Case Studies in Asia and the Pacific Region. FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 1988.
Forestland for the People. A Forest Village Project in Northeast Thailand. FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 1988.
Special Topics and Reference Manuals
Forestry and Nutrition: A Reference Manual. FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 1989.
Household Food Security and Forestry: An Analysis of Socio-Economic Issues. FAO, Rome , Italy, 1989.
Local Knowledge and Systems of Natural Resource Management in Arid and Semi-Arid Africa. FAO, Rome , Italy, 1989.
Handbooks
Women in Forestry: Field Guide for Project Design and Implementation. FAO, Rome, Italy, 1989.
For copies of the documents from FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand contact:
Regional Forestry Officer
FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Maliwan Mansion, Phra Atit Road
Bangkok, Thailand
For copies of the documents from FAO, Rome , Italy contact:
The Community Forestry Unit
Forestry Department
FAO
Via delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome, Italy