AGRARIAN TRANSITION, INTENSIFICATION AND THE RENEGOTIATION OF MIGRANT LABOR RELATIONS: CAMBODIAN WORKERS IN SUGAR CANE PRODUCTION IN NONG SANO VILLAGE, SAKAEO PROVINCE, THAILAND

Abstract

Agriculture becomes more commercialized which farmers shift to cash crops that generate greater income. In Sakaeo province, there is also a transition to sugar cane. Factors that made farmers shift to sugar cane growing is support from both government sector and sugar cane mill. Farmers apply more inputs, land use, and labor in sugar cane production. This intensification heavily affects to labor dimension as there is a high demand on labor for sugar cane growing. As a result, Cambodian migrant workers have more bargaining power to renegotiate relations with Thai farmers. This thesis aims to explain why farmers intensified their production to sugar cane, and how they intensified it. Moreover this thesis also determine how intensification shapes renegotiation between Thai farmers and Cambodian migrant workers. This thesis applies agrarian transition as a conceptual framework which focuses on intensification process. It also employs social relations as another framework. This thesis used qualitative methodology to collect data from farmers and Cambodian migrant workers in Nong Sano village, Sakaoe province. This thesis argues that, firstly, agrarian transition from other crops to sugar cane growing in Nong Sano village occurred according to support from government sector and the sugar cane mill. Secondly, intensification in sugar cane production reduces Cambodian migrant labor vulnerability because increase on labor demand creates new kind of relations between Thai farmers and migrant labors which migrant labors have more choice and bargaining power to renegotiate. Thirdly, this thesis argues that Chaidan Burapa Farmers Association plays an important role in giving legal status to Cambodian migrant workers which also empower them.