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Co-constructing a Model to Understand the Interaction Between Rice Production and Migrations in Northeastern ThailandRainfed lowland rice growing is practiced in northeastern Thailand under a climate with a six-month dry season and coarse textured soils. The drought risk is still high at the beginning of the wet season. The seasonal labour migrations have for decades been an adaptive mechanism widely used by smallholdings to face up to climate risks and the low rice productivity in the poorest region of the country. With certain migrations becoming definitive and authorities wishing to improve rice growers' access to irrigation, an improved understanding of the interaction between labor management on and off the holding and the use of land and water is crucial to designing well-adapted hydraulic schemes and to foresee to whom they would benefit. Warong Naivinit is carrying out his doctoral research on this subject by applying the ComMod approach to understand this interaction in the central part of the Lam Dome Yai watershed.in southern Ubon Ratchathani province. The approach has been implemented through several iterative loops between the field and the laboratory since 2004:
The collaborative modelling approach adopted could be spaced out over a long period and was ideal for multiple exchanges of viewpoints on the simulated interaction between the researcher and a dozen rice farming households, some offering work force, others hiring it out during peak of labour demand periods in the rice-growing cycle. Work on the various effects of the approach on the rice growers who took part heralds the end of this research. For further information Papers Dissertations Thongnoi, M. 2009. Assessment of ComMod effects for integrated farming & sustainable renewable resource management in Lam Dome Yai, Ubon Ratchathani Province, Thailand. MSc Université de Ubon Ratchathani (Thaïlande), Faculté d'Agriculture. 161 pages + annexes. Commented slide show in English and in Thaï
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