The Chicken Comes First: The Growth of Ethic Poultry Initiatives in Thailand
The increase in sustainable farming practices, spurred by organizations like the Farm Champion Project, helps support both chickens’ and farmers’ welfare.
Published November 16, 2024
The Farm Champion Project, a joint program between World Animal Protection (WAP) Thailand, the School of Animal Technology and Innovation, and the Institute of Agricultural Technology, Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) was officially announced to the public in a farm-to-consumer event on Saturday, October 20. The Project has been creating positive change in the chicken farming industry in Thailand and is one of many organizations championing a sustainable farming movement in the country.
Farming and agriculture compose the majority of the Thai economy. Farmers are also one of Thailand’s “most important political constituencies.” Their political influence led to the passage of the Contract Farming Promotion and Development Act (CF Act) in 2017, which created “better access to markets and capital while achieving higher and more stable incomes” for farmers. It accomplished this by creating set rules around contract farming, or the practice of small local farmers partnering with large corporations to sustain their farms.
This Act applies to all farming industries, including poultry farms, and has a large impact. While contract farming was already the main form of agricultural industry before the Act was in force, it was consistently overshadowed by industrial production. Even after the passage of the Act, “industrial production represents 80 percent of the poultry sector,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Chicken meat is still Thailand’s third largest export, killing over two million birds a year as of 2023, reports We Animals. This affects farmers, who make up 30 percent of Thailand’s workforce, but whose contribution “to national income has declined over the past three decades accounting for only 10 percent of GDP in 2019,” according to the United Nations.
This is where the Farm Championship Project and adjacent organizations hope to play a role in supplementing the effect that the CF Act has had by supporting small farmers and advocating for a safer environment for raising poultry. Specifically, “the Farm Champion Project provided over 1,000 Korat chickens to 11 farms across six provinces to encourage small-scale farmers to adopt high welfare farming practices under the concept of ‘Good Life Standards.’” Paew Pirom, food systems campaign manager at WAP Thailand, stated in an interview with the Bangkok Post that the Farm Championship Project’s methods in raising poultry not only cost substantially less than the industrial process, but also require less space, and allow specialists to provide “them with knowledge and information on how to raise high welfare chickens.” In this way, the Project supports not only chickens but local farmers as well.
The event on Saturday, October 20, introduced the work of the Project to consumers and farmers to garner more support. The videos that accompanied the event featured two spokespersons traveling to local farms that the project aids. Farmers highlighted their flocks of Korat chickens, a special cross-breed, and the wealth of knowledge it takes to maintain them. They also emphasize both the ethics of raising chickens on small, local farms and the cost difference. With the support of the Farm Championship Project, farmers are excited by the possibility of providing the highest quality chicken, and by the ability to keep learning more about how to best care for them, according to World Animal Protection Thailand.
The Farm Championship Project hopes to continue its work by expanding its network of farmers, and World Animal Protection Thailand is working to enact policy change against animal cruelty.