One Village One Product – rural development strategy in Asia: the case of OTOP in Thailand

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates the development of the One Tambon, One Product (OTOP) programme in Thailand, based on the earlier experience of the One Village, One Product (OVOP) movement in Japan. Conceived in Japan as a policy to reverse rural depopulation, it has become more focused on poverty alleviation when implemented in Thailand. It will be shown how, despite some criticisms, the OTOP programme has been providing communities with the chance to market local output and creating employment opportunities. The paper includes a small sample survey of Chiang Mai province's OTOP and an enterprise case study.

Résumé Cet article analyse le développement du concept « Un tambon, un produit en Thaïlande », basé sur le concept « Un village, un produit », crée au Japon comme une politique visée à renverser la dépopulation rurale. En Thaïlande, la politique a été conçue plutôt comme un moyen de réduire la pauvreté. Les auteurs démontrent comment le programme en Thaïlande, malgré certaines critiques, a réussi à créer les offres d'emploi et à stimuler les économies des communautés locales dans le pays. Cet article conclut avec une enquête sur la politique dans la province de Chiang Mai et un cas d'étude sur une entreprise locale.

Keywords:

• Thailand
• One Tambon One Product
• Japan
• one village one product
• rural development

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Chris Edwards and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments and to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI 21402028) and Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University for research finance, although the usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

In Thailand, local government administrative structures are divided into four levels: 76 provinces, 876 districts, 7,255 subdistricts (called ‘tambon’ in Thai) and 79,830 villages.

An endogenous development model, as used here, should not be confused with ‘endogenous growth theory’, which in macroeconomics provides explanations of how economic growth and capital accumulation can proceed without capital productivity falling.

In comparison with the slower growth of first Italy (rich Northeast) and second Italy (poor South)

See UNIDO website. Available from: http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=o4310 [Accessed 9 March 2011].

Available from: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTURBANDEVELOPMENT/EXTLED/0,,menuPK:341145~pagePK:149018~piPK:149093~theSitePK:341139,00.html [Accessed 4 August 2011].

Sales value of 2.3 billion yen from unprocessed agricultural products, 0.57 billion yen from processed foods, 1.66 billion yen from growing chain of organic restaurants, and 0.96 billion yen from other activities (document presented by Oyama Agricultural Cooperative on 16 March 2011) .

At average Yen/$ exchange rate for 2008 calculated from http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/EXJPUS.txt.

Interview with Hiramatsu on 16 March 2011.

OTOP is not the only rural development programme that has been implemented. There have been royal initiatives such as those of the King's mother, the Doi Tung project, and group enterprises such as farmers' and women's groups. When OTOP was started, it was carried out within existing structures but in an improved and more integrated manner.

Available from: http://www.Thai-otop-city.com [Accessed 26 July 2010].

Thailand called OTOP a ‘project’, because it is more of a strategic policy than a ‘movement’.

For example, the Thai government established website marketing for OTOP products, so-called “Thai Tambon.Com”. Available from: http://www.thaitambon.com/English/AboutTTB.htm.9) [Accessed 9 March 2011].

The aim of KBO is to emphasise more the ‘wisdom’ of OTOP rather than developing commercial products (Interview with Chief of OTOP, Community Development Department on 15 September 2010).

The actually used budget was able to exceed the allocated budget in some years because the unused budget of previous years was transferred to the budget of such years with the aim of financing projects that were additionally approved by NOAC (OSMEP 2008, 21).

Available from: http://www.Unido.org/Farmer_Packing_and_Product_DevelopmentProject [Accessed 15 November 2011].

On this concept, see Curry and Sura (2007) and Piboolsravut (2004). SEP provides guidelines for appropriate conduct for Thais in daily and business life, and public administration. In the conduct of enterprises, Puntasen et al. (2007) suggest SEP principles include giving priority to local materials and to local markets, as well as using appropriate technology and not abusing customers or employees.

Available from: http://plan.dgr.go.th/budgetdgr/2554/2554conclusion.pdf [Accessed 25 January 2012].

We are grateful to an anonymous referee for this point.

Although we group the main criticisms of OTOP here, we introduce some other criticisms later at the points where they seem most relevant. One often casually mentioned criticism of OTOP is corruption associated with the Thaksin government, but we have not been in a position to investigate this.

See website. Available from: http://www.manager.co.th/asp-bin [Accessed 24 November 2011].

Available from: http://www.library.dip.go.th/multim/edoc/09956.doc [Accessed 12 November 2011].

Informal translation from selected part of the cabinet resolution, Thai cabinet Meeting on Wednesday 26/12/2007 11:14:17 hours. Available from: http://www.manager.co.th/asp-bin 2006 [Accessed 24 November 2011].

Interview with Chief of OTOP, Community Development Department on 15 September 2010.

Deflator is the headline consumer price index for Thailand from Bank of Thailand. Available from: http://www2.bot.or.th/statistics.

Activities also included two OTOP centres in Chiang Mai city, but these have closed down, and now only one OTOP shop remains, in Saraphee district (interview with officer of the Provincial Rural Development Office, 26 January 2012).

This is approximately US$60,000 at the exchange rate of August 2011.

The equivalent of US$3,340 at the exchange rate of August 2011.

Kanya potato chips are a higher grade of chip, also produced by the CBE, which require approximately twice the number of potatoes to be processed as ordinary chips.