Thesis Abstract of AGS Students

Thawilkal Wangkahart (1997)

This study was aimed to evaluate the impact of water development on socio-economic conditions of the rural farmers in Northeast Thailand. Up to date, about 5,000 small scale water resources (SSWR) have already been implemented in Northeast region by the Royal Irrigation Department (RID), Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. Three SSWR villages were chosen to represent the major SSWR types in Khon Kaen Province, to conduct research and as study sites including (i) Rehabilitation SSWR village (Rehabilitation), (ii) Tank SSWR village (Tank), and (iii) Weir SSWR village (Weir). The sample households of each within and without SSWR groups were selected randomly for data collection in 1996 crop year.

Farmers in SSWR area earn most of their income from agriculture, especially from cash crop in dry season. Farmers outside SSWR have usually obtained their major income from off-farm activities.

The income distribution of farmers in SSWR area were reflected more inequity than of those outside SSWR. The average farm income of farmers in Rehabilitation and Tank areas were higher and reflected more inequity of its distribution than farmers in Weir area. These indicated that Weir system was more evenness of water distribution than Rehabilitation and Tank system.

Farm profitability and source of farm cash income of SSWR farmers were closely related to dry season cash crop rather than wet season rice. In the case of Weir area, soybean cultivation was generated the highest profits, followed by turnip cultivation in Rehabilitation, and then, fresh corn cultivation in Tank area.

Area planted to double cropping have been found to be greater inside SSWR area than those outside SSWR area. Cropping pattern are also diverse in the double cropping with some dominant second dry season crops, i.e. turnip, fresh corn, soybean. Irrigation water was more significant for dry season crop, those for cash income, than the wet season rice. Average rice yields in SSWR and outside SSWR are practically the same although farmers in SSWR apply more chemical fertilizers. As it was expected, the results of nonlinear multiple regression analysis showed that rice production of farmers in SSWR is input intensive, especially chemical fertilizer while those outside SSWR is labor intensive.

Using productivity, profitability, equitability and autonomy as criteria to measure the performance of SSWR in rural community, the Weir appears to have the highest rating in comparison to the Rehabilitation and the Tank system if the physical conditions were economically and technically feasible for construction.

On a whole, this study indicated that water availability in the dry season was boosted production of upland crop and vegetable crop in all SSWR types. SSWR development in Northeast in the future should pay attention to water storage for the dry season crops.

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