Impacts of Rice Combine Harvesters on Economic and Social of Farmers in a village of the Tung Kula Ronghai Region.

The Tung Kula Ronghai (TKR) in Northeastern Thailand is often regarded as the best production area of Hom Mali Rice, giving the best quality of rice. More than 3.06 million tons from 9.19 million ton of exported rice in 2007 was produced from the TKR, accounted for 33%. Labor shortage problem changes farmer practice to adopted Combine Harvesters widespread in the TKR. The objectives of this research was to study the impacts of Combine Harvesters on Hom Mali rice agroecosystem in the TKR and describe the coping strategies farmers employ to cope with those impacts, in order to better understand agroecosystem impacts of Combine Harvesters in the TKR. The study area of this research is Roi-Et province, the province is one part of the TKR in the northeast Thailand, farmers conduct rainfed rice cultivation, the area chosen for the study is village No.1, Kukasing sub-district, Kaset Wisai district. The data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary source included existing maps and publications whereas the secondary source was interview with relevant officials, Combine Harvesterʹs brokers, Combine Harvesterʹs owners and farmers. Semi-Structured interview used in this research. Results of the study indicated the impacts of Combine Harvester on Economic and social of TKR farmers included the net benefit of combine harvesting was about 30.3% higher compared to manual harvesting and threshing. After widespread using of combine harvesters, these absent household members no need to return home to help their family to harvest the paddy and then went back to their workplace after finished harvesting like before. 48% of householdʹs absent member continues working in the city.