Books by Dr Soparth Pongquan

The broad objective of this research is to examine that how sufficiency economy approach (SEA) can enhance community economic development (CED) and livelihoods in the current development context of Thailand. The specific objectives include an examination of the application of SEA in activities of CED; an assessment of changes and attitudes of rural household livelihoods; a construction of SEA indicators; and an identification of factors explaining SEA in the implementation of activities of CED in order to provide policy implications to support the implementation of SEA. This research concluded that sufficiency CED requires that activities are developed based on community-demand with a firm foundation of community-reliance and moral condition to create activities that have a positive impact to all livelihood assets, not just the monetary terms. In this matter, SEA can corporate with any community development approach as it acts as a guidelines for community members to proper conduct activities of CED with knowledge and due consideration on the community capacities in order to reduce risk or unsuitable actions.

This research aimed to analyze and develop an alternative strategy on participatory agricultural development for small farmers in Thailand.The research concluded that the farmer's network functioned effectively to develop small farmers in several aspects.The network acted as local development agent enhancing the promotion of sustainable farming and supporting development activities. It has been utilized as the effective communication and learning mechanism to support farmers in participatory learning and communication process on development activities. The operation of the network was primarily focused on participatory approach. The key factors explaining the better performance of the farmer's network comprised of network structure,components and size,types of management system,local leadership ability, local participation,communication and learning process, identification of development activities,and social networking process.