A Political Ecology of Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand1

Rural Sociology 64(4), 1999, pp . 573-596

Copyright © 1999 by the Rural Sociological Society

A Political Ecology of Shrimp Aquaculturein Thailand].

Peter Vandergeest, Mark Flaherty,* and Paul Miller*Department of Sociology, York University, North York, Ontario,Canada M3J 1P3*Department of Geography, University ofVictoria, Victoria, B .C .,Canada V8W 3P5

ABSTRACT This paper uses themes from political ecology to develop in-sights into the billion dollar shrimp aquaculture sector in Thailand . Wefind that corporations can exercise only limited control over shrimp pro-duction and that there is no clear trend toward larger operations . We ex-plain the continued viability of small owner-operated farms by looking athow shrimp farming is located in physical and social space, and at theability of owner-operators to work within the highly unstable socio-ecolog-ical processes of shrimp production. We also find that shrimp farming hasinduced a spatially-uneven increase in state territorial regulation . The spa-tial distribution of regulation is shaped by differences in how landscapesbecome politicized, and the degree of jurisdictional clarity. We concludethat industry self-regulation has limited prospects for containing the socialand environmental problems of shrimp farming in Thailand, but that ex-panded state regulation that mobilizes the participation of local peoplemight be effective.

Introduction

The dramatic role that shrimp farming has played in transformingcoastal landscapes and livelihoods in tropical areas around theworld makes it a critical area of concern for environmental andrural sociologists . Governments and aid agencies are promotingblack tiger shrimp aquaculture as a way of replacing stagnant or de-clining capture fisheries, enhancing income and employment op-portunities for the poor in coastal communities, and generating sig-nificant foreign exchange . However, the explosive development ofshrimp aquaculture has been accompanied by growing concernsover the social, economic, and environmental impacts associatedwith the industry (Beveridge et al . 1994; DeWalt et al . 1996 ; Stanley1998; Stonich et al . 1997 ; Yadfon Association 1996) . The escalatingtension over shrimp farming has extended to the formation ofglobal alliances of environmental and peasant organizations op-

'The financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada (SSHRC), the research assistance of Kathy Campbell and Jaroon Kanjana-pan, and the comments of Conner Bailey, Bob Gronski, Susan Stonich, and anony-mous reviewers for this journal are all gratefully acknowledged. Communicationsshould be addressed to Peter Vandergeest . We suggest e-mail, to [email protected]

574

Rural Sociology, Vol. 64, No. 4, December 1999

posed to shrimp farming and of industry groups seeking to counterthe campaigns of opponents (Global Aquaculture Alliance 1999).

Many sociologists who study export-oriented food productionwork from a global political economy approach, drawing on in-sights from the broader literatures on industrial restructuring andcommodity chain analysis (Friedland 1984; McMichael 1994a) . Thisapproach has also been applied to the study of shrimp farming(e .g., Gronski 1997; Skladany and Harris 1995) . However, the waysthat the industrial restructuring literature has been imported intoagro-food studies have been subjected to criticism for, among otherthings, inadequate attention to the specifics of agriculture as aland-based production system, a tendency to emphasize deregula-tion and deterritorialization while ignoring concomitant processesof uneven re-regulation and re-territorialization, and a failure toexplain why agro-food systems are typically not characterized by ver-tically-integrated transnational production systems (Goodman 1997;Goodman and Watts 1994 ; Watts and Goodman 1997) . These threeprocesses are all prominent in the shrimp farming sector in Thai-land, making this case useful in exploring ways of addressing theseproblems. In this paper we draw on results from our study ofshrimp farming in Thailand to argue that insights from politicalecology can contribute to reformulating the study of agro-food sys-tems. We focus on the spatial dynamics of shrimp farming, the un-even regulatory practices of the state, and relations between thecorporate sector and growers . We suggest that a similar approachcould be usefully incorporated into the analysis of other dynamic,capital-intensive, high-value "non-traditional" agro-food exportsfrom tropical countries (e .g., Llambi 1994; Raynolds 1994; Wattsand Goodman 1997:10-12).

Theory and methods

A political ecology approach to shrimp aquaculture

Political ecology is best understood as a forum for discussionamong an interdisciplinary community of scholars concerning waysthat the environment is politicized, rather than as a set of coherentpropositions. "Third World Political Ecology" (Bryant and Bailey1997) began as the integration of human/cultural ecology and thepolitical economy of the environment into what Blaikie and Brook-field (1987) labelled a "regional political ecology." More recently,political ecologists have drawn on cultural studies for insights intothe relationship between identity and resource politics and the waysthat meanings ascribed to specific landscapes shape environmentalpolitics at both micro and macro levels (e .g., DuPuis and Van-dergeest 1996; Fairhead and Leach 1998 ; Peet and Watts 1997) .

5 76

Rural .Sorioloy Vol. 64 . No. , /)r . i'm/ar JV})Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand - Vandergeest et al .

575

~

~ ~

~First, political ecology is committed to clarifying and

~

~~

~~~~ ~~ ~~

that the physical environment plays in~~

~~~~~

~

~

Four themes in political ecology provide a basis for developing aframework for understanding the dynamics of shrimp aquaculturein Thailand . First, political ecology is committed to clarifying andinterpreting the critical role that the physical environment plays inshaping social relations . Second, political ecology emphasizes thecontingent and unpredictable character of ecological as well as so-cial processes and the way that unexpected outcomes often over-whelm predicted outcomes (Beck 1992) . The unstable and unpre-dictable character of both natural and human ecologies providesgrounds for challenging the current convention that either corpo-rations or states are capable of controlling the chaotic shrimp farm-ing sector. Third, attention to the importance of meanings and nar-ratives associated with the physical environment draws attention tothe ways that the different landscapes associated with shrimp farm-ing have been politicized depending on how these landscapes arevalued by international environmental groups or urban middleclasses. Finally, attention to the processes of state formation and in-ternal territorialization (Vandergeest and Peluso 1995) help ex-plain how zoning has become the most important regulatory ap-proach in shrimp farming.

~

~Research context

Although shrimp farming has developed along most of Thailand'scoasts, time and resource limitations dictated that we conduct in-tensive research in selected regions . We chose (1) the east coast ofthe peninsula, with an emphasis on Songkla and Nakorn SriThamarat (hereafter Nakorn) provinces ; (2) the west coast of thepeninsula, with a focus in Trang province ; and (3) the Central Re-gion, with an emphasis in Chachoengsao province (Figure 1) . InChachoengsao we conducted a survey by interviewing the owner oroperator of every tenth operation along a waterway to a total of 50interviews . In Songkla and Nakorn we interviewed shrimp and non-shrimp farmers in many villages along the coast over a period offive years . These interviews were supplemented by more intensivestudies in three villages, where a research assistant conducted keyinformant interviews and additional interviews with a sample ofshrimp and non-shrimp farmers. On the Andaman coast we con-ducted two similar village-based studies, supplemented by informalinterviews with shrimp farmers and villagers not involved in shrimpfarming in three different provinces.

Rapid change within the shrimp farming sector makes it a mov-ing target that is not easily captured by traditional survey tech-niques . We supplemented the field surveys by interviewing re-searchers in local universities (Kasetsart University in Bangkok,Prince of Songkla University in the South, and Burapha Universityin the east-Central region) ; researchers at fisheries and aquaculture

7 76

Rural .SorkrloAn, , Vol. 64, No. 4, 1 }vrr tuber 1999

t

i

t,

11

r~

,/ ;

(fj/'

11 2 :'

1

1

I f

I/,4r, ~13 r

j'

/ r .

;9.

;~i ;

.

` s-

I '

r

;jR"

:I

17

Son gAlan t

4 .4

Lake

l

I9 '~

I&

,,

20

I.] ;

Sct1

' ,22 ; ; ; s . 2 3

24 '%

25

Malaysia j

150 ti

ti

sR

F

.1

33

Burma ''

Z

1

3

--,.----

T r

-Gulf

Of

~'~21'xl~Cl t1 L~`

r

3c - 35 ./ 36

'34~f'

27

29 :Bangkok 'tt6og!'Ox`Fx

-

of , ;; 5',,,,° f .

6 y'

4

[

14

l5I

26

1i Cambodia

2

1

1

r' 1N

1 'rat2 ( 'hantahuri3 Bayong4 Chunburi5 C 'hachucngsao6 5a:nut Prakan7 Bangkokis Sat-nut Sakhon9 Samut Songkbram

10 Phochahuri11 Prachuap Khiri Khan12 (•huntphon13 Ranung14 Surat Thani15 Phangnga16 Phukrt17 Krabi18 Nakhun Si Thammarali9 Tang20 Phallhalung21 Sahtn22 Sungkhla23 I'attani24 Yala25 Narathiwat26 Prachinhuri27 Nakon Nayok28 Phatumthani29 Nonthahuri311 Nakon Pathon31 Katchahnri32 Kanchanaburi33 Suphanhuri34 Ayutthaya35 Sarahun36 Nakhun Ratchasitna

Fig-um I . Map of "Fhaiianra showing provinces mentioned in the text

Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand - Vandergeest et al .

577

development centers ; provincial and district officials in the Depart-ment of Fisheries ; officials in other government departments in-cluding Forestry, Irrigation, and Local Administration ; corporatesales agents (who often have the most reliable information on thestructure and contemporary trends in shrimp farming) ; membersof Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ; owners of hatcheriesand nurseries; and employees of two key corporations.

A brief history and structure of shrimp fanning in Thailand

Breeding stock for the shrimp industry in Thailand are caught inthe Andaman sea, off the west coast . Nurseries purchase post-larvaefrom the hatcheries at about PL10 (the tenth day after hatching),and sell to grow-out farmers at PL15 . The grow-out stage takes 90to 120 days, after which the crop is harvested by emptying the pondof water. Environmental effects occur when pond water is disposedof into surrounding surface water or seeps into the ground water,sediments dug from the pond bottom between crops are dumpedonto public land and into nearby waterways, and ecosystems are de-stroyed during the construction of shrimp farms and associated in-frastructure . In recent years many farmers have switched to the so-called "closed system," in which they devote 10 to 50 percent oftheir pond area to reservoirs where water is deposited for treat-ment and then reused. Farmers have adopted this system primarilyto shield themselves from disease. In practice, water continues toseep into the ground water system, pond sediments are still de-posited in the external environment, and farmers typically continueto release water into canals and rivers during harvests or whenstruck by disease. The social impacts include dramatically increasedincomes for some participants and loss of livelihoods and food se-curity for many due to resource degradation ; alienation of land toabsentee owners; high debt; increased violence ; and proletarianiza-tion, as former farmers who cannot participate in shrimp farmingturn to wage labor.

Thailand has been the world's largest producer of culturedshrimp since 1991, with 1998 exports exceeding 200,000 metrictons, worth between one and two billion U .S. dollars . Small (lessthan one hectare) and medium (one to twenty hectares) sizedfarms dominate shrimp production : The Department of Fisheriesestimates that in 1995 there were 22,001 intensive grow-out farmscovering 44,700 hectares, giving an average size of about twohectares (Patmasiriwat 1997) . Since most small farmers avoid regis-tering their farms, this data probably underestimates the numberand area of farms-Shrimp News International estimated thatthere was 80,000 hectares of shrimp farms in Thailand in 1994(Menasveta 1998) . Most owners were previously wet rice farmers orsmall scale fishers . Thailand's shrimp farmers almost exclusively use

578


mono-culture techniques with extremely high stocking densities.Shrimp News International estimated 1994 productivity in Thailandto be 3.13 metric tons/ha/year, about three times higher than anyother major shrimp producing country (Menasveta 1998).

A switch from rice to shrimp farming involves a dramatic escala-tion in capital intensity and risk . The typical costs for the construc-tion of a one hectare farm plus production costs for the first crop isabout one million baht, compared to the average per capita in-come in Thailand of 77,000 baht (Asian Development Bank 1998) . 2Most small farmers obtain investment capital through loans frombanks combined with the pooling of money among relatives . By1998, banks had stopped lending money specifically for shrimpfarming, but they continued to lend money based on the assessedvalue of land used as security. If shrimp prices are high, and thefarmers do not have serious disease problems, they can easily re-coup this investment in less than a year and, within two years, canbe making previously unimagined incomes . Fluctuations in theprice of shrimp, disease, theft, and rising feed prices, however, canjust as easily leave farmers with equally unimagined debts.

Shrimp farming in Thailand is characterized by rapid spatial mo-bility, and repeated boom and bust cycles due to disease and pricefluctuations . Intensive shrimp production was first introduced intoThailand in the mid-1980s along the coast of the upper Gulf ofThailand, just south of Bangkok (Flaherty and Vandergeest 1998).By the early 1990s the industry in the upper Gulf had collapsed dueto industrial and self-pollution, but shrimp farming had already be-gun to expand to other coasts, with the highest concentrationalong the peninsular east coast in Southern Thailand. In 1996 and1997, some 50 percent of southern shrimp farms went out of pro-duction due to outbreaks of disease, leaving many small-scale farm-ers with enormous debts . With the onset of the economic crisis in1997, however, the farmgate price of shrimp skyrocketed as thevalue of the baht dropped from 25 to 50 baht per U .S. dollar, in-ducing a major new wave of expansion in the central plains and thesouth. By the end of 1998, appreciation of the baht to 36 per U.S.dollar, increased production in other crisis-ridden Asian countries,and decreased demand in recession-ridden Japan (Court 1998) hadcaused the farmgate price of shrimp in Thailand to plummet to lessthan 50 percent of peak prices, once again leaving many indebtedfarmers unable to recoup investments . At the same time, a directivefrom the prime minister ordering provincial governors to banshrimp farming in fresh water zones is forcing many shrimp farm-

2We present currency figures in baht because exchange rates have swung fromabout 25 baht per U .S . dollar prior to the current economic crisis, to 50 baht, andthen back to about 36 baht by the end of 1998 .


579

ers in the central plains to relocate or stop farming (Flaherty et al.1999) .

Shrimp farming in Thailand is characterized not only by rapidchanges over time, but also by significant variation across regionsand provinces. The following are some of our findings in the threemain research regions.

South east coast, Nakorn Sri Thamarat to Songkla

On the east coast of the peninsula shrimp ponds have been built inan extremely dense strip along a coastal rice growing plain . Shrimpfarm ownership in this region is a mix of corporate, contract, andsmall-scale independent farmers, with the later group being nu-merically dominant. According to various surveys of shrimp farmsconducted in this area during the early to mid-1990s, the averagefarm size was only 0 .8 hectares (Boonchuwong 1994 :358) ; 93 per-cent of farms were owner-operated ; and one percent were companyfarms (Gronski 1997 :234) . Farms along canals flushed by tides,which run parallel to the coast, tend to be small, as the proximityof the canals helps keep infrastructure costs down . Farms drawingsalt water directly from the sea tend to be larger or corporate . Twocorporations have attempted contract farming schemes in these ar-eas: Charoen Prokphand (CP) is a major Thai-based multinationalcorporation supplying over half the feed for shrimp farming inThailand, while Aquastar was originally set up with foreign invest-ment but was later sold to a Southern Thai businesswoman . Ac-cording to statistics given to us by Aquastar management, this com-pany set up contract farming operations on 1,060 ponds coveringabout 900 hectares of land in 19 sites . The original scheme col-lapsed during 1995-1996 amid escalating conflicts between thecompany and contract farmers. After the original owners sold thecompany, the project was reconstituted as a network of indepen-dent operations on company land, in which the company soldfarmers power and water without any other contractual obligations.

Our three study villages were chosen to allow us to focus on boththe contract farming schemes and independent operations. In onevillage, a CP project that had ceased operations in the early 1990safter major conflicts with the contract farmers, was the site of inde-pendent operations conducted by many of the former contractfarmers. A second village included an Aquastar site, while the thirdhad no corporate farms. The structure of shrimp farming in the lat-ter village was typical of the region : there were 41 locally-ownedsmall farms and six absentee-owned farms, while 116 householdsdid not farm shrimp.

The impact of shrimp farm development on the local environ-ment has been devastating . The most obvious impacts on local peo-ple arise from the seepage of brackish water out of the culture

580


ponds into the surrounding rice fields, irrigation canals, andground water supplies . In Songkla province, salinization has killedhundreds of thousands of sugar palm trees that once stood aroundthe rice fields; their remnants, combined with an absence of othergreen vegetation, make for a landscape that has the aesthetics of aCanadian clearcut. These palms were once the basis of a thrivingpalm sugar economy, and they had many other uses (Vandergeest1989) . Fishers report that inshore fisheries have deteriorated dueto water pollution from the discharge of shrimp pond effluents,while Songkla Lake was on the verge of eutrophication at the timeof writing (although there were multiple sources putting nutrientsinto the lake) . In some areas polluted water turned beaches black,eliminating them as a common property source of collected food.Boonchoo (n .d.), in a study of the impacts of shrimp farming inthe northern tip of the coastal plain, reports the disappearance ofmany species of fish in paddy fields ; an increase in insects, induc-ing farmers to use more pesticide ; destruction of home gardenswhere shrimp farms are located near residential areas ; and a majordrop in the number of farm animals due to shrimp farm encroach-ment onto grazing land . Many of these problems have dispropor-tionately affected food availability for the village poor, whose wel-fare is most dependent on common property resources.

West coast

The Andaman Sea coastline is much more irregular than the eastcoast and contains most of the remaining mangroves in Thailand(Charuppat and Ongsomwang, n .d.) . In most areas there is a rapidtransition from the shoreline to upland crops such as rubber. As aresult, shrimp farming has not been as densely concentrated as onthe east coast . Ponds were constructed in a variety of ecologicalzones, including mangroves (often in former logging concessions),in agricultural areas just behind mangroves, and along streamsflushed by tidal action . The rural population includes many Mus-lims, and local livelihoods are oriented around small-scale fishingand rubber.

Our research indicates that farms are small to mid-sized, with thelargest that we encountered consisting of 50 ponds . The largerfarms on this coast are most often owned by wealthy Buddhist indi-viduals residing in nearby towns and cities . Data from our surveysin the two Trang villages reflect this general situation . In first vil-lage, the 13 locally-owned farms averaged 0.67 hectares in size,while the three absentee-owned farms (of six total) on which we ob-tained data averaged 4 .0 hectares . In the second village, the aver-age size of the five farms (of nine total) on which we obtained datawas 1 .3 hectares . Four were owned by non-locals; the only local was


581

Table 1 . Farm size distribution in Chachoengsao province

Size (1 hectare=6.25 rai)

rai ha Number of farms

1-6 <1 177-12 1-2 7

13-31 2-5 1532-62 5-10 7

63+ 10+ 4

the village teacher. In both villages absentee owners resided innearby towns.

The ecological and social impacts of shrimp farming were not yetas dramatic as on the east coast. The major issue was the destruc-tion of mangroves, but there were no reliable data on the extent ofthis destructions In some cases villagers reported problems withwater pollution affecting domestic water supplies, fish farming, andinshore fisheries.

Inland low-salinity culture : Chachoengsao province

The development of low salinity culture techniques (Flaherty andVandergeest 1998; Flaherty et al . 1999) has made it feasible forfarmers located up to 200 kilometers from the coast to obtain min-imum salinity levels by buying sea or hypersaline water trucked infrom the coast while taking the bulk of their water from fresh-waterrivers or irrigation canals . By some government estimates, inlandshrimp farming accounted for between 40 to 50 percent of Thai-land's cultured shrimp production during 1998 (Limsuwan 1998).Most inland shrimp farms are located in the central region, oftencalled Thailand's "rice bowl," and around Songkla Lake in the south.

In some central provinces most farms were large and absentee-owned, while in others there was substantial local ownership . Localinformants suggest that local ownership is more likely where peo-ple have previous experience with fresh-water fish farming, orwhere shrimp farming has been present for a sufficiently long pe-riod of time that locals have had opportunities to learn the tech-niques . Although the average rice farm size in the central region isabout 4 hectares (Onchan 1990 :11), the distribution of land is veryuneven. The presence of large rice farms has made it possible forabsentee shrimp farm operators to assemble shrimp farms muchlarger on average than those found in southern Thailand . For ex-

sAccording to a recent study using data from a three day aerial survey of the westcoast during September, 1998, 24 percent of west coast mangroves were convertedto shrimp farms (Mangrove Action Project 1998)

582


ample, Department of Fisheries data in 1998 for Supanburiprovince (Figure 1) show an average farm size of about 15 hectares,while the 35 farms in a district that we visited in Ratchaburiprovince had an average size of 9 hectares . The largest farm that weencountered was 65 hectares, on land rented from two landownersin Supanburi.

In Chachoengsao province, where we completed the 50 farm sur-vey, shrimp farming is predominately locally-owned . Table 1 showsthe size distribution of these farms . Over 75 percent of farmersowned the land on which they had their shrimp farms, and onlytwo owners did not live in or near the village where their farm waslocated. Twenty-one farms hired labor, a total of 69 men and 16women, mostly from the impoverished northeast of Thailand. Ason the east coast of the peninsula, access to water from waterwayshas facilitated substantial local participation . Villagers who took upshrimp farming already owned land near a good supply of waterfrom rivers or canals.

Other data obtained through this survey show that the rapid spa-tial movements and high-risk characteristics of shrimp farming ex-tend to the low-salinity operations . Although the median time ofoperation was just 3 .7 years, most operators had suffered from dis-ease losses. Most used storage and recycle reservoirs, but only a fewtreated pond water before discharging it into a canal . Althoughfarmers maintained a low level of salinity relative to coastal shrimpfarms, salinity levels up to 10 parts per thousand were high comparedto the surrounding land and water areas, and seepage rates werehigh . Virtually all the salt trucked into inland shrimp farms goesinto the surrounding waters and soils, or into pond sediments thatare dug out after harvests and dumped somewhere nearby. Al-though inland shrimp farming is a recent innovation, conflicts withadjacent rice and vegetable farmers are already a constant featureof low-salinity shrimp farming (e .g., Ridmontri 1998) . There havealso been conflicts over the operation of irrigation systems, as shrimpand rice farmers competed for water at a time of growing shortages.

Until recently, however, there has been little collective resistanceto shrimp farming in Thailand, in contrast with India, Ecuador, andHonduras . The reasons for the low level of resistance are various.First, the high level of participation in shrimp farming by villagers,and especially by village elites including village heads, makes it dif-ficult to create community solidarity around opposition to shrimpfarming. The most effective local resistance has developed on thewest coast and in the central region, where village-level participa-tion in shrimp farming is lowest. Second, shrimp farming often at-tracts investors who have a history of corrupt or illegal activitiesand are quick to use violence against opponents. Reports in oneshrimp farming area put the price of a person's life at between 20


583

to 30 kilograms of shrimp . Third, the legal and ideological strengthsof private property (Peluso and Vandergeest 1999) make it difficultfor government officials or local people to constrain the operationsof shrimp farm entrepreneurs even when their activities degradecommon property resources.

In the last few years, however, we have been seeing more andmore cases of villagers concerned about livelihoods and resourcedegradation acting to prevent or contain shrimp farming. In someareas around Songkla Lake in the south, for example, villagers con-cerned about the effects of shrimp farming on rice farming or fish-ing have barred shrimp farms from entering their villages, some-times by means of blockades and physical force . The local concernand resistance provides a potential base for containing shrimpfarming, if that concern can be joined with appropriate forms ofregulation . In the next section we use themes from political ecol-ogy to examine the feasibility of alternative ways of containing theimpacts of shrimp farming in Thailand.

Analysis

Corporations, villagers, and bugs

Shrimp aquaculture promoters respond to criticism by arguing thatpast abuses can be corrected by a combination of industry self-reg-ulation and state regulation . Industry groups such as the ASEANShrimp Farm Industry Task Force, formed in Bangkok in Septem-ber 1997 (Ridmontri 1997), and the Global Aquaculture Alliance(GAA), also formed in 1997, are particularly interested in promot-ing self-regulation. From the industry point of view, self-regulationis desirable to reduce environmental impacts and the risk of diseaseemanating from environmental stress, as an alternative to state reg-ulations and bans, and an instrument for improving their imagewith consumers . The GAA, the FAO, and the Thai Department ofFisheries have or are developing detailed codes of practice for min-imizing the environmental impacts of shrimp farming (FAO 1997;Global Aquaculture Alliance 1999).

Self-regulation is based on the assumption that the large enter-prises committed to this approach can control shrimp farmingpractices . As we indicated in the introduction, the literature on therestructuring of agro-food systems suggests that large multinationalconglomerates like CP are in fact taking control of all phases of theshrimp industry through the displacement of small independentfarmers, contract farming, and vertical integration (Gujja and Fin-ger-Stich 1996:14; Skladany and Harris 1995) . A second more lim-ited argument made by scholars involved in detailed local researchis that small shrimp farmers are being displaced by larger, more in-tensive enterprises owned by urban entrepreneurs (Bailey and

584


Skladany 1990:67; DeWalt et al . 1996 :1196; Muluk and Bailey 1996;Stonich 1992).

It is true that corporations have a significant role in shrimp farm-ing in Thailand. They promote the expansion of the industry, es-pecially through sales agents who provide training for farmers, andthey have expanded their business by manufacturing and selling in-puts and buying, processing, and exporting the product. CP in par-ticular derives enormous income from control of the feed market,which, according to our surveys, constitutes abut 50 percent of re-current costs for the grow-out phase . But our research results alsoshow that generalizations regarding corporate control over allphases of shrimp production do not apply to Thailand . Corpora-tions stopped investing directly in the grow-out phase of shrimpfarming in the early 1990s ; small and medium-sized operations con-tinue to dominate the hatchery and grow-out phases ; and contractfarming schemes have collapsed . The corporate withdrawal fromfarming was not entirely by choice . Many companies had ambitiousplans for expanding corporate farms and contract farming schemes(Gronski 1997), but expansion met with only limited success, andcontract farming was undermined by poor management, outbreaksof disease, and resistance by contract growers . For example, grow-ers circumvented Aquastar's efforts to force them to buy Aquastarfeed, and responded to Aquastar's attempts to control the harvestsby "stealing" shrimp from their own ponds prior to the Aquastarharvest.

With respect to the argument that small farms are being replacedby bigger operations, our data do confirm that medium-sized andlarge operations are often absentee-owned, so that the spatial move-ment of shrimp farms is associated with land alienation from ruralfarmers to urban entrepreneurs . At the same time, our data do notshow an overall trend within the shrimp farming sector away fromthe numerical predominance of small, locally-owned shrimp farms.Nor is there a transition to higher intensity, largely because thistransition has already gone as far as it can in Thailand . Finally,small farms are not less intense than large farms ; indeed, small op-erations tend to use even higher stocking densities than larger pri-vate or corporate farms (Thongrak 1995; Thongrak et al . 1997).

We have identified a number of reasons for the continued pre-dominance of small and medium-sized grow-out operations in Thai-land. First, the techniques of shrimp farming are either scale neu-tral or provide a competitive advantage to small owner-operatedfarms that have access to the other factors of production . In ahighly unstable disease environment, small farmers are better ableto micro-manage, have a more detailed knowledge of local ecolo-gies, and can take advantage of a trial and error approach . Studiesbased on data obtained from large numbers of farmers in different


585

parts of the country consistently show that small owner-operatedfarms are more efficient than medium and large farms operated byhired workers (New 1996 ; Patmasiriwat 1997 ; Thongrak 1995).Small owner-operators have much more at stake in the success oftheir farms than do hired workers and will micro-manage theirfarms to a degree not replicated on larger farms . As a result, theyexperience better feed conversion ratios, less disease, and higherrates of return . Large farms often try to motivate their workers byoffering salary bonuses based on production from ponds under theworkers' care, but the studies cited above suggest that this does notinstill the same level of incentive as that of an owner-operator whohas gone into great debt to finance the operation . Smaller opera-tors are also apparently more willing to experiment with differentculture techniques in search of higher efficiency and disease pro-tection than are larger farms (author interviews; New 1996 ; Thon-grak 1995) . Scientific research can do much to explain disease incontrolled laboratory contexts, but there are limits on the ability ofscience to explain, predict, and control disease in the chaoticshrimp farming sector. At the same time, small farmers have oftengained access to useful innovations, such as the testing of fry forviruses, produced through scientific research.

The collapse of the corporate contract farming operations work-ing with ostensibly better water systems and the benefit of so-calledexpert technical knowledge shows that expensive large-scale infra-structure and technical knowledge do not necessarily lead to suc-cess. According to the farmers in one Aquastar site, for example,the company located the sea water intake pipe in a place where theocean currents brought the waste water discharged from the sameproject, increasing the risk of disease. The company ignored re-peated requests by farmers that these pipes be moved . Most formercontract farmers claimed that they lost crops to disease as a resultof bad company advice.

Our data and readings of the literature suggest that the domi-nance of large and corporate farms in countries like Honduras andin some provinces in Thailand is due less to any inherent advantagefor corporate farms than to privileged access to land, water, and/orcredit . Such access is, in turn, the outcome of pre-existing agrarianrelations, government policies, and the physical landscape. Theseconclusions are reinforced by studies in Mexico (Torres 1996) andBangladesh (Guimaraes 1989) that also show that the organiza-tional structure of shrimp farming is shaped by different forms ofaccess to capital and land . The relative scarcity of low-cost coastallands in Thailand has facilitated the development of high intensitymethods on agricultural land, most of which is held under land ti-tle by small holders . This has made it difficult for corporations toassemble the large contiguous areas necessary for corporate farm-

586


ing. Most small farms in Thailand are built in former wet rice grow-ing areas, which are often cross-cut by large numbers of canals. Inthese areas the infrastructure costs of water have not been an ob-stacle to small-scale farmers . Finally, government policies forcingbanks to lend to farmers, combined with rapid economic growthand an influx of foreign capital, meant that even smallholder ricefarmers have been able to find credit for shrimp farming . Althoughbanks have stopped lending farmers capital specifically for shrimpfarming, we found that new shrimp farmers in 1998 continued tofind credit. Typical strategies involved procuring loans from banksbased on the value of land used as security, obtaining credit fromfeed agents, or pooling resources within extended families.

The predominance of small and medium-sized farmers in Thai-land is not necessarily beneficial for the majority of rural people inThailand. Small and medium-sized farms cause as many environ-mental problems as do large or corporate farms: they are morelikely than large enterprises to dump polluted water into irrigationcanals, and are less likely to treat effluents (Thongrak et al . 1997).Medium-size farms are often associated with the alienation of landand resource control from rural people to urban entrepreneurs,and small-scale farmers who own the land on which they farmshrimp cannot engage in the mobile shrimp farming practices of-ten descried by critics . When, or if, shrimp farming collapses, opera-tors are left indebted and without a natural resource base from whichto make a new livelihood. Whether farms are large or small, the intro-duction of shrimp farming is also associated with increased violenceresulting from thefts, tensions due to the high risks, and conflictssurrounding resource degradation (Stonich and Vandergeest 1999).

To summarize our analysis so far : we argue that a political ecol-ogy approach that takes into consideration how shrimp farms arelocated in physical and social space and the production of ecologi-cal instability and disease explains why neither corporations norvery large farms are about to take control of the sector in Thailand.This lack of control will limit the effectiveness of industry self-regu-lation, even though industry self-regulation may have some promisein countries where large operations dominate the sector . In Thai-land, industry self-regulation might be able to influence shrimpfarming practices where shrimp farmers have formed associationsthat promote the use of closed systems . But the structure and rapidspatial movements of shrimp farming makes it unlikely that indus-try self-regulation can, by itself, contain the impacts of shrimpfarming. Even if all large farmers were to follow appropriate codesof conduct, most small and medium-scale farms are not membersof existing associations, and each new wave of expansion createsthousands of new operators who are not integrated into the associ-ations .


587

States, corporations, and territorialization

In addition to self-regulation, the FAO (1997), the World Bank(Hempel and Winther 1997), academics, environmental groups,and even some industry groups are urging governments to controlthe destructive environmental effects of shrimp farming throughappropriate state regulations . However, one of the key propositionsderived from analysis of the global restructuring of agro-food sys-tems is that the growing power of transnational corporations meansthat the global production and exchange of food is slipping out ofcontrol of states (McMichael 1994b :4-5; Skladany and Harris1995 :182) . This implies that state regulation has only limited po-tential for containing the environmental and social impacts ofshrimp farming . Our research results suggest that this positionneeds to be qualified with a more nuanced understanding of typesof state regulation. Although states may be increasingly unable todirectly regulate corporations, the history of non-existent andfailed regulation in rural Thailand (Vandergeest 1996 ; Vandergeestand Peluso 1995) makes it difficult to extend the notion of regula-tory breakdown to rural production . We will show how the contro-versies associated with shrimp farming in Thailand have led to an in-crease in the regulatory power of state resource agencies (e .g., theDepartments of Forestry, Fisheries, and Irrigation) . The intensifi-cation of regulation in rural areas has, however, been spatially un-even. The important question is, then, what determines the spatialdistribution of state regulation? This question can be answeredthrough a political ecology approach.

Until 1997, state resource agencies, in effect, fed off rising staterevenues (Phongpaichit and Baker 1996 :76) derived from rapideconomic growth to increase their regulatory capacity. For exam-ple, the budget of the forest department, which has jurisdictionover mangroves, rose (not accounting for inflation) from 1,525 bil-lion baht in 1988 to 5,202 billion baht in 1993 (Vandergeest 1996).Some of these ballooning expenditures were channelled intohigher salaries for government officials, but some went to increas-ing surveillance and enforcement capacity. The forest departmentwas particularly successful in capturing resources because it wasable to re-constitute itself as a conservation organization dedicatedto protecting environmentally-sensitive zones (Vandergeest 1996).The government has also been able to increase its capacity to mon-itor coastal activities through the use of new satellite technologiesfor gathering and crunching spatial data . Finally, both interna-tional and local organizations have contributed to an increase inthe overall level of surveillance, regulatory capacity, and enforce-ment. For example, the World Bank has extended a series of loansfor promoting and monitoring shrimp farming, although a major

588


loan, based on a pre-investment study for the World Bank com-pleted in 1995 (MIDAS Agronomics 1995), remained on standby in1998 due to the economic crisis (World Bank 1997) . Academic re-search institutes and NGOs also routinely access and publish dataobtained from satellites or aerial photographs, increasing the visi-bility of shrimp farming in contested zones . Although the eco-nomic crisis has forced the government to cut spending in many ar-eas since 1997, the devaluation of the Thai baht has also sparked amajor new wave of expansion in shrimp farming . The controversyproduced by this new expansion has in turn induced the govern-ment to introduce important new regulations.

We are not arguing that the government has suddenly instituteda successful coastal zone resource management program . Certainzones are being subjected to intense surveillance and regulation,while other zones are ignored . This suggests that we need to lookmore closely at the determinants of the spatial distribution of sur-veillance and regulation, and factors affecting the likelihood of en-forcement. We argue that regulations are likely to be enactedwhere (1) international or nationally prominent environmentalgroups assign a high environmental value to the landscape and (2)where agency jurisdiction is clear. Regulations are more likely to beenforced if (1) the regulated activities are visible and thus easilymonitored and (2) the agency mandated to monitor and enforcethe regulation has the capacity and interest to do so . These argu-ments can be illustrated through an assessment of the three mostimportant types of regulations affecting shrimp farming.

Management regulations specify the use of water treatment facil-ities, effluent water quality standards, closed systems, and so on.Such regulations are often favored by industry organizations . InThailand, management regulations enacted in November 1991 or-dered shrimp farmers to register with the Department of Fisheries,required farmers with pond area greater than 8 hectares to havesedimentation/treatment ponds of not less than 10 percent of totalpond area, and specified that water effluent could not containmore than 10 mg/1 BOD (Csavas 1995) . These regulations were tobe enforced by the Department of Fisheries, which has jurisdictionover aquaculture.

In practice, management regulations are almost impossible tomonitor and enforce in Thailand, due to their relative invisibilityand the Department of Fisheries' lack of interest and capacity.BOD in shrimp pond effluent, for example, can only be seen withlaboratory equipment. Fisheries Department personal in Songklaprovince told us that they had just one laboratory with two techni-cians responsible for monitoring compliance with water effluent reg-ulations among the thousands of shrimp farmers in that province . In


589

addition, national and international environmental groups have fo-cussed on promoting zoning and bans, rather than managementregulations, perhaps in part because NGOs and academics also lackthe capacity to gather independent data and also because manage-ment regulations are not clearly linked to the destruction of valuedlandscapes such as mangroves.

Mangrove zoning and protection are intended to prevent shrimpfarm construction in mangroves. Most mangroves in Thailand aredemarcated as reserve forests under the jurisdiction of the ForestryDepartment. During the 1980s rising concern about deforestationdrew public attention to the rapid loss of mangroves. The govern-ment responded with the cabinet resolution of 15 December, 1989,which ordered the Forestry Department to classify mangroves intozones paralleling those used in dryland forests (Tookwinas 1996) :Conservation Forests, which are reserved for preservation ; Eco-nomic A Forests, which can be leased for timber and charcoal pro-duction; and Economic B Forests, which can be leased for any pur-pose. The government later banned all construction of shrimpfarms in mangrove forests (Earth Summit Watch 1997).

Until recently the Forestry Department has not been very suc-cessful at protecting mangroves . Except in a few areas covered bymarine parks, mangrove management and protection is under thejurisdiction of the provincial and district offices of the department,which are understaffed and have weak jurisdiction compared to na-tional parks and wildlife sanctuaries (Vandergeest 1996) . Large ar-eas of mangroves have been under concessions for charcoal pro-duction for many decades, and concession holders have paid littleattention to regulations intended to make harvesting sustainable,resulting in severe degradation of mangroves. These degraded ar-eas have often been converted to shrimp farming . Overall, then,until the 1990s a lack of Forest Department capacity and interest inmangroves was conducive to widespread encroachment of intensiveaquaculture into the mangroves of central Thailand, and to morelimited encroachment in southern Thailand.

In the 1990s, however, mangrove destruction began to attract in-creasing scrutiny from both international and national environ-mental groups . Internationally, mangroves attracted attention fromgroups like Wetlands International because of their ecological im-portance for migrating birds and aquatic life. Other groups (no-tably, the Yatfon Association in Thailand, and the Mangrove ActionProject) focused on the importance of mangroves for local liveli-hoods and community resource management . At the same time,more intensive regulation was facilitated by clarification of theForestry Department's jurisdiction over mangroves . The depart-ment developed more interest in enforcing regulations, since man-

590

Rural Sociology, Vol. 64, No . 4, December 1999

groves under threat helped justify budgets, while conversion to usesnot classified as forestry threatened both budgets and territorial ju-risdiction.

Shrimp farming in mangroves is easily visible from the air, if notthe ground . The Forestry Department, for example has used aerialphotographs and satellite data to demonstrate that more than halfthe mangroves present in 1961 were lost by 1993, although thestudy also claimed that only about a third of the area lost was un-der shrimp farms. Despite controversy over results, the fact that thisstudy was completed suggests an intensity of monitoring of man-groves not possible ten years ago . Surveillance has also been facili-tated by the activities of universities, research institutes, and envi-ronmental groups, many of whom can afford to buy satelliteimages, aerial photos, or even hire planes to fly over coastal zones.For example, the Coastal Resource Institute (CORIN) in the Princeof Songkla University has published maps based on satellite datashowing how shrimp farming has encroached into mangroves onthe east coast (CORIN 1991), and Wetlands International, also lo-cated in the Prince of Songkla University, has tried to quantifyshrimp farming encroachment into mangroves by analyzing videosrecorded during aerial flyovers (Mangrove Action Project 1998) . InTrang province, NGOs have mobilized local villagers to monitorland use in some mangrove areas . Although some encroachment ofshrimp farming into mangroves will no doubt continue, the highvalue given to mangroves by international and national environ-mental groups, clear agency jurisdiction, and the increasing visibil-ity of regulatory infractions made possible by new surveillance tech-nologies will limit the extent of this encroachment.

The third type of government regulation consists of zoning agri-cultural land and canals into fresh and salt water areas, with banson shrimp farming in fresh water zones . The goal is the spatial con-tainment of shrimp farming, permitting intensification and controlof shrimp farming inside salt water zones . In the south, zoning hasbeen tied to major state investments in infrastructure for deliveringsea water to shrimp ponds and disposing of waste water.

Until 1998 zoning was rarely enforced, and shrimp farms contin-ued to expand into agricultural areas in the southern and easterncoasts . These agricultural areas were not significant landscapes formost international environmental groups, as they had no obvioussignificance for migrating birds or other valued species . LocalNGOs also limited their involvement in shrimp farming controver-sies in agricultural zones, choosing to focus instead on mangroveencroachment . In addition, agency jurisdiction in agriculturalzones is ambiguous and overlapping . Agricultural areas are mostlyunder private land titles, and government officials claimed thatthey were powerless to regulate how farmers used their private


591

property. The most powerful agency in rural Thailand is the De-partment of Local Administration in the Ministry of Interior, but itwas not mandated to engage in zoning. The Irrigation Departmenthas clear jurisdiction over surface water in canals, but this agencyhas shown little interest in zoning or containing shrimp farming.Only the Department of Land Development has taken a clearstance in opposition to the expansion of shrimp farming in agri-cultural areas (author interviews), but this department has no reg-ulatory function.

This situation changed dramatically in early 1998, as the rapid ex-pansion of shrimp farming into the central "rice bowl" blew up intoa major national-level controversy involving dramatic newspaperheadlines ("Prawns in the Rice Bowl Spell Doom"-Hongtong1998) and extensive television coverage . Unlike the relatively pooragricultural areas along the southern coast, the central plains is ahighly valued landscape in Thailand. This area is strongly associ-ated with Thailand's past identity as a rice-growing nation, withfood security, and with national agricultural fertility (Flaherty et al1999) . In the middle of this controversy, the National Environmen-tal Board (NEB) recommended that the prime minister act on asection of the 1992 Environment Act that permitted him to orderprovincial governors to ban shrimp farming in fresh-water agricul-tural areas. The proposed ban quickly polarized the debate overshrimp farming, and groups for and against immediately launchedintensive campaigns . The ban was opposed by industry groups andsome government departments, most notably the Department ofFisheries. It was supported by environmental groups, the media,and other government departments, especially the Department ofLand Development. Eventually the prime minister acted on the rec-ommendation of the NEB, ordering governors of inland provincesto ban shrimp farming and governors of coastal provinces to zonetheir provinces into fresh and salt water zones with bans on shrimpfarming in fresh water zones . Bans were to be effective 120 days af-ter the provincial governors gazetted the new regulations.

Although government agencies were in conflict over who wasmandated to enforce this regulation as we wrote this paper, theprime minister's order in theory makes the governors, and thus theDepartment of Local Administration, responsible for zoning, mon-itoring, and enforcement. Those governors who support the bancan order local administrative institutions, including district offi-cials, and elected village and subdistrict heads, to assist in monitor-ing and enforcing these regulations . Monitoring will be facilitatedby easy visibility of shrimp farms located in the wrong place . Nearbyfarmers are highly motivated to contribute to this kind of monitor-ing-for example, fruit and rice farmers in the central plains havesignaled their intent to force the government to enforce these reg-

592


ulations (author interviews), while fishing households aroundSongkla Lake in the south have also lobbied local governments tocontain shrimp farming . At time of writing, the regulations had justcome into effect. Although we have not yet investigated enforce-ment in detail, reports from Thailand suggest that the ban is beingenforced in provinces whose governors agree with the ban.

To summarize, shrimp farming has induced an highly uneven in-crease in state regulation in Thailand . A political ecology approachdirected our attention to the way that the spatial distribution of reg-ulation is shaped in part by the different ways that specific kinds oflandscapes become politicized . The most effective regulations in-volve zoning and banning of shrimp farms in landscapes that arehighly valued for environmental or emotive reasons . Zoning can beunderstood as a form of "internal territorialization" (Vandergeestand Peluso 1995) of state power: that is, proscribing or prescribingspecific activities within spatial boundaries . Thus the case of shrimpfarming in Thailand suggests that the expansion of high value agro-food exports can in some circumstances lead to increased statepower and territorial control.

Conclusions

This paper has outlined the evolving characteristics of the shrimpfarming industry in Thailand, and has highlighted how an ap-proach based in political ecology can help make sense of the re-gional variations and dynamics of shrimp farming . Regional varia-tions can be traced to different physical landscapes; pre-existingland ownership distributions ; pre-existing livelihoods ; timing of ex-pansion into specific regions ; jurisdiction of government resourceagencies ; and level of opposition by NGOs, environmental groups,and farmers. Second, we have highlighted how self-regulation bythe industry has limited prospects in Thailand because shrimpfarming is dominated by small and medium-sized growers . Finally,we showed that the expansion of shrimp farming is leading to theintensification of territorial forms of state control in some zones,particularly those where the landscape holds considerable value forinternational and national environmental groups and agency juris-diction is clear.

Our analysis also demonstrates how themes taken from a politi-cal ecology approach can contribute to a grounded analysis ofhigh-value agro-food export production in tropical countries. First,we have shown the importance of integrating attention to biophys-ical processes into an explanation of the dynamics and structure ofshrimp farming. Problems with disease, which are linked to self-pol-lution and high intensity production, landscape characteristics, andother biophysical factors influence ownership patterns, rates of ex-pansion and collapse, and spatial movements of shrimp farming .


593

Second, the unpredictability of disease and price and the rapidmovement of shrimp farming in Thailand makes us skeptical ofclaims that corporations or technology can take control of allphases of the production process to a sufficient degree to make in-dustry self-regulation feasible . Finally, we have shown how the spa-tial movement and politics of shrimp farming in Thailand has beenshaped in part by the meanings given to different landscapes whereshrimp farming takes place . Shrimp farming in mangroves and "therice bowl" has provoked major controversies and government regu-lation, while shrimp farming in agricultural areas in the south havenot drawn such action despite dramatic environmental impacts.

Approaches to alleviating the adverse social and environmentalimpacts of shrimp farming need to be tailored to the political andecological specificities of each region . Although industry self-regu-lation cannot be dismissed entirely, it has only limited prospects inThailand. So far shrimp farming has been contained only where lo-cal communities concerned about rice or fishing livelihoods havebarred shrimp farmers from entering their villages or where thegovernment has enforced bans on the construction of shrimpfarms . We believe that regulation is most likely to be effectivewhere the government and NGOs can work with concerned localpeople to formulate, monitor, and enforce regulations containingthe spread of shrimp farming into sensitive ecological areas.

ReferencesAsian Development Bank. 1998 . "Statistical Data of DMCs ."

http ://www.internotes.asiandevbank .org.Bailey, Conner and Michael Skladany . 1990 "Aquacultural Development in Tropical

Asia : A Re-evaluation ." Natural Resources Forum 15 :66-73.Beck, Ulrich . 1992 [1986] . Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London : Sage.Beveridge, M., Ross, L ., and Kelly, L . 1994. "Aquaculture and Biodiversity." Ambio

23 :497-502.Blaikie, Piers and Harold Brookfield . 1987 . Land Degradation and Society. London:

Methuen.Boonchoo, Punjapol . n .d. "The Biological, Physical, Socio-Economic, and Environ-

mental Impacts of Shrimp Culture on a Rice Growing Hamlet in Pak PhanangBasin in Southern Thailand." Hat Yai, Thailand : Prince of Songkla University,Faculty of Natural Resources. Unpublished paper.

Boonchuwong, Pongpat . 1994 . "Options for coastal resource management ." Pp.340-79 in Socio-Economic Issues in Coastal Fisheries Management . FAO, Bangkok:Proceedings of the IPFC Symposium, November 23-26, Bangkok.

Bryant, Raymond and Sinead Bailey. 1997 . Third World Political Ecology. London:Routledge.

Charuppat, Thongchai and Suwit Ongsomwang . n .d . Standard Data and Map ofMangrove Forest . Bangkok : Royal Forest Department, Forest Assessment Divi-sion . Unpublished paper.

CORIN (Coastal Resources Institute) . 1991 . Coastal Management in Pak Panang . HatYai, Thailand : Prince of Songkla University.

594


Court, B . 1998. "Fish Info Service ." http://www.sea-world .comCsavas, I . 1995 . "Development of Shrimp Farming with Special Reference to South-

east Asia ." Paper presented at IADAQUA '95 Exposition of Indian Aquaculture.Madras, India: January 27-30.

DeWalt, Billie R ., Philippe Vergne, and Mark Hardin . 1996 . "Shrimp AquacultureDevelopment and the Environment: People, Mangroves and Fisheries on theGulf of Fonseca, Honduras ." World Development 24 :1193-208.

DuPuis, Melanie and Peter Vandergeest (eds .) . 1996 . Creating the Countryside: the Pol-itics of Rural and Environmental Discourse . Philadelphia : Temple University Press.

Earth Summit Watch . 1997 . "Shrimp Tribunal Online : Bill of Particulars Version 1 .1 ."http ://www.earthsummitwatch .org/shrimp/thaipart.html

Fairhead, James and Melissa Leach . 1998 . Reframing Deforestation. London and NY:Routledge.

FAO . 1997 . "FAO Technical Guidelines for Responsible Fisheries : Aquaculture De-velopment ."http ://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/FISHERY/FISHERY.HTM

Flaherty, Mark, Peter Vandergeest, and Paul Miller. 1999 (in press) . "Rice Paddy orShrimp Farm : Tough Decisions in Rural Thailand." World Development.

Flaherty, Mark and Peter Vandergeest. 1998. "Low Salt Shrimp Aquaculture in Thai-land : Goodbye Coastline, Hello Khon Kaen ." Environmental Management22 :817-30.

Friedland, William H . 1984. "Commodity systems analysis: an approach to the soci-ology of agriculture ." Pp . 221-35 in Research in Rural Sociology and Development 1,edited by H . K. Schwarzweller. Greenwich, CT : JAI Press.

Global Aquaculture Alliance . 1999 . http ://www.gaalliance .orgGoodman, David . 1997 . "World-scale Processes and Agro-food Systems : Critique

and Research Needs ." Review of International Political Economy 4 :663-87.Goodman, David and Michael Watts . 1994. "Reconfiguring the Rural or Fording the

Divide? Capitalist Restructuring and the Global Agro-Food System." Journal ofPeasant Studies 22 :1-49.

Gronski, Robert. 1997 . Development and Degradation : Intensive Shrimp Cultureand Ecological Rebuke in Southern Thailand . Ph .D . Disseration, University ofMissouri, Columbia, Missouri.

Guimaraes, J. P. de Campos . 1989 . "Shrimp Culture and Market Incorporation: AStudy of Shrimp Culture in Paddy Fields in Southwest Bangladesh ." Develop-ment and Change 20 :653-82.

Gujja, Biksham and Andrea Finger-Stich . 1996 . "What Price Prawn?" Environment37 :12-15.

Hempel, Erik and Ulf Winther. 1997. "Shrimp Farming and the Environment."Washington, DC : World Bank Draft Report.

Hongthong, Pennapa . 1998 . "Prawns in the Rice Bowl Spell Doom ." The Nation,May 24.

Limsuwan, C . S . 1998 . "Closed Recycle System for Sustainable Black Tiger ShrimpCulture in Freshwater Areas." Paper presented at the Fifth Asian Fisheries Fo-rum. Chiang Mai, Thailand : November 11-14.

Llambi, Luis. 1994 . "Comparative advantages and disadvantages in Latin Americannontraditional fruit and vegetable exports ." Pp . 173-198 in The Global Restructuringof Agro-Food Systems, edited by P. McMichael . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Mangrove Action Project . 1998. "Aerial Survey of Thailand's Mangroves ." Late Fri-day News : May.


595

McMichael, Philip (ed .) . 1994a. The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems . Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press. . 1994b . "Agro-food system restructuring-unity in diversity ." Pp . 1-18 in The

Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems, edited by P. McMichael . Ithaca, NY: Cor-nell University Press.

Menasveta, Piamsak. 1998 . "Mangrove Destruction and Shrimp Culture Systems ."Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Aquatic Resources Institute.

MIDAS Agronomics . 1995 . World Bank Pre-investment Study for Coastal Resource Man-agement Program in Thailand . Bangkok: MIDAS Agronomics.

Muluk, C . and Conner Bailey. 1996 . "Social and environmental impacts of coastalaquaculture in Indonesia ." Pp . 193-210 in Aquacultural Development: Social Di-mensions of an Emerging Industry, edited by C. Bailey, S . Jentoft, and P. Sinclair.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

New, M . B . 1996. "Responsible Use of Aquaculture Feeds . "Aquaculture Asia 1 :3-12.Onchan, Tongroj . 1990 . A Land Policy Study . Bangkok : Thailand Development Re-

search Institute.Patmasiriwat, Direk . 1997 . Environmentally Sensitive Sector: A Case Study of

Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand Based on Farm Survey . Bangkok: ThailandDevelopment Research Institute Draft Paper.

Peet, Richard and Michael Watts (eds .) . 1997 . Liberation Ecologies . New York: Rout-ledge.

Peluso, Nancy. L. and Peter Vandergeest. 1999 . Geneologies of Forests Practices inSoutheast Asia . Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, York University,Toronto, Canada.

Phongpaichit, Pasuk and Chris Baker. 1996 . Thailand's Boom! Chiang Mai, Thailand:Silkworm Books.

Raynolds, L . 1994 . "The restructuring of Third World agro-exports : changing pro-duction relations in the Dominican Republic . Pp . 214-39 in The Global Restruc-turing of Agro-Food Systems, edited by P. McMichael . Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress.

Ridmontri, Chakrit. 1997 . "Shrimp Producers to Set up Alliance ." Bangkok Post,April 5 1998. . "Minister Wants End to Expansion of Shrimp Farms ." Bangkok Post, May 13.Skladany, Mike and Craig K. Harris . 1995 . "On global pond : international develop-

ment and commodity chains in the shrimp industry." Pp . 169-94 in Food andAgrarian Orders in the World-Economy, edited by P. McMichael . Westport, CT:Praeger.

Stanley, Denise L. 1998. "Explaining Persistent Conflict Among Resource Users:The Case of Honduran Mariculture ." Society and Natural Resources 11 :267-78.

Stonich, Susan . 1992 . "Struggling with Honduran Poverty: The Environmental Con-sequences of Natural Resource-Based Development and Rural Transformations ."World Development 20 :383-99.

Stonich, Susan, John R. Bort, and Luis L . Ovares . 1997 . "Globalization of ShrimpAquaculture : The Impact on Social Justice and Environmental Quality in Cen-tral America." Society and Natural Resources 10 :161-79.

Stonich, Susan and Peter Vandergeest . 1999 . "Violence and the blue revolution ."Unpublished manuscript, Department of Sociology, York University, Toronto,Canada.

Thongrak, Sutonya . 1995 . "Determinants of Technical Efficiency in IntensiveShrimp Farming ." Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology 17 :81-87 .

596


Thongrak, Sutonya, Tony Prato, Sommai Chiayvareesajja, and William Kurtz . 1997."Economic and Water Quality Evaluation of Intensive Shrimp Production Sys-tems in Thailand ." Agricultural Systems 53 :121-41.

Tookwinas, S . 1996 . "Environmental Impact Assessment for Intensive MarineShrimp Farming in Thailand ." Paper presented at the Annual Conference ofthe World Aquaculture Society. Bangkok: January 1996.

Torres, Maria L . Cruz . 1996 . "Shrimp mariculture development in two rural Mexi-can communities." Pp . 171-92 in Aquacultural Development : Social Dimensions of anEmerging Industry, edited by C. Bailey, S . Jentoft, and P. Sinclair. Boulder, CO:Westview Press.

Vandergeest, Peter. 1989. "Peasant Strategies in a World Context" Human Organi-zation 48 :117-25. . 1996 "Property Rights in Protected Areas : Obstacles to Community In-

volvement as a Solution in Thailand." Environmental Conservation 23 :259-68.Vandergeest, Peter and Nancy L . Peluso. 1995 . "Territorialization and State Power

in Thailand ." Theory and Society 24 :385-426.Watts, Michael and David Goodman . 1997 . "Agrarian questions : global appetite, lo-

cal appetite ." Pp . 1-34 in Globalizing Food, edited by D. Goodman and M . Watts.New York: Routledge.

World Bank . 1997 . "Thailand : Coastal Resources Management."http :/ /www.worldbank .org/pics/eds-old

Yadfon Association . 1996 . Position Paper on the Thai Aquaculture and Shrimp In-dustry. Trang, Thailand : Yat Fon Association, prepared for the United NationsCommission on Sustainable Development Conference, New York .

A Political Ecology of Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand1

Documents

Transcript of A Political Ecology of Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand1