IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajarec/v69y2025i4p911-933.html

The Role of Farming Efficiency in Rural Transformation: Insights From Long‐Term Panel Data for Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Kasem Kunasri
  • Manh Hung Do
  • Trung Thanh Nguyen

Abstract

Rural transformation is important for economic growth and is characterised by the reallocation of labour from farm to non‐farm sectors. However, there is limited evidence on how farming efficiency affects rural transformation at the household level. In this study, we explore the effects of farming efficiency on rural transformation and investigate the influence of farming efficiency on the shift from full‐time to part‐time farming at the smallholder farm level. We use panel data from the Thailand–Vietnam Socio‐economic Panel. Our sample includes 10,549 observations collected in Thailand from seven survey waves between 2007 and 2019. Our results reveal that farming efficiency positively and significantly affects the share of farm income, per capita farm income and per hectare agricultural machinery expense, while it has a negative and significant effect on the share of non‐farm income, per capita non‐farm income and the share of livestock income in farm income. These results imply that more efficient farmers tend to stick to farming and apply mechanisation in crop production, while less efficient ones seem to shift to non‐farm sectors. Policies designed to encourage farm enlargement and labour allocation to accelerate rural transformation are recommended.

Suggested Citation

  • Kasem Kunasri & Manh Hung Do & Trung Thanh Nguyen, 2025. "The Role of Farming Efficiency in Rural Transformation: Insights From Long‐Term Panel Data for Thailand," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 69(4), pages 911-933, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:69:y:2025:i:4:p:911-933
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8489.70051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.70051
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8489.70051?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Do, Manh Hung & Nguyen, Trung Thanh & Grote, Ulrike, 2026. "Crop commercialization, structural change and income inequality: Insights from smallholder farmers in rural Southeast Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:69:y:2025:i:4:p:911-933. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.