**7. A proposal for a revision of agricultural zoning in Thailand**

The revision of agricultural zoning proposed here is based on the principles for dealing with two critical issues that agricultural zoning program in Thailand tries to solve: the mismatching between land use and land suitability and the crop price instability.

The proposal is to set agricultural commodity price based on its production area or in other words its origin. This zone pricing is to be included in the existing zoning program. The Land Development Department (LDD) has completed the country soil survey and matched the land quality with each crop growth requirement in order to help the government to determine the crop zone. They have divided land suitability into four categories: highly suitable (S1), moderately suitable (S2), marginally suitable (S3), and not suitable (N) [33]. The government will be able to set the crop price according to these criteria. The crop that is grown in the area with highly suitable category will have the highest price followed by the crop that is grown in the moderately suitable area, marginally suitable area, and not suitable area, respectively. The proof of the commodity origin is the certificate of origin issued by the local government office. By setting the agricultural commodity price based on its production area, an incentive for farmer to allocate their land to the most suitable crop set by the government is initiated. The method will eliminate the price risk for farmer and the mismatch land-use problem at the same time. The factory and the mill are assured of the quality of the product as it was produced on the most suitable area for such crop. To "set" the price is different from to "control" and to "fix" the price. The proposal here is not to control the market mechanism of demand and supply. The price based on the commodity origin can be set in several ways such as the percentage difference between the crop grown in highly suitable area and the crop grown in moderately suitable area.

The revision proposed is to set agricultural commodity price based on its origin. There are two strategies for meeting Thailand's agricultural zoning objectives. First, after setting the price based on its origin, the government should also play a small role as possible in intervening the agricultural commodity market. Second, the government should integrate a crop production information system with the Agri-map of the MOAC for farmer to check the production area quantity of each crop in the country. This current production quantity information should be updated at least monthly, so that farmer will have sufficient information to make a decision

Agricultural Zoning and Policy Conflict: Thailand's Experience

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I would like to express my appreciation to Professor Tongroj Onchan and Assistant Professor Supachat Sukharom for giving useful comments on my chapter draft and the Faculty of Economics at Si Racha, Kasetsart University, Chonburi, Thailand, for financial support.

Faculty of Economics at Sri-Racha, Kasetsart University, Sriracha Campus, Chonburi,

[1] Hardin G. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science. 1968;**162**(3859):1243-1248. DOI:

[2] Gine X. Land security in rural Thailand: Evidence from a property rights reform. World

[3] The United States Agency for International Development. Land Tenure and Property Right Assessment for Angola. Washington, DC: ARD Inc.; 2005. Contract No. LAG-I-00-

[4] Fischel WA. The Evolution of Zoning Since the 1980s: The Persistence of Localism; September 1, 2010. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1686009 or http://dx.doi.

[5] Fischel WA. The Economics of Zoning Laws: A Property Rights Approach to American Land Use Controls. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1985. 400 p

[6] Cole HD, Ostrom E. Property in Land and Other Resources. Lincoln Institute of Land

on the quantity supply of the agricultural commodity apart from the price.

**Acknowledgements**

**Author details**

Thailand

**References**

98-00031-00

org/10.2139/ssrn.1686009

Policy: United States; 2012. 504 p

Nararuk Boonyanam

Address all correspondence to: noaratc@gmail.com

10.1126/science.162.3859.1243. PMID 5699198

Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3734; 2005

One concern of this method is that the agricultural commodities are in the perfectly competitive market, so the country cannot prevent imported agricultural commodities especially their price set. However, when the use of agricultural land is complied with its suitability, it can be anticipated that the commodity produced can be competed with imported product in terms of quality. The origin declaration will also be applied for imported agricultural commodities. Typically, all types of the certificate of origin (Form D, CO, Form FTA, etc.) are included in the import document set. The importer only needs to put the tag on their commodity showing where the origin of their product is, and this practice has already been done recently in Thailand for agricultural product sale in modern trade store. The consumer will benefit from the information on the commodity origin as some imported product prices are much lower than that of the domestic product but with great poor quality especially in terms of safety. Consumer behavior is changing as there is a raised concern on safety food; therefore, the product origin information is a crucial factor for making a purchase decision instead of price. The agricultural commodities are price inelastic of demand as it is a basic necessity product. In the short run, the quantity purchase is not very responsive to price change. Therefore, the concern of the lower price of imported product is quite inconsiderable. In the worst case, the impact from imported product can be dealt through price protection scheme, but it is not suggested as Thailand has an obligation under the Doha Round of WTO negotiations in November 2001 to reduce the domestic agricultural support and protection. Therefore, the price protection will not be a sustainable way to deal with the problem.
