**6. Findings of the study**

province. Northeast of Thailand is not suitable for the production of oil palm as it has poor soil, low rainfall, and a long dry season. However, the expansion of oil palm plantation area has been promoted through various interventions, such as seedling, low-interest rate funding, input, mills, and refineries. As a result, oil palm plantation area has rapidly increased in the northeast of Thailand. The attempt to encourage land use according to its suitability of the zoning program has again failed due to an attractive economic incentive created by the government. Besides, the other objective of zoning which is to stabilize the crop price also failed. Consider **Figure 4**, it presented the price of oil palm during 1997–2018. The oil palm price has been fluctuated even during the period of both oil palm strategic plans (2008–2012 plan and 2015–2026 plan). In 2017, only 2 years after the implementation of the second plan, oil palm price starts a dramatic fall due to the excess supply of the crop. The government tries to solve the low-price issue by exporting the residual quantity to global market, but the attempt has not succeeded in solving the excess supply problem and low oil palm price in the country. As of March 2018, the oil palm price is as low as 3.02 baht per kilogram. The government is now considering an income compensation scheme for farmer as a short-term assistance and a cut down oil palm tree program with compensation as a long-term measure to combat the

The last instrument to discuss is the Sugarcane and Sugar Act of 1984. The act was enacted after the implementation of agricultural zoning. Since the enactment of the Sugarcane and Sugar Act of 1984, sugarcane production area has considerably expanded by almost 160% from 1982 to 1996 [32]. According to the act, sugarcane farmers and sugar factories share the profits from production at a rate of 70:30 under the condition that the sugarcane field must not be located more than 80 km from the factory. The objective of the act is to stabilize the sugarcane price for farmer. After the enactment of the act, the sugar factory has been expanded to 53 factories in 2015 from 17 factories in 1984. The sugar price remains quite high as sugarcane

low-price issue.

66 Land Use - Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future

**Figure 4.** Oil palm price between 1977 and 2018.

The most crucial factor that causes failure on agricultural zoning in Thailand at the farm level is the agricultural commodity price, while the governments' latter crop subsidy scheme is the most crucial factor that causes the failure of agricultural zoning at the country level.

Obviously, the finding reveals that the most crucial factor that causes agricultural zoning in Thailand to fail at the farm level and at the country level is actually agricultural commodity price. This suggests that agricultural zoning in Thailand should undergo major revision by taking the agricultural commodity price into account. Therefore, a proposal to revise the agricultural zoning used in Thailand based on this finding will be discussed in the next section.
