The diffusion of greenhouse agriculture in northern Thailand: Combining econometrics and agent-based modeling

Pepijn Schreinemachers, Thomas Berger, Aer Sirijinda and Suwanna Praneetvatakul

No 50899, 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: This paper studies the diffusion of greenhouse agriculture in a watershed in the northern uplands of Thailand by applying econometrics and agent-based modeling in combination. Adoption has been rapid by farmers in the central valley of the watershed, while farmers at higher altitudes, lacking transferable land titles that could serve as mortgage collateral, have been unable to obtain loans for greenhouse investment. The objectives of the paper are both methodological and empirical. On the methodological side, it shows that econometrically estimated models of farm household behavior are useful to design and to parameterize an agent-based model. On the empirical side, simulation results show that if mortgage collateral would not be required, then adoption in the upper part of the watershed could reach nearly 77 percent of farm households by 2020, as compared to about 36 percent under current conditions. Further results suggest a significant increase in incomes related to the innovation and a substantially greater irrigation water use, especially in the central part. As bell pepper under greenhouses has replaced pesticide-intensive chrysanthemum, it has declined average levels of pesticide use. Nevertheless, pesticide use is high and farmers are struggling to control pests, which raises questions about the long-term sustainability of the innovation.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Environmental Economics and Policy; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Research Methods/Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/50899/files/132.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Diffusion of Greenhouse Agriculture in Northern Thailand: Combining Econometrics and Agent‐Based Modeling (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae09:50899

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.50899

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China from International Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().