ABSTRACT
The role of agriculture has long been one of the most important topics in economic development. Country-level economic development can be interpreted as the change from an agriculture-based sectoral structure to an industry-based sectoral structure. The agricultural sector in Thailand is not an exception. The country saw rapid economic growth in the 1990s. Before that time, it was an agriculture-based country. In developed countries, there is sufficient food to supply laborers in urban areas, and there is no food problem. Thailand might be one case that is experiencing the middle-income trap. Since the country succeeded in promoting economic growth in the 1990s, political instability has been common due to the struggle between the two political parties. Thailand has faced the middle-income problem, and there have been conflicts between the rural agricultural sector and the urban nonagricultural sector. The theoretical model that best explains the current Thailand economy is a hybrid model of a wage-difference model and a neoclassical model.
