The Rice Agricultural Land Reform Settlement Project (RALRSP) is the project that was undertaken in accordance with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, the government policy, and the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC). It has objectives to create balance and resilience to agricultural sector, to increase capacity of food and energy crops production, and to support new generation of farmers who are the agriculture students and those interested in farming. The project areas include RALRS in 12 provinces, such as RALRS in Chaloem Phra Kiat District, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province; RALRS in Phichai District, Auttaradit Province; RALRS in Chumphon Buri District, Surin Province; and RALRS in Ubon Ratchathani Province. The important activities of the project include infrastructure development, knowledge and technology support, market opportunity creation, and farmer group formation mechanism development.Since rice is an important economic crop for Thailand. And the preliminary project impact evaluation by the Centre for Project and Programme Evaluation (CPPE) employed only data of participating agricultural households from surveying by CPPE and measure the project impact simply by Input, Process, Output, Outcome Model (IPOO Model) that compare only simple statistics of the project result before and after implementing the project. Therefore, the project should be evaluate by employing data of non participating agricultural household from other source and measuring the project impact by other impact evaluation techniques that can show the real impact of the project. This evaluation has objectives to evaluate the impact of the project on land using efficiency, rice production efficiency, and net cash income from rice production. The scope of the evaluation includes 9 RALRSs that were established between 2010 and 2012. The data used include data of participating agricultural households from survey of CPPE and data of non participating agricultural households from Agricultural Household Socio Economics Survey (AHSES) of the Centre for Agricultural Information (CAI). The impact evaluation techniques used include the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and the Difference in Differences Approach (DID).For the preliminary result of the project impact evaluation by CPPE, it shows that implementing 9 RALRSs did not affect the efficiency of land utilization. However, it shows that implementing 9 RALRSs affect positively the efficiency of rice production and net cash income from rice production. After the project, agricultural households in 9 RALRSs could increase rice production on the average to 1,668.78 kilogram per Acre. And they received increased net cash income on the average to 261.30 Euro per Acre. For the result of this thesis, it also shows that implementing 9 RALRSs did not affect the land using efficiency. However, it shows that implementing 9 RALRSs and RALRS in the central and southern regions, especially improving canal system and providing services on machinery and marketing equipment, affect positively and negatively the rice production efficiency and net cash income. After the project, if agricultural households in RALRS in the central and southern regions benefit from improving canals system, their rice production efficiency and net cash income will be increased by 2,381.55 kilogram per Acre and 311.94 Euro per Acre respectively. While if they benefit from services on machinery and marketing equipment, their rice production efficiency will be decreased by 220.03 kilogram per Acre. For agricultural households in 9 RALRSs, if they benefit from improving canals system, their net cash income will be increased by 260.16 Euro per Acre.From these results of the project impact evaluation, implementing the project and a similar project in the future the responsible agencies should undertake the following:1. Continuing canal systems improvement in successful areas, and applying the improvement in a similar project in order to ensuring agricultural households can access to water sources for cultivating rice by undertaking, such as dredging canals, and constructing and repairing electric pumping station.2. Finishing the project implementations that did not affect increase in rice production efficiency and net cash income, such as providing training on rice cultivation, distributing material for soil improvement, and providing services on machinery and marketing equipment, and use remaining budget of these activities to do activities on improving the canal systems.3. Improving those unaffected implementations in order for agricultural households to fully benefit from these implementations by undertaking, such as organizing training on rice cultivation only on the topics that agricultural households are interested in and distributing material for soil improvement to agricultural households before cropping season.

The recent escalation of world food prices – particularly for cereals - prompted mass public indignation and demonstrations in many countries, from the price of tortilla flour in Mexico to that of rice in the Philippines and pasta in Italy. The crisis has important implications for future government trade and food security policies, as countries re-evaluate their reliance on potentially more volatile world markets to augment domestic supplies of staple foods. This book examines how government policies caused and responded to soaring world prices in the particular case of rice, which is the world's most important source of calories for the poor. Comparable case studies of policy reactions in different countries, principally across Asia, but also including the USA, provide the understanding necessary to evaluate the impact of trade policy on the food security of poor farmers and consumers. They also provide important insights into the concerns of developing countries that are relevant for future international trade negotiations in key agricultural commodities. As a result, more appropriate policies can be put in place to ensure more stable food supplies in the future. Published with the Food and Agriculture (FAO) Organization of the United Nations

This open access book is about understanding the processes involved in the transformation of smallholder rice farming in the Lower Mekong Basin from a low-yielding subsistence activity to one producing the surpluses needed for national self-sufficiency and a high-value export industry. For centuries, farmers in the Basin have regarded rice as “white gold”, reflecting its centrality to their food security and well-being. In the past four decades, rice has also become a commercial crop of great importance to Mekong farmers, augmenting but not replacing its role in securing their subsistence. This book is based on collaborative research to (a) compare the current situation and trajectories of rice farmers within and between different regions of the Lower Mekong, (b) explore the value chains linking rice farmers with new technologies and input and output markets within and across national borders, and (c) understand the changing role of government policies in facilitating the on-going evolution of commercial rice farming. An introductory section places the research in geographical and historical context. Four major sections deal in turn with studies of rice farming, value chains, and policies in Northeast Thailand, Central Laos, Southeastern Cambodia, and the Mekong Delta. The final section examines the implications for rice policy in the region as a whole.