The Impacts of Crop Diversity Adoption on Rubber Farmers’ Welfare: Evidence from Thailand

Abstract

Given the environmental and socioeconomic challenges of monoculture rubber plantation, FAO emphasized the use and protection of crop diversity which also has been proposed for sustainable development of rubber industry in Thailand. But the adoption of such technology is relatively low that makes rubber crop diversity highly controversy in Thailand. With 2,159 observations at rubber household level collected in 2012–2014, present study investigated the impacts of crop diversity adoption on rubber farmers’ net income in Thailand with use of propensity score matching models. The study found that rubber crop diversity adoption had statistically significant negative impacts on the net income of rubber farmers. And the rubber crop diversity farmers got lower net income of [-11,785.29, -10,887.21] baht per person than monoculture rubber farmers. As the rubber crop diversity system usually grants environmental benefits to the local eco-systems which are exactly the positive externalities and non-rewarded in the market, more incentives and supports are necessary to steam up rubber crop diversity adoption and the sustainability of rubber industry in Thailand.