Extreme weather and agricultural management decisions among smallholder farmers in rural Thailand and Vietnam

Abstract

In this article, we explore whether and to what extent smallholder farmers in Northeastern Thailand and Central Vietnam adjust their farm-level management strategies in response to droughts. We hereby consider adjustments in flexible adaptive strategies including water management, fertilizer and pesticide application, labor, and machine use in response to a contemporaneous drought, and adjustments in crop diversification and investments in response to a previous year drought. To that end, we combine longitudinal household data from the two regions from 2007 to 2017 with monthly high-resolution rainfall and temperature data to characterize droughts at the subdistrict level. We find that Thai farmers scale down input costs in terms of fertilizer and hired labor and outsource tasks to service providers with equipment such as a combine, especially when exposed to extreme droughts. Their diversification and investment response seems, however, muted. While Vietnamese farmers are also reducing fertilizer use, they are expanding both the number of hired laborers and rented machinery services. They are also diversifying their cropping portfolio and investing in agricultural equipment.