FARMING AREAS FORECAST TO DECREASE BY UP TO 11%
>> The agricultural area in Thailand will decrease by 4.35-11.59% by 2035 due to the government’s policy to terminate crop-pledging schemes and mortgages, a seminar was told.
Speaking on Friday at the seminar titled “The Future 2035: Land Energy and Water in Thailand” held by Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), Uchook Duangbootsee, a lecturer at Kasetsart University’s faculty of economics, unveiled the findings of his research.
He said the government’s non-crop pledging schemes and non-crop mortgages, together with market prices, are all key factors that would likely minimise the number of agricultural zones.
Information collected by the Department of Land Development of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives showed that the number of rice paddy fields countrywide decreased from 78.62 million rai in 2008 to 73.33 million rai in 2016.
“We have forecast that farming zones will be reduced to 122-132 million rai in 2035 compared with 138 million rai in 2014,” said Mr Uchook.
“It is because there will be increasing intensified agriculture as a result of advanced technology to replace the labour shortage. The technology will help boost crop production under the factor of scaling down of farming areas.”
He said the study also found that land use is expected to grow to support the expansion of urbanisation for living, tourism and industrial sector development, compared with the decreasing number of farming areas and the unchanged amount of forest zones.
“So the government should pay more attention to policy on land rental for farmers as it could give better yields to farmers if there is proper management,” Mr Uchook told participants at the seminar, saying that this policy is better and more sustainable than the policy to distribute deteriorated forest land to the poor.
He also said technology is going to play a key role in the future, which might be able to reduce costs of production, including land, water and labour use, but the challenging problem is how farmers could access financial sources to obtain that technology.
Mr Uchook said the study forecast that average economic growth in the country will be between 3.73% and 3.85% per year, comprising 2.8% for the agricultural sector, 4.08% for the industrial sector, 3.49% for the transport sector and 4.57% for the service sector. Meanwhile, power demand is expected to increase by 0.5-5% per year.
Nipon Paopongsakorn, TDRI’s distinguished fellow, said that in general the country will not face water shortages, but the problem usually happens in the drought season, which has been more frequent than flooding, so the government needs to have effective measures for water management.
Mr Nipon cited a case of water consumption in the eastern region, which the government is developing as a special economic development zone, saying that it is expected that the region will require an additional 600 million cubic metres for consumption within the next 20 years.
The Department of Royal Irrigation says it will find 300 million cubic metres of water from new reservoirs, while another 300 million cubic metres might come from advanced technology, meaning there will be no need to get water from neighbouring countries.
But no one knows exactly the rate of water consumption demand in the future, leading to difficult water management in the eastern region where consumption demand is increasing by 7% per year, Mr Nipon added.