Increased Production
A large portion of this rapid expansion was due to increased production of rice in northeast Thailand While in the past, central Thailand was the main producer of rice, northeast Thailand quickly caught up to a comparable amount of production. This was in part due to the new road systems between northeast Thailand and the shipping focused cities on the coastline. The villages that had a significant portion of rice production were also changing as farmers went from more subsistence practices to mostly wage labor (exchange labor also virtually disappeared). Cows were being replaced for tractors to work on the farm and irrigation technology was updated in most villages. The green revolution was just starting to spread among the world’s agricultural industries. Rice farmers and merchants took advantage of new rice varieties, strains, fertilizers, and other technological advances. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was also disseminating knowledge, technology, new rice strains, and other information to rice producers in Thailand. From the 1950s to 1970’s rice production per unit of land increased by almost 50 percent.
By the end of 2012, Thailand had around 17 million tonnes of milled rice in stockpiles. It plan export a large part of it through government-to-government contracts in 2013. It lost the spot of Top Rice exporting country in 2012 been beaten by India and Vietnam.
Read more about this topic: Rice Production In Thailand
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