Rice production in Thailand

Rice production in Thailand represents a significant portion of the Thai economy and labor force. Forty percent of Thais work in agriculture, 16 million of them as rice farmers by one estimate.

Thailand has a strong tradition of rice production. It has the fifth-largest amount of land under rice cultivation in the world and is the world's second largest exporter of rice. Thailand has plans to further increase the land available for rice production, with a goal of adding 500,000 hectares to its already 9.2 million hectares of rice-growing areas.

The Thai Ministry of Agriculture expects rice production to yield around 25 million tonnes of paddy rice in the 2016-2017 crop year, down from 27.06 million tonnes in 2015-2016.Jasmine rice (Thai: ; rtgs: Khao hom mali, a higher quality type of rice, is the rice strain most produced in Thailand although in Thailand is thought that only Surin, Buriram, and Sisaket Provinces can produce high quality hom mali. Jasmine has a significantly lower yield rate than other types of rice, but it normally fetches more than double the price of other strains on the global market.

Due to an ongoing drought, the USDA has forecast output will drop by more than a fifth to 15.8 million tonnes in 2016. Thailand harvests three rice crops a year, but due to the drought, the government is urging a move to less water-dependent crops.

Until the 1960s, rice planting in Thailand consisted mainly of peasants farming small areas and producing modest amounts of rice. The Chao Phraya River delta was the hub of rice production. Agriculture constituted a large portion of the total production of Thailand and most Thais worked on farms. The extreme focus on agriculture arose for two main reasons: the vast amount of land available for farming and the government's policies of clearing land and protecting peasants' rights. The government helped peasants gain access to land and protected them from aristocratic landlords.

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