The State, the People, and Agricultural Structures and Patterns in Thailand, 1957–1996: A Historical Analysis through Institutional Political Economy

Abstract

This academic article has three objectives: 1) to examine changes in Thailand’s agricultural structures and patterns before and after the enactment of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives Act of 1966 (B.E. 2509); 2) to investigate the ways of thinking and adaptive strategies of Thai farmers from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s; and 3) to analyze the relationship between the state, the people, and agricultural structures and patterns in Thailand. The article employs the historical method to examine primary and secondary sources and interprets them through Thorstein Veblen’s institutional political economy, which views institutions as settled habits of thought that shape economic behavior. The findings show that the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) functioned as a national institution that used supervised credit to promote modern agriculture. Agricultural structures consequently shifted from household farming toward large-scale, market-oriented monocropping, while new production habits dependent on credit, external inputs, and market mechanisms took root. Over time, indebtedness and volatile crop prices fostered new ways of thinking at the individual level. A number of model farmers returned to household-based production grounded in local wisdom, and non-governmental organizations, scholars, and the mass media extended these ideas into a public alternative agriculture movement from the late 1980s onward.