Exploring appropriate replacement for crops violating land suitability by using GIS and AHP in Ubon Ratchathani Province, Thailand | |
| Author | Sawant, Mitesh Vishwas |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.AE-14-01 |
| Subject(s) | Agriculture--Geographic information systems--Thailand--Ubon Ratchathani Land use--Remote sensing--Thailand Ubon--Ratchathani |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Agricultural System s and Engineering, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. AE-14-01 |
| Abstract | Crop zoning has highest important in agriculture. Nowadays Natural resources become reduced at the same time demand for food is increasing day by day. The crop zoning technique is used to develop areas with a similar set of potential and constraint to improve the overall productivity and increase revenue per area in agriculture. Governments of Thailand declare rice, sugarcane, cassava, maize, oil palm, rubb er as 6 economically important crops under the crop zoning program . It was found that there are many places in Thailand, where the crops are grown in wrong places where they are not suitable to grow. It results into higher production cost, but the return s are too much less . The government also finds that there is scope to increase the production of a particular crop by growing on suitable land with a minimum production cost and maximizing profits for farmers . The implementation of the crop zoning progra m is not an easy task for government. The farmers are the main decision maker in agriculture. There are several factors that affect the farmer decision making process. Crop substation modeling needs to consider many criteria like technical, marketing, fina ncial etc. suitability to change with another crop . The study was undertaken in Ubon Ratchathani province of Thailand for exploring appropriate crop replacement for crops violating land suitability. The GIS tool was used to find out the mismatch between cu rrent land use and crop s declare suitable for a particular region . The analytic hierarchy process is used in Multi criteria decision making process to rank the different factors affecting decision making and to know the farmer preference for suitable crop replacement. Finally the economic prospect was checked to replace the crops to secure a higher economic return while considering sustainable agriculture in the future . Cassava, Sugarcane and Rice were found to be most suitability violating cr ops for the study areas with 32 percent, 25 percent and 20percent mismatch respectively, when the current land use map overlapped with the crop suitability map. It was also come to know that farmers are not that much aware about the crops zoning program. Very few far mers give importance to crop zoning program. High market was one of the most important factors in the farmers‟ decision making process . Lack of capital invest ment was the crucial element for farmers to change from one crop to another crop. Marketing, Financial and Economical criteria found to be ranked 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd for most influencing factors in farmer decision making in AHP , filled by farmer group leaders. Cassava ranked first choice to the farmer for substitution. Sugarcane and Rubber get 2 nd an d 3 rd rank, if the farmer has to choice between these three crops. In prospect of profit sugarcane gives highest profit ( 5807.19 baht/rai) compare to rice ( 601.76 baht/rai) and cassava ( 1711.16 baht/rai) , if grown in the S1+S2 suitability land parcel . W hen compare income difference of all 6 crops in study area under different suitability area, sugarcane farmer will loss average 9340 baht per rai if g rown in (S3+N) suitability area compare to (665.59 baht/rai) for cassava. I t was clear from the economic anal ysis that there was scope for replacing sugarcane (S3+N) land parcels into cassava as the suitable replacement for Ubon Ratchathani province of Thailand. |
| Year | 2014 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Thesis ; no. AE-14-01 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Agricultural and Food Engineering (AE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Soni, Peeyush |
| Examination Committee(s) | Shivakoti, Ganesh P.;Tripathi, Nitin Kumar |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Asian Institute of Technology Fellowship |
| Degree | Thesis (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2014 |