Introduction

Abstract

In Chapter 5 farm economics and market dynamics in support of sustainability are discussed. Understanding rural households’ decision making, their economic constraints and their potential for action is a key precondition for formulating sustainability promoting measures in rural areas. In passing we might add that with all the attention in the development discourse given to macro conditions, such as structural adjustment programs, WTO trade issues and governance — as important as all these tropics are — looking at the micro level and understanding rural peoples’ behaviour and decision making has received too scant attention. In their contribution (5.2) Doppler and Do Anh Tai address the decision making process and the economic environment of rural households along the gradient of tropical mountains watersheds: valley bottoms — middle hill sides — high mountain. Farmers in northern Thailand respond to the increasing pressures on land by intensifying crop production systems, particularly in using high doses of mineral fertilizers and pesticides with the resulting environmental damages to water and soils. Zeddies and Schönleber in their paper (5.3) analyze nutrient balances of fertilizer use and levels of water contamination by pesticide application and assess the threat to the sustainability of farming in the area.