Thailand requires a more balanced and sustainable form of development with the ultimate aim of ending hunger and promoting sustainable farming practices, says former Bank of Thailand governor Prasarn Triratvorakul.
Prasarn: Guidance from the late King
In his current capacity as director of the Thailand Sustainable Development Foundation (TSDF), Mr Prasarn spoke at yesterday's seminar entitled "Application of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy in Agricultural and Rural Development", where he described ideas underlying the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) and its role in Thailand's quest for a more balanced and sustainable form of development.
Sustainable development is the genuine answer to address Thailand's problems, he said.
Mr Prasarn noted that since the end of World War II, while many countries have grown wealthier, poverty has declined and quality of living has improved, the benefits of development have not been shared evenly.
"We can't deny that today 795 million people in 52 countries around the world still suffer from malnutrition, and one-fourth of them are children," he said. "They are living on less than US$1.25 a day. Also, in many cases, development has been pursued at the expense of the environment."
The major factors obstructing agricultural development during the past few decades include Thailand's development strategy, which focused on GDP growth as the principal indicator of development, rather than sustainability.
"Focusing on GDP as an indicator of development can be misleading," Mr Prasarn said. "After all, growth is not, in and of itself, an objective of development. It can only be a meaningful indicator if it translates into an improvement in the well-being of those in society."
Also, the country has been focused on short-term practices instead of long-term growth, he said.
Governments have introduced subsidy policies to support poor farmers, but they often find it politically unpopular to end these measures, falling into the so-called subsidy trap. Past experience has shown that government subsidy policies have been ineffective and fiscally unsustainable in the long run.
Mr Prasarn said Thailand has addressed and handled each problem separately, despite the fact that many of the issues are highly intertwined and cannot be viewed in isolation.
"Agricultural development connects with nearly everything else," he said, "therefore integration of knowledge and expertise, which cut across fields and responsible bodies, is needed to address many of the problems we face."
Mr Prasarn suggested that in order to achieve sustainable development, Thailand has to start by addressing the obstacles to upward mobility.
For example, instead of focusing on GDP growth, the country should focus on improving the well-being of those in society as a key indicator.
Mr Prasarn pointed out that guidelines already exist to help the country move toward agricultural and rural development in a sustainable manner: the ones originally handed down by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Mr Prasarn gave the example of how the King tackled two major problems, a lack of water and the low quality of soil, at once by developing small-scale, local dam and reservoir projects to overcome water shortages.
Another aspect was the royal rain-making project that used cloud-seeding techniques to create artificial rain.
The King supported the initiatives that required exploring different methods to solve the problem of low-quality soil.
The key point is that the King sought to improve both water and soil resources and boost productivity instead of tackling each problem by itself, Mr Prasarn said.
"His Majesty reasoned that sustainable development requires the right and appropriate values and mindset," he said. "In other words, ensuring that development progress is sustainable demands a transformation of direction and practices addressing development."
Mr Prasarn said the SEP is distilled from the late King's decades of practical experience in agricultural and rural development. He added that Buddhist teaching can be applied at every level of society.
"It promotes the so-called 'middle path', a more balanced pursuit of development," he said.
Mr Prasarn highlighted the "human capital" and "mindsets" of the SEP, underscoring the importance of "stakeholder consultation", which helps lessen the issue of compartmentalisation of problems and solutions.
The SEP is widely used to improve business efficiency and public administration in Thailand, Mr Prasarn said.
He said King Bhumibol's wisdom shone through during one of his birthday addresses when he declared: "Being an economic tiger is not important. The important thing is for us to have a sufficiency economy. A sufficiency economy means to have enough to support ourselves. … Not that some of us have a lot while others have nothing at all. ... We have to take a careful step backward."
The King compiled insights and lessons learned in his 23 Work Principles -- a how-to guide for the SEP and national development.