Village roads and agricultural development in Northeast Thailand | |
| Author | Lansdell, Ronald Keith |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no. 1232 |
| Subject(s) | Roads--Economic aspects--Thailand, Northeastern Agricultural research |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | The thesis concerns the usefulness of local rural roads - roads from village to market - in terms of agricultural development. The Thai Government has invested in these roads in Northeast Thailand and continues to do so, partly justifying them in terms of agricultural development benefit. This study analyses past agricultural development in relation to villages' level of isolation. It takes as indicators of agricultural development five recent changes (adoption of Government rice seeds, adoption of chemical fertilizer on rice, membership in village agricultural groups, the change from kenaf to cassava, use of lowlands for broadcast rice), and finds that these are not related to isolation. The conclusion is that over the range of isolation occurring in the study area over the past decade, isolation was not a significant factor in economic (agricultural) development. The changes were found to be due to actions of the farmers, merchants, and Government which were not constrained by isolation of villages. Information was collected in 45 villages of varying isolation located between the Mun and Chi rivers, a fairly prosperous part of the Northeast. A method of questionnaire plus discussion with farmers was used, different from the statistical or operating costs approaches often used in the past. It led to a mostly non-quantitative analysis, but greatly decreased the assumptions needed in the work. The whole analysis is approximate, not a detailed economic evaluation. Although the result indicates that the roads recently built and now planned are not economically justified (by agricultural benefits), it was found that they have considerable social-political value. Thus it is recommended that roads be planned as social-political inputs, not that they be abandoned because of their economic importance. Objective criteria based on social benefit may be used for setting road priorities and balancing roads against other desirable inputs. Simple changes in this sense are proposed for the current ARD road priority calculation procedure. |
| Year | 1976 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | Student Research Before 1980 |
| Department | Other Field of Studies (No Department) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Thesis (Year <=1979) |
| Chairperson(s) | Goede, J.H. de |
| Examination Committee(s) | Angel, Shlomo ; Srisook Chandrangsu |
| Degree | Thesis (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1976 |