Abstract
This chapter presents social performances of major agricultural products in Thailand, i.e. rice, sugarcane and cassava. The social performances are social conditions associated with the products under study and are the results of Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA). It discusses the social performances of these crops individually, as well as compares the performance between crops. In addition, it presents social performances of these crops under conventional and area based practices. Moreover, it discusses the applicability of the social performance assessment method used in this study. The results suggest that the performances on working conditions for workers in cultivation of all crops are not much different. The workers gain higher wage on occasion that is competitive to hire workers. Despite relative high number of employment in sugarcane cultivation, its social performance on the local community is relatively low due to the problem of cane trash burning. Compared to all stakeholders, the farm owners for all crops have the lowest social performance. This is because they often face the problem of price fluctuation. Contract farming benefits sugarcane farm owners in all indicators examined. Contract farming provides technology development assistance and access to loan from the sugar factory. Moreover, the area based policy can help to significantly increase social performances of the farm owners for all crops in all aspects studied. In addition, the proposed Social Life Cycle Impact Assessment (SLCIA) method used is found to be applicable to all crops studied although modifications are needed to provide more comprehensive results.
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Acknowledgements
The National Science and Technology Development Agency (Grant No. P-16-51880), Thailand Research Fund, and the Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC) (Grant No. MRG6180276) are gratefully acknowledged for financial support.
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Prasara-A, J., Gheewala, S.H. (2019). Social Life Cycle Assessment of Agricultural Products: Experiences on Rice, Sugarcane and Cassava in Thailand. In: Muthu, S. (eds) Social Life Cycle Assessment. Environmental Footprints and Eco-design of Products and Processes. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3236-4_1
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