The preliminary study of climate change impact on rice production and economic in Thailand

Abstract

© 2015 Canadian Center of Science and Education. All rights reserved. Climate change affects crop production in two ways: changes in GDP and population and changes in climate variables, especially temperature and precipitation. This study aims to investigate preliminary effects of climate change impacts on Thailand’s rice production, consumption, and export capacity by integrated EPIC model and the world and Thai rice market models. Therefore, the Biophysical process model (EPIC model) and Economic processes model are employed as the research methodology of this study. Main findings of the comparison showed both rice production and export in the base year (2007) are likely to expand until 2027, and there will be a sufficient amount of rice surplus for export, which is nearly the same level as that of domestic consumption in A2 scenario. In 2017, the amount of rice production will be only slightly higher than the domestic demand, leaving a small rice surplus of up to 2 million tons for export, compared to 14 million tons in 2016. However, in B2 scenario, the rice production capacity will be much lower than the domestic demand, meeting only half of it in 2017. From 2017 to 2019, the rice production capacity will undergo a constant fall and no longer meet the market demand as a result; it is estimated that there will be a shortage of approximately 0.038 to 0.218 ton. It is therefore important to note that if B2 scenario became reality in 2017, the rice production capacity of Thailand would nearly fail to meet the minimum level of domestic demand. However, we assure that Thailand still have land where can be converted to rice production with multiple cropping through irrigation investment, while comprehensive technical adaptation and mitigation to enhance farmer benefits are required.