A couple years back I happened to accidentally see and attend a Thai wine festival at the National Stadium next to Mah Boonkrawng.

I was completely amazed by the acres of exhibition boothes. I could only sample a few of these hundreds of wines made by Thai winemakers, but my favorite was a home brew Satoh brand by some young people in Isan.

There are a lot of innovative Thai entrepreneurs in the food industry, like these two young women and their desert idea. More articles on Thai entrepreneurship.

“There needs to be convenient transport links between urban population centers: motorways and high speed railways. …”

Yes, I don’t mind Morchit and the overnight bus back to Chiang Rai, because Sombat tours actually has bunk beds you can reserve on the floor of the bus.

Great post.

From what I gather, land redistibution, etc. tend to be bad ideas in the long run.

Subsidies are a good short-term solution.

But the main thing is that Thailand has only 1 real ‘urban’ center, which is Bangkok.
Chiang mai and previously Hatyai were developing, but they can’t be called an urban center compared to the monstrosity of Bangkok.

Korat is and has been growing. The fact remains is that within the Northeast, there needs to be urban development, akin to Bangkok. By that I actually mean a city of 4-8 million people. It can be the center of Isan trade, items from OTOP, rice, Isan music, etc. can be centered from there. In other words, a Thai city without the major influence of Chinese art but a very Farm-Thai style. Urban in the style of Houston and Dallas… not NYC or LA.

Of course, this idea is blasphemous, and will be shot down, then eaten up by Bangkok cannibalists to whom will never accept that any city outside Bangkok should develop except for being a ‘tourist’ location.

Further more, when comparing the Thai rural areas to Western ones, one of the most striking differences is the farmer. The Thai farmer has much less land than the Western one, and it is harder to find “specialists” in Thai agriculture: there is no one making cheese or exquisite wines, no regional specialties that are sought after, etc. Once again, I see this as a problem of too many people. From a supply-demand point of view, there are simply too many farmers and no current development plan seems to address this. I am sure everyone is aware of this fact, but simply hope to gain the rural vote whilst waiting for the growth is trickle down.

Therefore, I believe that a policy that encourages centralization and urbanization is a good one. There needs to be convenient transport links between urban population centers: motorways and high speed railways. Urban areas should be given special administrative status so as to provide independent (and presumably better) town planning, transport infrastructure, housing initiatives, schools, public parks, libraries, museums, hospitals, etc. for urban areas.

The increased transportation efficiency between urban centers will no doubt generate increased investment in those urban centers, which creates jobs and draws people towards the cities. Also, exploitation of a city’s unique identity, like Chiang Rai’s art scene as Jon mentioned, should also encourage this growth. Improved municipal management will encourage more to permanently move into the cities. In essence, the city provides them with jobs, a good standard of living, better education for their children, etc.

Although this may seem as a policy to increase the urban/rural divide, in a similar vein to Thaksin’s dual track policies, we also focus on the rural side of things. Land reform must be implemented so that those who remain farmers will be able to make a proper living, unlike the subsistence farming many practice. Etc etc etc.

This is a first draft of my ideas, so destroy it if you like. I hope to generate some debate here.

That is ,they seem to address the symptom not the underlying problem. For example, farmers are in debt and they need help in the short-term so their families can survive and prosper, but in the long-run whatever debt producing activity they are engaging in, is not sustainable and they have to shift to some other activity.

If what Andrew said in a previous post is true and farmers are becoming more reliant on urban supplements to their income, then how to bootstrap members of the family skillwise into the urban workforce seems important, so rural policy is actually not just about spending money in rural areas, but ***helping the rural making inroads into the urban***. The Japanese inspired OTOP, HMK’s royal projects, and the Queen’s handicrafts initiatives, are all inspired examples of this sort of thing. Scholarships for rural kids to continue their studies since many are still pulled out of schools extremely early. Also incentives for Bangkok businesses to relocate operations to the provinces. For example, Chiang Rai has one of the most vibrant artists communities in the nation and is a natural location for the design industry.

One of these days a Thai Hugo Chavez will rise with that convincing passion, vowing to deliver the Thai poor to a promised Eden with land to till for everyone, free health care for all, and with every Thai free from debt slavery.

If a populist coup can occur in Venezuela, why NOT Thailand?