Page - (000157) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

cultivation) in thevillage, in this year?” Implicit in thisquestion is theunderstand- ing that the village has agricultural land that has been left fallow. Thus the percentageof land cultivated in time t, byvillage i, is assumed tobedefined as: %of land cultivated at time t in village i¼ [(Total land cleared andpotentially fit for cultivation Area left fallow at time t by village i)/Total land cleared and potentiallyfit for cultivation] 100 Inowdiscuss thehypothesizedeffectofvillage levelvariableson total agricultural area andonagricultural intensity. VillagePopulation Villagepopulation isexpected tohave two typesofeffectson total villageagricultural area andcultivation intensity.Thefirst is a scale effect:A villagewitha largernumberofhouseholds isexpected tohaveahigherdemandfor agricultural landcomparedtoonewithafewerhouseholds.Thesecondeffect is the ‘food’ (or subsistence) effect. A larger population also means larger subsistence requirements. The subsistence effect is likely to be stronger for food crops in villages located far from themarket because it is not possible to buy food from themarket.Both these effects are expected to be in the samedirection. Travel Time to Market Travel time to the market is a proxy for the cost of transportingcrops to themarketandobtaining inputs fromthemarket. I expect that farmers that are located far from themarket are able to exercise less leverage in getting the best prices for their produce; are unable to spendmuch time searching for best bargains; are lesswilling to carry their produce back if a transaction does not go through; and, are likely to have limited access to information about mar- kets.20 Thus travel time is also a proxy for search costs, bargaining costs and, generally,costsofnotbeinglocatedinsitu.Thus, forcrops thatareproducedfor the Table 8.5 Percentage of villages growingdifferent crops, forest villages,Thailand, 1986–1996 Year 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 Nocropat all 0 6.6 6.8 5.1 0.8 6.7 Onecrop 78.8 57.1 45.2 41.6 44.4 48.1 Onlypaddy 78.7 55.3 43.4 39.1 44.4 45.9 Only soybean 0 0.5 0.2 0.2 0.2 0 Onlyupland rice 0 1.3 1.6 2.3 0.2 2.1 Twocropsonly 21.2 33.4 41.7 45.6 47.0 40 Paddy rice and soy 21.0 24.7 21.4 19.0 18.5 16.0 Paddy rice andupland 0.3 8.6 20.3 26.6 28.5 23.5 Soyandupland rice 0 0 0 0 0 0.5 Three crops 0 2.8 6.3 7.7 7.8 5.2 Number of villages 367 392 429 469 477 520 Figures are for respondents who provide positive responses to the area question. Source: Data providedbyThammasatUniversity 20Minten andKyle (1999). 8 UsingMixedMethods toAssessTrade-OffsBetweenAgriculturalDecisions. . . 141