tuted the main income in around 30 % and 5 % of the
small-scale buffalo and cattle farms. Farmers in the
studied region primarily kept livestock in order to cover
expected as well as unexpected expenses and to gener-ate supplementary rather than main income. This was
particularly illustrated for small-scale farms. Further-more, animals played a role for sustaining or improving
the farmers’ livelihoods and the social status and as sav-ings.
Chantalakhana (2001) stated that in case of crop fail-ures due to drought or flood, bu ffaloes or cattle are sold
in order to obtain su fficient cash income to purchase
enough rice for year-round family consumption. In the
case of traditional ceremonies such as weddings or reli-gious rites, rural farmers sold buffaloes or cattle for cash
or slaughtered them for meat consumption in the house-hold.
Due to changes of the agricultural production sys-tems in Thailand towards more intensive farms, raising
livestock for purposes such as draught power, manure
production, inheritance and livestock farming as a tra-ditional activity is becoming of less interest. As stated
by Simaraks et al. (2003), the role livestock played as
savings and in bartering systems in Northeast Thailand
has been mostly replaced by a buy-and-sale system, and
other roles related to inheritance, rituals etc. have de-clined dramatically and been replaced mainly by con-sumer goods. Regardless of these other opportunities,
the present study indicated that keeping livestock as sav-ings is still common for small-, medium-, as well as
large-scale farmers.