Sustainable Development in the Thai Highlands: Some Experiences from the Thai-Australian Highland Agricultural Project. Prof Lindsay Falvey

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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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 development’ of the highlands simply means guiding enhanced long-

term use in a manner that causes minimal negative impact.

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development must be informed

by knowledge

generated by research and experience.

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Sustainable DevelopmentThe World Highlands Huddleston et al (2003)

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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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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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• 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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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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• 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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• 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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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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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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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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Food

Sustainable Development in the Thai Highlands: Some Experiences from the Thai-Australian Highland Agricultural Project. Prof Lindsay Falvey