Disaster Resilience in Agriculture sector

Manufacturing sector of Thailand, especially for agricultural sector, has high sensitivity towards climatic condition and climate change. Key factor of this issue is water for manufacturing and production of agricultural products. Negative impacts of imbalance water condition are clearly demonstrated. For examples, crop and livestock productivity are worsen under drought or flooding situations. Besides, not only agricultural disaster caused financial shortage and debt problems for affected agriculturists, but also consequently trigger agricultural crop market shortage and price surge under famine situation.

Apart from adverse impacts of agricultural disaster; reckless agricultural practice, without consideration for environmental impact and ruining balance of ecological system, is a reason of higher disaster occurrence chance. On the other hand, positive side of flooding might be fertilizing the land through flooded nutrient-rich soil, eradicating weeds and rodents, additional food and incomes for the villagers from fishing.

Disaster resilience measures

1. Prevention and Mitigation Measure
   1. Structural Measure
      1. Developing irrigation system for flood and drought prevention and mitigation
      2. Mangrove foresting to prevent river bank erosion, wind barrier, be a nursery grounds, and to enhance abundance of ecological system.
      3. Cover crop planting to prevent surface soil erosion
      4. Agricultural crop planting to increase forest area and to enhance abundance of ecological system.
   2. Non-Structural Measure
      1. Irrigation planning for sufficient supply the agricultural area and to prevent drought situation
      2. Establishing of artificial rain operational plan to mitigate drought severity
      3. Supporting water management for the community to sufficiently supply the agricultural activities and livestock feeding, as well as sourcing the reserved water supply to prevent drought situation
      4. Zoning the agricultural activities to fit with topographical condition and existing water availability to mitigate impact from flooding or drought situation
2. Preparedness Measure
   1. Adaptation
      1. Climate and water availability forecasting together with enforcing agricultural policy that is balanced with climate condition (e.g. crop harvesting pattern shifting, limitation of rice cultivation)
      2. Developing crop breeds to withstand such drought and flooding conditions
      3. Changing the agricultural method to fit with the location (e.g. Floating agriculture in the flooding area, change crop, planning to fit with the location)
      4. Reducing utilization of agricultural chemical to lower water contamination chance during flooding situation
      5. Promoting part-time job or community enterprise as an option for occupational choice and to generate community’s income
      6. Changing way of agriculture towards integrated agricultural model by cropping and feeding variety of livestock without chemical utilization; to be producible all year round, reduce cost, enhancing abundance of ecological system, increasing food security, and risks diversification.
   2. Disaster Preparedness
      1. Informing agriculturist the amount of water to be released prior to crop harvesting
      2. Reserving animal feed and medicine
      3. Animal migration planning and crop breeds reserving
      4. Providing of information and training to agriculturalist about preparedness. (e.g. vehicle preparedness, machine and instrumental preparedness, reserving water, animal feed and necessary stuffs preparation prior to drought and monsoon seasons)
      5. Establishing agricultural disaster victim operational plan including;
         1. Monitoring plan for the prevention of crops and animal epidemics
         2. Specific unit conducting planning to advise and rescue agriculturalists in the disaster areas
         3. Planning for animal migration to safe zone and treatment plan for sick and injured animals
         4. Exploring and damage assessment of victimized agriculturalists, and rescue approach to mitigate such vexation.
         5. Building and irrigational system fixing plans for agriculture

Agricultural stakeholders

Farmers/Farmers’ networks/Communities/Local municipality/ Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation/Ministry

The agricultural organization requires collaborating in order to reduce the risk. The example of DDR activity for this sector is show in Table 1.

Table 1: Example of agricultural activities for disaster risk reduction

Example #1: Animal provision

In ThailandDepartment of Livestock Development established the municipal animal provisions department (คลังเสบียงสัตว์ตำบล) in 29 locations to supply 5000 kg of hay per annum.

Example #2: Floating rice farming

A farmer in Suphan Buri province has initiated the floating rice farming in the river due to the frequently flooded nature of his farmland. With this technique, he can save the cost of soil preparation, fuel oil, fertilizer, pesticides and water management. Hence, the yield from the floating rice farm is chemical-free.

นอกจากนี้ภาคส่วนอื่นๆ เช่น โครงสร้างพื้นฐาน การศึกษา สาธารณสุขและที่อยู่อาศัย ยังสามารถดำเนินมาตรการลดความเสี่ยงจากภัยพิบัติได้เช่นกัน ผู้ที่สนใจสามารถอ่านเพิ่มข้อมูลเพิ่มเติมเกี่ยวกับแนวทางการป้องกันและลดผลกระทบจากภัยพิบัติ ได้จากแนวปฏิบัติเพื่อลดความเสี่ยงจากภัยพิบัติ (Disaster Risk Reduction Guideline)