Buddhist Economics

Schumacher, E.F. 1999. Small is Beautiful. Hartley & Marks Publishers Inc. Vancouver, Canada

THE BUDDHIST ECONOMICS
summarized from chapter 4

the Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold”
- to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties
- to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task
- and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence.

from the Buddhist point of view, there are therefore two types of mechanization which must be clearly distinguished:
- one that enhances a man’s skill and power
- one that turns the work of man over to a mechanical slave, leaving man in a position of having to serve the slave

it is clearm therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the econmics of modern materialsm, since the Buddhist sess the essence of civilization not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man’s work. and work, properly conducted in condisiton of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products.

from a Buddhist point of view, this is standing the truth on its head by considering goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity. it means shifting the emphasize from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the human to the subhuman, a surrender to the forces of evil.
the very start of Buddhist purpose of this would in fact be employment for everyone who needs an ‘outside’ job, and the large-scale employment of women in offices or factories would be considered a sign of serious economic failure.
in particular, to let mothers of young children work in factories while the children run wild would be as uneconomic in the eyes of a Buddhist economist as the employement of a skilled worker as a soldier in the eyes of a modern economist.

while the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. but Buddhism is “ the middle way” and there fore in no way antagonistic to physical well being. it is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them. the keynote of Buddhist economics, therefore, is simplicity and non-violence.
from an economist’s point of view, the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is the utter rationally of its pattern-amazingly small means leading to extra ordinarily satisfactorily results.

The teaching of Buddha, on the other hand, enjoins a reverent and non-violent attitude not only to all sentient beings but also, with great emphasis, to trees. every follower of the Buddha ought to plant a tress every few years and look after it until it is safely established, and the Buddhist economist can demonstrate without difficulty that universal observation of this rule would result in a high rate of genuine economic development independent of any foreign aid.
much of the economic decay of southeast Asia is undoubted due to a heedless and shameful neglect of trees.

Thai agriculture

Book:
Falvey, Lindsay. 2000. Thai Agriculture, Golden Cradle of Millennia. Kasetsart University Press. Bangkok, Thailand.


UNIQUELY AGRICULTURE

Being one of the world’s major agriculture exporters is as a result of innovative political strategies and bounteous natural resources.
Agriculture is important to Thailand and thai agriculture is important to the world. It can be briefly characterized in the following terms:
1. as the world’s largest rice exporter, and high ranking exporter of other food stuff, Thailand feeds some of four times its population; that is something around 250 million people.
2. as the world’s largest rubber producer and exporter, Thailand supports global industries particularly in more developed countries and influences rubber marketing policies.
3. as the world’s largest producer and exporter of Black tiger prawn, Thailand dominates one of the few agriculture sectors which continues too experience rising prices.
4. one thai multi-national group , charoen Pokphand, has grown to become the region’s largest agribusiness conglomerate, ranking in the world’s ten largest such firms.
5. Thailand is the region;s largest exporter of chicken meat and heavily influence the Japanese market.
6. An estimated 80% of thai person are engaged in agriculture and its industries.
7. overwhelmingly, the managers of the natural environment of Thailand are farmers and fishers.
8. the national identify has developed around symbols of agricultural bounty consumed responsibly through images of abundant rice and fish in a benign environment.
9. irrigated rice production has symbolized an approach to sustainable production.
10. Thailand has enjoyed foreign investment and relative political stability which has supported development of an infrastructure oriented to agricultural production for export.
11. over-production of fish, timber and agricultural commodities has recently degraded the natural environment in which the majority of the population live, necessitating informed adaptation of agriculture practices to meet social and environment needs.

Thailand’s top 5 trade surplus products in recent years have been:
1. natural rubber products
2. crustaceans and seafood
3. cereal particularly rice
4. garments
5. canned fish

The top 5 deficit in 1996, were:
1. mineral fuel
2. mechanical equipment
3. vehicles and parts
4. iron and steel
5. electrical equipment

Countries with which Thailand maintains large trade surplus:
1. Singapore
2. hongkong
3. Netherlands
4. USA

Countries with which Thailand maintains large trade deficit:
1. Japan
2. Germany
3. Taiwan
4. South Korea
Thailand can therefore be considered in terms of its natural environment, its modified agriculture environment, and its people and their development of an agriculture nation. The golden cradle of this civilization includes the essential ingredients of a sustainable agriculture, which have been apparently abundant natural resources of land and water and also a favorable climate.

The land of Thai
Total area 513,112 square KM. Thailand borders Lao-PDR to the north and east, Myanmar to the north and west, Cambodia to the southeast, and Malaysia to the south.

Soil
Soil categories in Thailand (page 8)
Entisol 3.3%
Vertisol 0.8%
Inceptisol 9.4%
Millisol 1.2%
Spodosols 0.1%
Alfisols 9.2%
Ultisols 42.1%
Oxisols < 0.1%
Histosols 0.1%
Unclassified 33.8%

The proportion of agricultural land suited to various crops have been suggested as (page 8) :
Upland crops 21%
Paddy rice 26%
Perennial crops 5%
Special crops with appropriate enhancement measures 16%
Unsuitable for agriculture 31%

Water resources
Surface water resources of Thailand (million cubic metres) page 10
Region River Reservoir Natural storage Rainfall volume
Northeast 26558 6231 193 236400
North 23175 48723 34 220500
Central 29720 18781 156 76700
East 3747 333 91000
South 6795 6708 53000 169700
Total 89995 80775 436 794300



Taken from: Kiravanich, Pakit.1983. National water resources management.research report, national defence college, Bangkok

Climate
Thailand’s monsoonal climate is experienced as 3 season:
- hot season = march to may
- rainy season = may to the end of October
- cool season = November to February
While, rainy season is more protracted along the southern coast of peninsula Thailand, the lowest rainfall is commonly in the western continental highland.

Intensification
Agricultural intensification has usually been associated with large scale irrigation, low levels of labor productivity, and severe population pressure.
Thailand has increased its food production through the usual means of:
• increasing the area of cultivatd land
• increasing the number of crops per year
• replacing lower yielding with higher yielding crops and varieties
• reducing post harvest losses

industrialization
in the era of policy shift away from agriculture towards industry was associated with rising agricultural impact on the environment. Thailand ranked ahead of Myanmar, Indonesia, Philippines, korea and japan in terms of; increases in cultivated area, reductions in forest area, increases in agricultural production, increases in percentage of the labor force engaged in agriculture and variability of agricultural production.

National and global responsibilities
Agriculture has created Thailand and continues to shape the Thai identity, support Thai lifestyle, and portray the kingdom to the world. The very association between food and rice in thai language, and the tenacity with which thai farmers have clung to planting at least enough rice for their own family begore engaging in cash crops, testify to the deep association of wet rice culture and the peoples who are Thai. Lapses fro this central element have been highlighted by His Majesty The King …Thailand derives income from many sources but we must remember that we survive from agriculture and therefore we must nurture each aspect of the industry including farmers of all types to continually develop in order to increase the wuality of production in a manner that does not reduce the natural resources base…”

Thailand faces options in highlighting its position in effectively subsidizing food importing countries though low agricultural prices and uncosted environmental impacts:
- continuing to subsidize the development of other nations for minimal benefit
- reducing exports, and hence income, where environmental conflicts are clear
- rationalizing inverstment; in research to ensure responsible agriculture practice, in education to ensure a widespread ability to apply improved technologies, in industry to build on national strengths in agriculture.

Current situation (2000)
5 characteristics arising from development of the past 30 years, are:
- an orientation to export markets with domestic prices, in the main being strongly influenced by international prices – some 77% of the value added in crops agriculture arises in the production of traded goods.
- Expansion of the crop sector in the past has been mainly based on conversion of forest land cultivated area –availability of such new in extremely limited and hence increases in production must arise from increases in yield.
- Rice, once the epitorne of thai agriculture, has been progressively replaced by field crops including maize, kenaf, cassava, and sugar cane-from 1961-1985 the area cultivated for field crops expanded 3.3.% per annum compared with 1.8 % area for rice.
- Governmental involvement in the agricultural sector include regulation of foreign trade, taxation, exchange rates and trade restrictions and also public resources for infrastructure and support services for agriculture.
- Institutional changes, such as the emergence of large food processing agribusiness, have affected farming, for example in the pineapple, tobacco, and some livestock and vegetables industry, biotechnology has accelerated the production of new crop varieties, and usage of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides has increased significantly.

At the same time, FAO reported declining crop yield due to:
o Physical, chemical and biological deterioration
o Inappropriate farming systems for increasingly intensive agriculture
o Poorly defined land ownership with associated restrictions of access to fair credit
o A poorly developed farm credit sector
o Poorly developed agricultural infrastructure
o Irregular rainy seasons.