Thai peasants did form themselves once as an organization, the Farmer’s Federation of Thailand (FFT), during the 1970s. Although, the communist cadres probably played some role in the formation, the central role was filled by peasant grassroots leaders. The Federation served to bring together issues, concerns, and demands from different regions and different sectors of the Thai peasantry, though the problems and demands are different in degree. The peasant support for the federation apparently came from the north and the central plain, where rates of tenancy and landlessness were highest. The membership was estimated to be around 1.5 million farmers nationwide (Karunan 1984: 46, Bello 1998: 147), and the geographical scope of the federation’s
organizing was unprecedented. The scope of the program covered from speaking for the rural poor, the landless, those with smallholdings, and tenant farmers, to a wider degree of support for all those who experienced injustice and denial of democratic freedoms. The success of the FFT, therefore, was due to its non-ideological style of organizing. It was the first time the peasantry had sought to organize itself autonomously as a class on a national scale and on the basis of a secular program.
The peasantry pressured the elite reformist government during 1970s to reverse the past policy of keeping rice prices low to benefit urban groups, and to raise or stabilize the income of paddy farmers. The government responded half-heartedly to the requests by setting minimum prices for rice on the open market, promising government purchase of rice at guaranteed prices, and managing the sale of subsidized rice to low-income groups, particularly those in Bangkok. Following these policies, the government of Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj attempted to deliver to the countryside a rural reform package consisting of the following measures: requiring commercial banks to transfer 5 percent of their deposits as loans to farmers; the creation of a special fund for development projects in the countryside, the so-called Tambon Fund; the implementation of land rent controls; and land reform and redistribution (Bello 1998: 148). The Tambon Fund was considered successful in the sense of accelerating the disbursement of government resources to the countryside and creating jobs by putting people to work in infrastructure projects. However, when the budget for public investment dropped in 1974, it had a serious effect on the incomes of the thousands of rural people who had come to rely on casual and semi-permanent work in government construction projects. Moreover, in many cases, the selection of projects was not done under popular control, but by the self-interest-driven Tambon Council, made up of local authorities, local business elites, and appointed village headmen who sought their own benefit.
Although the elite reformist government of 1973 to 1976 tried to introduce rural development programs as mentioned above, they failed to implement the land tenure reform program which was actually the centerpiece of agricultural development. The result of land tenure reform in Thailand was very limited despite the Land Rent Control Act, Land Control Act, and Land Reform Act. This was because the legislation ran up against the realities of Thailand’s power structure. These laws were perceived as threatening the very foundations of elite rule in Thailand, with significant negative impact not only on landowners but on the urban and bureaucratic elites as well.
With this clash of interests, an opposition movement by the landed elites began. They formed paramilitary groups to initiate a wave of terror against the FFT and its student supporters. Confronted with this rightist reaction, the parliamentary regime put land reform on hold and took side with landed interests in specific struggles against peasants. The right-wing could deploy superior resources in organization, firepower, and ideological combat. Their ideological offensive was the slogan “Nation-Religion-King” to make the participants feel important and identify themselves closely with the nation, the religion, and the king. The rural population, however, joined with the left, whose ideology won their hearts, to organize a peasant movement.
The confrontation came to a peak in October 1976 when bloody suppression of the peasantry was followed by the massive October 6, 1976 massacre at Thammasart University, when crowds of students were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands arrested by police and paramilitary groups. This bloody event put an end to what had been a historic development in Thai history, the first effort of the peasantry to self-organize as a class. This suppression made the peasantry politically much weaker today than it was in the 1970s.
3.1.3 Recent Strategies to Promote Thai Agricultural Development
The agenda of agricultural development and the quality of growth received attention from the public and academic community increasingly after the East Asian economic crises in 1997. This is because at that time the financial sector in Thailand collapsed, the industrial and service sectors were paralyzed, the unemployment rate rose sharply, and people in almost every sector and level of income suffered from the crises. Therefore, the country’s past development strategy based on promoting industrialization and capitalism lost its credibility as many questioned whether this strategy was still a viable or sustainable way to promote the country’s development. At that time, the agricultural sector and related industries, although wounded, helped cushion the blow by absorbing thousands of unemployed workers. Thus, during the economic turmoil, there was an outpouring of new ideas and discussion about economic and social development in the country. Many groups had urged the government to solve the problems and try new strategies. However, utilizing the full potential of the sector remains one of the most daunting public policy challenges as promoting sustainable development, adding value to products and managing commodity price swings are all easier said than done. The following section will discuss the highly debated, influential strategies on Thai agriculture which have been implemented since the East Asian economic crises.
3.1.3.1 The King’s New Theory
Right after the East Asian economic crises burst, King Bhumipol Adulyadej spoke out urging the public sector to recognize the importance of Thai agriculture and rural development. His Majesty brought back and developed the old knowledge of integrated farming to apply in Thai agriculture once again. His initiative received much attention from the public sector and academia, and his New Theory concept was researched and improved to suit the contemporary
environment of Thai agriculture. The New Theory points out ways to manage and increase agricultural production by applying mixed-crop and organic-crop agriculture for adequate household consumption, while surplus can be sold on the market. At the same time, it aims to improve rural livelihood, quality of life and the environment while increasing participation and cooperation among the villagers. It includes the meaning of self-sufficient and self-reliant. The King called it a self-sufficient economy.32
This strategy introduced by the King has been widely welcomed and adapted by many farm households and rural people who found it very helpful, adaptable, and meaningful to their way of life. The government agencies related to agriculture and rural development also accepted the concept and took a key role in providing information and inputs, such as digging reservoirs, teaching new planting techniques, providing new seeds and livestock for farmers who want to implement the concepts of mix-crop, organic-crop, and self-sufficient ways of living.
3.1.3.2 Prime Minister Thaksin’s Development Policies
Farmers and grassroots groups have received priority attention from the Thaksin Shinawatra government since it took office early in 2001. Its most popular vote-getting policies were the three-year debt suspension for small farmers, one-million-baht funds for 70,000 villages, and the One Tambon, One Product project to help villagers develop items for commercialization. The government also set a small budget of 5,000 baht per head for farmers who entered career rehabilitation schemes, 2,000 baht for training and the rest to buy production essentials for their chosen activities.
The programs were warmly welcomed by the grassroots despite strong criticism from economists and some officials. The policies themselves showed the government's good intentions,
but there were no proper and sustainable measures to ensure the permanent well-being of farmers. At the time of writing, the new policies to upgrade rural livelihood and Thai agriculture introduced by Priminister Thaksin’s government are still facing many obstacles and criticism. Nevertheless, the effort must be acknowledged as the first time in Thai history that the government has come up with many strategies at once to solve rural and agricultural problems, with much more attention and willingness than ever before.