Date post: | 15-Jul-2015 |
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Food |
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Sustainable Development in the Thai Highlands:
Some Experiences from the Thai-Australian Highland
Agricultural Project
Lindsay Falvey
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Sustainable Highland Development
• Various development approaches
• Diverse experiences
• Thai-Australian Highland Development Project
• Critical elements for sustainable development
• General lessons from 40 years
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Sustainable Highland Development
One view:• Inaccessible• Environmentally fragile• Politically marginalized• Culturally diverseAnother view:• Freedom from demands of civilization• Communication technologies are ending an eraYet another view:• Opportune time to review past experience
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Sustainable Highland Development
‘sustainable development’ of the highlands simply means guiding enhanced long-
term use in a manner that causes minimal negative impact.
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Sustainable Highland Development
development must be informed
by knowledge
generated by research and experience.
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Sustainable Highland Development
there are diverse sources of relevant knowledge and experience around the globe.
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Sustainable Highland Development?
•
Having it all? participatory research; stakeholders engagement; local research and development networks; participatory
project planning; realistic objectives; continuity post-project; baseline surveys; rapid returns and longer-term benefits; less
labor or costs
plans cannot be practical unless they include flexibility to change during
implementation
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Sustainable Development: Asian Highlands
Contiguous areas above 300m altitude across Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam >100 million persons Michaud J., 1997
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Sustainable Development: Thai Highlands
Thai highlands: north-south steep ranges mostly between
500 and 2,000m in altitude separated by the Nan, Ping, Salween,
Wang and Yom rivers
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Sustainable Development in the Highlands
Is it:
• sustainable opium production?
• sustainable cultures and traditions?
• sustainable watersheds?
• sustainable political control?
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Sustainable Development: Thai Highlands
40 years ago:• Some roads; steep walking & mule tracks• Trade in opium, guns and jade • Opium >c.1,000m planted in association with corn • Foreign drug control & alternative enterprises
the corporate memory of research and development can be unproductively short in
aid environments
ใครลืมประวตัิซ ำ้ควำมผิดพลำด
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
• National Economic Development Plan 1972-76 designated the Department of Public Welfare / Tribal Research Centre for highland development
• Supported by Royal Projects, Chiang Mai University and Integrated Forest and Land Use Project (FAO), Crop Replacement Project (UNPDAC), and the Thai-Australia Highland Agricultural Project
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
• TAHAP (1976) followed the Highland Agronomy Project (1972)• Based on Australian tropical legume pasture experience• Desmodium intortum into Imperata cylindrica grasslands• Grasslands from shifting agriculture imagined to be extensive• TAHAP generated useful technical information• Pastures results more useful in other highlands
imported ideas of problems and solutions often misconceived real development needs, and development impacts are often well beyond the projects in which they were conducted
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
From 1976 working at Chiang Mai University Faculty of Agriculture, TAHAP was justified as integrating highlanders into Thai society and reducing opium farming to conduct:
… applied research to improve the livestock industry and subsistence food production of the hilltribe people of northern Thailand. A further objective was to assist in the training of extension officers of the Department of Public Welfare involved in highland development, and
to help the Faculty of Agriculture at ChiangmaiUniversity increase its capacity to train scientists and
to undertake research in the highlands.
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
• Agronomy: Pigeon pea most for subsistence and cash; maturity, planting regime, hedgerow, varieties, fertilizer, pests, intercropping. Upland rice, forestry and pasture research - soil deficiencies
• Livestock: Cattle – socio economic; protein & mineral deficiencies. Pigs – traditional black pigs (fat, meat and savings) diet, worms, flooring. Sheep unproductive.
• Extension: cultural compatibilities; communication; sociological surveys, nutrition improvement; linkages to other projects; integration with earlier anthropological and technical research
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
• After 5 years ≈100 articles
• Mainly research project - uncommon
development relies on real information from research, and development research relies on
an understanding of the socio-economic values and constraints in order to design its
technical experiments.
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
Beyond TAHAP: small in a charged environment:
border control; drugs
middle-class environmental sensitivities
nation building; ethnic friction
immigration; corruption
TAHAP’s impacts years later and unpredicted
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Sustainable Development: Thai Highlands
Challenges remain: e.g. • Foreign misconceptions
• Rights to enter market economies• External cultural defenders• Stronger national governance• Commercial development
further research and education needed
despite the angst expressed in various studies, highland agricultural development has been
a marked success over these 40 years
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Sustainable Development: Thai Australian Highland Agricultural Project
Conclusion:
1. Long-term minimal impact resource use informed by research from global experience needs flexibility and corporate memory.
2. Development relies on research which relies on socio-economic understanding.
3. Highland agricultural research for development has been, and will be, a beneficial reality.
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