Assessing the Social-ecological Resilience of Organic Farmers in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand

Abstract

Since resilience is continuing to make its rise to the top of the sustainable development policies, monitoring resilience has become critical because it provides stakeholders with practical actions that can strengthen the state of adaptability to cope with all kinds of change. In this study, resilience, and social theories, such as grounded theory and technography, were integrated as a conceptual framework to produce a specific set of indicators, which yielded forty-seven indices, called social-ecological resilience indicators (SERIs). This study attempts to manage the temporal and spatial scales of resilience systems and to make such indicators suitable for organic rice production systems in four districts of Chiang Mai Province. A questionnaire was utilized to survey fifty-three organic farmers, and the results of the descriptive data analysis indicated that 0.54 (1.00 = the maximum) had been the respondents’ average score. Meanwhile, the highest and the lowest scores were serially 0.69 and 0.40. In addition, the findings revealed that Kendall’s Tau-b rank correlation’s numeric value came closer to +, which meant that the respondents had demonstrated an average tendency to be resilient. Generally, the highest score of resilience existed for those organic farmers, who had been outstanding in creating opportunities for self-organization, such as considerably relying on food and farm materials from the availability of local resources. Moreover, the majority of them were found to have a secondary on-farm profession that was not only subsidizing additional incomes but was also providing new knowledge and opportunities. This contrasted with the group with lowest score. The farmers, who exhibited unsatisfactory resilience, were centralized in dimensions, ranging from a having a lack of diverse water sources to having sufficient competency to exploit the benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). They are, therefore, more prone to being affected by negative pressures. It is recommended that for building resilience, the ‘holy grail’ is boosting self-reliance. This capacity is key to reducing the risk of losing sustenance and enabling stakeholders to apply the appropriate strategies in times of change

Sustainability Strategy for Organic Paddy Farming Business toward Global Market: Network Process Analysis Approach

“…The relationship between a farmer's experience and knowledge of the farming business's technical aspects is tight. According to Panpakdee et al [50], farmers with expertise in environmentally friendly agriculture will find it easier to practice organic farming. Increased farming expertise can help organic paddy farmers overcome issues and hurdles.…”

“…Failures faced by farmers become experiences from which they might learn. The better farmers' knowledge is, the greater their experience will be [50].…”

The Differences in Insights of Social-ecological Resilience between Organic Farmers and Extension Agents

“…Organic farming practices emphasize biodiversity that can boost farmers to produce quality yields while using natural resources more e ciently (FAO 2017). Nevertheless, to achieve those pro ts, the farmers must be aided with inputs and knowledge about their agroecological systems (Panpakdee et al 2021). Considering agriculture's complexity tailored by its interconnection with the economic, social, and environmental surroundings, the sole ability of farmers is insu cient to cope with every kind of adversity occurred in those dimensions (Mathijs and Wauters 2020).…”