705.4
No Food Sovereignty in Thailand without Land Security

Thursday, 19 July 2018: 09:30
Location: 104D (MTCC NORTH BUILDING)
Oral Presentation
Sayamol CHAROENRATANA, CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
In Thailand, half of the land is agriculture land. This land is important to farmers’ livelihoods, yet they face landlessness and lost of access to land. This study explains the linkage between food sovereignty and land security. The central question asked here was how food sovereignty can be established in Thailand. Rural villages in Northern Thailand were selected as a case study. We found that land and access land is a significant point for farmers to secure life. The data further shows that problems regarding landlessness among farmers. These problems were connected with land security and farming patterns. Farmers increasingly become landlessness which is due to economic problems that are rooted in farming patterns and the market. Another reason for land insecurity is that farmers lack rights in land and cultural rights have been denied resulting in a loss of access to land. Further neoliberal agriculture and policies have forced farmers to change their farming patterns. Combined with an imbalance between the cost of production and market prices, farmers are trapped in poverty. The lack of land security has heightened this situation further. It has to be concluded that food security is inextricably linked to land security. Thus, land rights need to be reformed in order to empower farmers and achieve food Sovereignty. For there can be no food sovereignty in Thailand without land security.