A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Engineering in Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Thesis (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2020

Chiang Rai{u2019}s dairy farmer{u2019}s characteristics and challenges of farming including cattle health, cattle feeds, milk production, and water related problem were studied. The adaptive actions that the farmers took or meant to apply for the future were also explored. The issues were explored by interviewing 78 farmers in Chiang Rai. Dairy industry{u2019}s marketing pathway and strengthening mechanisms were also discussed by stakeholder{u2019}s key informants{u2019} interviewing. Three types of farmers were identified. Small to medium farm sizes, average 25 cattle per farm, with limited market approach through dairy co-ops were common. The main concerns and adaptive actions were different between types. Cattle health especially FMD was the main concern, followed by the availability of roughage feed and accessibility to feed which were the second most concerned issue. Additionally, farmer{u2019}s characteristics such as age and experience showed partially influences to challenges{u2019} concern and adaptive actions they chose and implemented. They shared similar trait of challenges and concerning issues from barn to market. Their feed source, stock, and practice were inconsistent. Risk from weather alteration did harm feed sources by affect local supply, and roughage demand from other provinces aggravated local supply and price situation. Although the province has got weather that is beneficial to raising dairy cows, there are still weather challenges and natural resource risks that directly related to dairy farming such as flood, drought, long and intense rain and dry spell. The impacted farmers had tried something to cope from the events but the efficiency was not monitored. An event like flooding was considered as an unable to deal with situation. The adaptive action for the future was unclear and not cover the entire community. To determine on how exactly the vulnerability they had was not clear yet. However, we can briefly conclude that the vulnerability of dairy farmers in Chiang Rai is moderate to high. Chiang Rai was considered a proper zone to do dairying so it would be convincible to develop and adopt essential policy to enhance dairy farming in Chiang Rai and nearby area. To strengthen and achieve the sustainability of the dairy farmer community, characteristics, challenges and adaptive actions, also barrier, which was identified might be helpful for further investigation to support policy maker{u2019}s decision in the future. The collaboration and cooperation of dairy stakeholders which could share their input source, market approach, knowledge and intel would be the effective way for decrease level of vulnerability of the whole dairy community of Chiang Rai. In spite of working individually, collective actions with trust and reliability could reduce impact of challenges to dairy farming in Chiang Rai. However, the study did not investigate into the ability of collective action of all stakeholders to strengthening Chiang Rai dairy community which should be studied in the future.