Contract Farming and Regional Cooperation
Initiatives for using contract farming as a key institutional arrangement are under way in the
Mekong region. Thailand, for example, has been actively pursuing contract farming as a tool
for regional economic cooperation. At the second Summit of the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-
Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS)3 held in December 2005, Thailand
announced that it would allow tariff-free importation of all approved agricultural products
produced under contract farming in ACMECS member countries. As a result, the Summit
Declaration included an agreement to “accelerate cooperation on contract farming by setting
up as soon as possible joint bilateral working committees to discuss measures to encourage
long-term investment, cultivation and cross-border transportation of agricultural products for
mutual benefit, including the conclusion of Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) on
contract farming.”
In keeping with this agreement, the Thai government has signed an MOU with the
government of Myanmar that would provide Thai agribusiness firms with access to seven
million hectares of arable land in Myanmar. The MOU is intended to facilitate investments by
selected Thai companies in crops for which there is unmet local demand in Thailand. Thai
firms will provide seeds, technology, and equipment for the farmers and will purchase all the
products from contract farms.
Table 1 [ PDF 18.3KB | 1 pages ] below summarizes data on contract farming initiatives registered in the pilot
locations as of 2005. It is noted by the National Economic Social and Development Board of
Thailand that the registered size of contract farms represents about one percent of the total
size of the contract farming operation by Thai firms in other GMS countries.
The ACMECS initiative makes it possible to use Thai agribusiness firms with successful
previous experiences in contract farming as a mechanism for expanding the scheme in
Cambodia, the Lao PDR, and Viet Nam.
Download this Discussion Paper [ PDF 148.7KB| 22 pages ].
Post a CommentWe welcome your feedback on this publication. Post a comment. ADBI is not obliged to acknowledge or publish comments and may abridge or edit them before web posting. Comment(s)
There are [0] comment(s) for this entry. Post a comment.
|
The views expressed in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADBI does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use. Terminology used may not necessarily be consistent with ADB official terms.
|
|
About ADBINews & EventsSpecial ProgramsPartnerships
Publications
Back to Top
