The Complexity of a Supply Chain: Political ecology of corn production in Nan province, Thailand

The study of environmental degradation and corn production in Nan province, Thailand cannot be explained merely by the farmer’s activities without taking into consideration the complex interaction among humans, society, and nature. This thesis has argued that social and nature cannot be separated when considering environmental issues. As far as this study case is concerned, the social-political context, including the growth of agricultural capitalism, has to be taken into account as a major factor of environmental degradation. This study has used the sociogenesis of natural resource management and capitalocene approaches in order to clarify this complex matter by examining the historical context in the mid19th century of the establishment of state bureaucracy, such as land and forest administrations, to control natural resources in Thailand. This research aims to understand the political ecology of corn production in Nan province by unravelling the complex stratification of the food supply chain, which is considered to be an exploitation of human labour and the environment. Qualitative research is applied to analyse the relationship among different actors within corn production and the supply chain by using obtrusive methods such as interviews and participatory observation and unobtrusive methods such as observation and documentary analysis of public reports, including office documents published by state agencies and private companies. This study has tried to identify the actors in the supply chain and conducted semi-structured interviews with 47 interviewees: from corn farmers to agro-business and chicken farm owners, including government officers. Thus, the corn supply chain investigated in this research presents the voice of farmers and other related actors. This information echos the inequality among those parties which has resulted from the centralisation of state power over natural resource management. This is a significant obstacle to sustainable development. The environmental crisis in Nan is a major part of the complex relationship among those actors in the supply chain.