Thailand is likely to face a shortage of food owing to climate change and management decisions about what crops should be grown, according to experts. But some farsighted farmers have already changed their farming practices, providing inspiration and hope for other farmers, government and consumers.
According to researchers, the problems facing agriculture are widespread and linked to changes in rainfall patterns that lead to crop failures, floods, droughts and decreased soil fertility. The climate problems are exacerbated by farmers' decisions based on market demand and government policies, leading to the expansion of monocultural systems based on rubber, oil palm and maize.
Chiang Mai University has established a research network with the World Agroforestry Centre's Thailand office to study, and spread information about, techniques that innovative Thai farmers have developed in response to the challenges of food security and climate change. The network includes researchers, farmers, governments and non-governmental organisations in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, China and Vietnam.
"As one of Thailand's leading universities, we have accepted the challenge to study climate change in the upper Asean region in collaboration with our partners," said Assoc Prof Dr Sermkiat Jomjunyong, vice-president for research and academic services. "The problems are complex and cross national boundaries so we must all work together to ensure we have an adequate and nutritious food supply."
"Rubber trees are invading fruit orchards and watershed forests; oil palm is invading rice fields and lowland forests," said Dr Cherdsak Kuaraksa of Thaksin University in Phatthalung province. "If we combine the growing areas of the two, they cover about 62% of Phatthalung's agricultural area.
"This type of agriculture is a big problem for Thailand, challenging the nation's ability to feed itself and make export income, especially because of unpredictable and intense rainfall that reduces tapping days."
For solutions, the experts point to farmers who have seen the problems coming and made changes to their farming practices so they haven't been as badly affected. The results have been increased yields, healthier food, sustainable farming and improved incomes for the farmers.
"I've noticed for a long time that the climate has been changing," said Kittisak Kittipiboonsak of tambon Bua Yai in Nan. "There have been many impacts on farming. For example, tamarind used to provide good yields in this district but recently some farmers do not get any yield at all so they removed their trees. Farmers here have been planting monocultures for about 50 years, especially maize, which has badly damaged the soil through erosion and chemical inputs, like fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. These systems also have high production costs but the yields are increasingly low. If we don't change, the long-term effects will be very bad."
In response to the changes in climate and also to increasing health problems in their community they claim have been caused by the heavy use of chemicals, many farmers in Bua Yai have adopted a scheme called One Rai Organic Farming and Agroforestry, with support from the Land Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, the Community Organization Council and the Community Organization Development Institute.
Pongnapha Srina and her husband Nares have converted much of their farm in Bua Yai to a mix of trees and annual crops.
"We grow maize, rubber, sweet tamarind, upland rice, beans, medicinal plants, bamboo, banana, chilli pepper, coconuts, eggplant and papaya," said Mrs Srina. "We use fermented formula and saltwater to control weeds and pests and vetiver grass to protect the soil from erosion, as HM the King has promoted."
Impressed by the results of healthier produce, increased yields and income spread throughout the year, the Land Development Department now uses the farm as a learning centre.
Further east, in the Isan province of Sakon Nakhon, Naris Khamthisri has faced similar challenges.
"In the last eight years, there has been more extreme rainfall and longer droughts; crop yields have decreased; and there are more diseases and pests," he said. "Land use has changed a lot: there are more monoculture plantation crops as a result of government policy and some encouragement from the private sector, leading to the loss of good soils and forests. My 20-year-old mixed farming system based on trees produces a range of foods for home consumption and sale."
Naris's farm is heavily treed and can easily be mistaken for a natural forest. He has so much produce that he doesn't sell the 3 tonnes of mangoes his trees yield annually, instead feeding them to his livestock and leaving what remains for the wild birds.
Similarly, Chamni Yodkaewruang's farm in Phatthalung, in the South, resembles a jungle.
"I have so many different species I can't name them all," he said. "I have fig, swamp fern, palm shoots. The trees are Alstonia, oak, ironwood, champak and many others. There is a big tree with buttresses that is very beautiful. If I didn't have it there would have been soil erosion. Mixed-species orchards provide crop diversity, with different products at different times. We can sell products continuously and we do not have any problems about food; it is a supermarket. We are food secure."
Other farmers in rubber-dominated Phatthalung have also seen the problems grow over the years but come up with innovative ways of their own to adapt.
Witoon Noosen of Tamod subdistrict recalls that in the past, "the rubber trees were rubber jungles. Rubber was a minor crop — not an economic one — with similar status to others. Today, the rubber jungles have gone along with all the animals and birds, all the fruit that we used to eat. Now, there are no fish in the rivers and more droughts and flooding in areas that were never flooded before".
Witoon is philosophical about the government decisions that increased the vulnerability of farmers who opted for monocultural rubber plantations on their land. He has turned a bad situation into a good one through his own innovation and commitment to agricultural diversity.
"I never blame the Rubber Fund, that they wanted to remove other plants from plantations because rubber trees require a lot of light," he said. "It's only that the Rubber Fund did not encourage planting other trees. The rubber has to be regarded as nursing trees: when they are fully grown they care for the other trees like little children.
"They get mutual benefits because the plant litter has complete nutrients that can be used by all. My trees are 40 years old and still provide high yields. My kind of agroforest has been shown to yield more. If the rubber plantations are turned into agroforests it does not affect the rubber trees. If you look at my orchard you will see rubber and other trees and plants together, every one of which is valuable."
A farmer collects latex at her rubber plantation in Phatthalung.
