Socio-economic assessment of the farm resources and living standards of different ethnic groups

Rural development processes in mountain zones of Northern Thailand show links between highlands and lowlands and different ethnic groups, which have an impact on the sustainable use of natural resources. This leads to the general question of sustainable family and rural development and the security of farm families as it affects the living standard. This book attempts to assess the socio-economic situation of families with special reference to farm resources and living standards in the different ethnic groups and spatial locations as well as to analyse the impacts of future development strategies on resource use, farm activities and living standards of farm families in Northern Thailand. Several economic and social criteria were considered as quantitative and qualitative parameters and applied in order to measure the living standards of farm families. For the future impact analysis of development strategies, multi-periodical (dynamic) models at the family level were designed based on linear programming techniques. The model was used in the framework of the Monte-Carlo Simulation to consider, in particular, the stochastic nature of some parameters and to allow a stochastic interpretation of results.