Boom Crops: A Review of Concept and Proposal of Land Relations Research for Thailand
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Examining the phenomenon of “boom crops” is essential for understanding the complexity of land relations within Thailand’s political economy and political ecology in relation to politico-economic conditions and environmental change. In this study, the author explores recent scholarly work on the concept of boom crops and aims to enhance the framework, specifically addressing Thailand’s land-related issues, the roles of various actors with power in processes that control property regimes, and access to land. While this paper focuses on the case of Thailand, it also considers the broader regional context and the impact of globalization. This includes an examination of Thailand’s evolving land policies under the military regime, which, influenced by neoliberalism that accelerate the cycle of growth and burst of boom crops, expansion of boom crops, and the livelihoods of small-scale farmers.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
Achavanuntakul, S., Yamla-or, P.,Tanangsnakool, K., Senphan, P., & Klongakara, S. (2013). Kan wikhro kanchatkan huang so upothan khong khaophot ahan sat phưea songsœm kanchatkan lumnam yang yangyưn nai chang wat nan (in Thai). [Maize supply chain management analysis to support sustainable watershed management in Nan province]. (Research report). Bangkok: Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Public Organization).
Baird, I. G., & Fox, J. (2015). How land concessions affect places elsewhere: Teleconnections and large-scale plantations in Southern Laos and Northeastern Cambodia. The land grabbing, conflict and agrarian-environmental transformations: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia, An international academic conference. Chiang Mai: n.p.
Barney, K. (2009). Laos and the making of a ‘relational’ resource frontier. The Geographical Journal, 175(2), 146–159.
Belton, B., van Asseldonk, I. J. M., & Bush, S. R. (2016). Domestic crop booms, livelihood pathways and nested transitions: charting the implications of Bangladesh’s pangasius boom. Journal of Agrarian Change,17(4), 694-714. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12168
Borras, S. M., Franco, J. C., Isakson, S. R., Levidow, L., & Vervest, P. (2016). The rise of flex crops and commodities: implications for research. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 43(1), 93-115.
Buergin, R., & Kessler, C. (2000). Intrusions and exclusions: Democratization in Thailand in the context of environmental discourses and resource conflicts. GeoJournal, 52, 71-80.
Chiangthong, J. (2013). Rat thun phokha chaidaen kasettrakon lae khaophot kham phromdaen (in Thai). [State, capital, border traders, farmers, and cross-border corn]. Chiang Mai: Center of Biodiversity and Local Knowledge for Sustainable Development Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.
Chunta, S. (2023). Thunniyom kan kaset suan kluai chin nai phumiphak lumnam khong: Lao lae mianma (in Thai). [Agricultural capitalism: Chinese banana plantations in The Mekong basin region: Laos and Myanmar]. Chiang Mai: China-Southeast Aia Studies Center (CSC), Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.
Cramb, R. A., Pierce, C. J., Dressler, C. W., Laungaramsri, P., Le, Q. T., Mulyoutami, E.,... Wadley, R. L. (2009). Swidden transformations and rural livelihoods in Southeast Asia. Human Ecology, 37(3), 323-346.
Fridell, G. (2014). Coffee statecraft: rethinking the global coffee crisis, 1998–2002. New Political Economy, 19(3), 407-426.
Ganjanapan, A. (1996). The politics of environment in northern Thailand: Ethnicity and highland development programmes. In P. Hirsch (Ed.), Seeing forest for tree: Environment and environmentalism in Thailand (pp. 202-222). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
Ganjanapan, A. (2000a). Phonlawat khong chumchon nai kanchatkan sapphayakon: Krabuan that lae nayobai (in Thai). [Community dynamics in resource management: Paradigms and policies]. Bangkok: Thailand Research Fund.
Ganjanapan, A. (2000b). Phonlawat khong chumchon nai kanchatkan sapphayakon: Sathanakan nai prathet thai (in Thai). [Community dynamics in resource management: Situation in Thailand]. Bangkok: Thailand Research Fund.
Ganjanapan, A., & Kaosa-Ard, M. (1995). Wiwatthanakan khong kan bukboek thidin thamkin nai khet pa korani sưeksa phak nưea ton bon (in Thai). [The evolution of agricultural land encroachment in forest areas: Case study of the upper northern region]. Bangkok: Thailand Development Research Institute.
Grossman, L. S. (1998). The political ecology of bananas: Contract farming, peasants, and agrarian change in the Eastern Caribbean. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Hall, D. (2003). The international political ecology of industrial shrimp aquaculture and industrial plantation forestry in Southeast Asia. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34(2), 251-264.
Hall, D. (2011). Land grabs, land control, and Southeast Asian crop booms. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(4), 837-857.
Hall, D. (2015). The political ecology of international agri-food systems. In T. Perreault, G. Bridge, & J. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of political ecology (pp. 406-417). London and New York: Routledge.
Hall, D., Hirsch, P., & Li, T. M. (2011a). Powers of exclusion: land dilemmas in Southeast Asia. Singapore and Manoa: NUS Press and University of Hawaii Press.
Hall, D., Hirsch, P., & Li, T. M. (2011b). Volatile exclusion: Crop booms and their fallout. In Powers of exclusion: Land dilemmas in Southeast Asia (pp. 87-117). Singapore and Manoa: NUS Press and University of Hawaii Press.
Hirsch, P. (Ed.). (1996). Seeing forest for tree: Environment and environmentalism in Thailand. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
Hirsch, P., & Scurrah, N. (2015). The political economy of land governance in the Mekong region: Contexts of policy advocacy. the Land grabbing, conflict and agrarian-environmental transformations: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia, An international academic conference. Chiang Mai: n.p.
Jakobsen, J., Rasmussen, K., Leisz, S., Folving, R., & Quang, N. V. (2007). The effects of land tenure policy on rural livelihoods and food sufficiency in the upland village of Que, North Central Vietnam. Agricultural Systems, 94, 309-319.
Kongtrakultien, M. (2011). Namman bon din khum phalang khong lok okat khong prathet Thai (in Thai). [Oil on the ground, the world’s power source, Thailand’s opportunities]. Retrieved May 8th, 2017, from http://www.cpthailand.com/enews/รวมคอลมน/tabid/129/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/352/categoryId/ 12/-aspx
Koninck, R. d., & Rousseau, J.-F. (2013). Southeast Asian agricultures: Why such rapid growth? L’Espace géographique, 42(2), 143-164.
La-orngplew, W. (2015). Chak rai khao su suan yang: Kan plianplæng phumithat kan kaset khong chumchon bon phưenthi sung nai khwæng luang nam tha So Po Po Lao (in Thai). [From rice fields to rubber plantations: Changing the agricultural landscape of highland communities in Luang Namtha province, Lao PDR.]. In C. Vaddhanaphuti & S. Rungmanee (Eds), The contestation of development and modernity in Laos (pp. 12-52). Chiang Mai: Center for ASEAN Studies, Chiang Mai University.
Laungaramsri, P. (2011). Thunniyom chaidaen: Nikhom kasettakam yangphara lae kan plianplaeng khong sangkhom kasettakam nai phak tai khong Lao (in Thai). [Frontier capitalism: para rubber plantations and agrarian change in Southern Laos]. Chiang Mai: Center of Research and Academic Administration, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.
Li, T. (2014). Land’s end: Capitalist relations on an indigenous frontier. Durham: Duke University Press.
Liu, J., Jr., S. M. B., Ye, J., Wang, C., Hu, Z., & Franco, J. C. (2015). Crop booms inside China: The rise of industrial tree plantation, sugarcane and banana sectors. The Land grabbing, conflict and agrarian-environmental transformations: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia, An international academic conference. Chiang Mai: n.p.
Lohmann, L. (1991). Peasants, plantations, and pulp: The politics of eucalyptus in Thailand. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 23(4), 3-17.
Lohmann, L. (1999). Forest cleansing: Racial oppression in scientific nature conservation. UK: The Corner House.
Mahanty, S., & Milne, S. (2016). Anatomy of a boom: Cassava as a ‘gateway’ crop in Cambodia’s north eastern borderland. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 57(2), 180-193.
Maxwell, S., & Fernando, A. (1989). Cash crops in developing countries: The issues, the facts, the policies. World Development, 17(11), 1677-1708.
McDonnell, S., Allen, M. G., & Filer, C. (Eds.). (2017). Kastom, property and ideology: Land transformations in Melanesia. Australia: ANU Press.
McMichael, P. (2013). Food regimes and agrarian questions. Canada: Fernwood Publishing.
Mongkoncharean, S (2015). Kan prap plian khao su kan kasettakam chœng phanit praphet “khaophot”: Korani sueksa chumchon paka keayo bon phuenthisung amphœ mae chæm changwat Chiang Mai (in Thai). [Transformation toward commercial corn production: A case study of a Pgaz K’nyau in highland, Mae Chaem district, Chiang Mai province] (Master’s thesis). Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University.
Mongkoncharean, S. (2017). Pra kot kan “khaophot ruk pa” kap khosanœ kanchatkan thidin tham kin bon phưenthi sung nai khet pa phak nưa (in Thai). [The phenomenon of “corn encroaching on the forest” and proposals for managing arable land on high areas in the northern forest region]. Journal of Social Sciences, 27(2), 101-119.
Nan mo del mai phiset mai rot (in Thai). [Nan model: Not special, not survive]. (2017, May 4). Thairath Online. Retrieved from http://www.thairath.co.th/content/929852
Navakitbamrung, P. (2013). Kan chuangching khwammai phưea khaothưeng phưenthi haeng khwam khlumkhrưea khong naeo khet pa: Korani sưksa khaophot liang sat (in Thai). [Contestation of meaning for accessing into the ambiguous space of forest boundary: A case study of field corn] (Master’s thesis). Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University.
Neilson, J., Arifin, B., Gracy, C. P., Kham, T. N., Pritchard, B., & Soutar, L. (2010). Challenges of global environmental governance by non-state actors in the coffee industry: insights from India, Indonesia and Vietnam. In S. Lockie & D. Carpenter (Eds.), Agriculture, biodiversity and markets: Livelihoods and agroecology in comparative perspective (pp. 175-200). London, Washington, DC: Earthscan.
Peet, R., & Watts, M. (1996). Liberation ecology: Development, sustainability, and environment in an age of market triumphalism. In R. Peet & M. Watts (Eds.), Liberation ecologies: Environment, development, social movements (pp. 1-45). London: Routledge.
Peluso, N. L., & Lund, C. (2013). New frontiers of land control: introduction. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(4), 667-681.
Peluso, N. L., & Watts, M. (2001). Violent environments. Inthaca: Cornell University Press.
Pintong, J. (1992). Wiwatthanakan khong kan bukboek thidin thamkin nai khet pa (in Thai). [The evolution of agricultural land encroachment in forest areas]. Bangkok: Local Development Institute.
Puntasen, A. (1996). Tambon councils and community forest management. In P. Hirsch (Ed.), Seeing forest for tree: Environment and environmentalism in Thailand (pp. 72-88). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
Pye, O., & Bhattacharya, J. (Eds.). (2013). The palm oil controversy in Southeast Asia: A transnational perspective. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing.
Rakyutidharm, A. (2009). Constructing the meanings of land resource and a community in the context of globalization (Doctoral dissertation). Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University.
Ramitanon, C. (1985). Pamai sangkhom kap kanphatthana chonnabot (in Thai). [The social forest and rural development]. Bangkok: The Public Policy Studies Program, The Social Science Association of Thailand.
Richardson, B., Anderson, J., Heath, H., Mostad, I., & Sivalingam, V. (2012). Sugarcane and the global land grab: A primer for producers and buyers. Retrieved July 10, 2017, from https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/richardson/publications/sugarcane_and_the_global_land_grab.pdf
Rosset, P., Rice, R., & Watts, M. (1999). Thailand and the world tomato: Globalization, new agricultural countries (NACs) and the agrarian question. International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 8, 71-94.
Rossi, A., & Nan, S Na. (2017). Neoliberism and the integration of labour and nature: Contract farming and forest conservation in Northern Thailand. In S. Vignato (Ed.), Dreams of prosperity: Inequality and integration in Southeast Asia (pp. 55-93). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
Rungmanee, S. (2023). Kan khayai tua khong pam namman nai thana phưet fong sabu læ khwamkhatyæng nai thidin rawang rat-ekkachon-chaoban nai phak tai khong prathet thai (in Thai). [Palm oil as a boom crop and land conflicts between state-private sectors-villagers in Southern Thailand]. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 40(1), 100-129.
Rungmanee, S., La-orngplew, W., & Lertchavalitsakul, B. (2019). Suan kafae khrongsang phưenthan raengngan: Kanmưeang khong kan khlưan yai nai lao (in Thai). [Coffee plantations, infrastructure, labor: The politics of mobility in Laos]. Bangkok: Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI).
Santasombat, S. (2014). Mangkon lak si kan khayai itthiphon nưea dindaen lae phantha kit phœiphae arayatham nai usa kho ne (in Thai). [Variegated dragons, expansion of influence over territory and mission to spread civilization in Southeast Asia]. Chiang Mai: Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.
Santasombat, S., & Siriphon, A. (2013). Yangphara nai lumnam khong: Kan prap tua khong chumchon thongthin nai Lao Kamphucha lae thai (in Thai). [Rubber in the Mekong basin: Adaptation of local communities in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand]. Chiang Mai: Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.
Satayanuruk, A. (2016). Lưemta a pak chak “chao na” su “phuprakopkan” (in Thai). [Open your eyes and mouth: From “farmer” to “entrepreneur”]. Bangkok: Matichon.
Sikor, T. (2012). Tree plantations, politics of possession and the absence of land grabs in Vietnam. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(3-4), 1077-1101.
Taotawin, N., & Taotawin, P. (2015,). Crop booms and changing land use and land control in Thailand’s agricultural frontier. The Land grabbing, conflict and agrarian-environmental transformations: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia, An International Academic Conference. Chiang Mai: n.p.
Thongmanivong, S., Yayoi, F., Phanvilay, K., & Songvisouk, T. (2009). Agrarian land use transformation in Northern Laos: From Swidden to rubber. Southeast Asian Studies, 47(3), 330-347.
Vaddhanaphuti, C. (2011, December). Borderland economy: Contract farming and labor mobility in the zone of conflict along the Thai-Burma border. The mobility and heritage in Northern Thailand and Laos: Past and present. Chiang Mai: n.p.
Walker, A. (2012). Thailand’s political peasants: Power in the modern rural economy. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Wittayapak, C. (2008). History and geography of identifications related to resource conflicts and ethnic violence in Northern Thailand. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 49(1), 111–127.
Wittayapak, C. (2015). Kan pokkhrong singwaetlom rupbaep mai: Krabuankan seriniyom mai thang dan singwaetlom kan chai kha topthaen samrap borikan khong rabop niwet (in Thai). [The new environmental governance: Neoliberalization of environment, payment for ecosystem service]. Chiang Mai: Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.
Woods, K. (2011). Ceasefire capitalism: military-private partnerships, resource concessions and military-state building in the Burma-China borderlands. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(4), 747-770.
Woods, K. (2015). CP maize contract farming in Shan State, Myanmar: A regional case of a place-based corporate agro-feed system. The Land grabbing, conflict and agrarian-environmental transformations: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia, An international academic conference. Chiang Mai: n.p.
Zimmerer, K. S. (2009). Nature under neoliberalism and beyond: Community-based resource management, environmental conservation, and farmer-and-food movements in Bolivia, 1985–present. In J. Burdick, P. Oxhorn, & K. M. Roberts (Eds.), Beyond neoliberalism in Latin America?: Societies and politics at the crossroads (pp. 157-174). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.