In South-East Asian countries the agriculture has shifted from traditional rice cultivation to more diversify and market-oriented crop cultivation. Staple crops are becoming less important [1]. At the same time, the demand for vegetables has increased sharply in many parts of the Asia including Thailand [2]. Data on the production of main crops in Thailand show that there is an increased production of vegetables with a corresponding increase in planted areas [3].
In the recent decades, Thai agriculture overall has seen important transformations. In the central plains, the people growing non-rice crops have increased significantly in the recent decades [4]. Similarly, Molle et al [5] reported significant changes in land and water uses in the central plain specially the shift from sugar cane to various cash crops such as baby corn, and other field crops such as vegetables and fruit.
This research focused on the northern Thailand where it is even more dynamic compared to other regions of the country. In the northern region of Thailand the total area of land holding was around 25 million Raisin 2003 which is around 7.7% increase from the year 1998. Similarly, looking on the total land holding by the land use during the period of 1993-2003, there has been declined in rice area with the corresponding increase in permanent crops (especially Longan orchard) and vegetables and ornamental plants [6]. Among the provinces in northern region, Chiang Mai has the largest area under vegetables and flowers that is increasing gradually over the periods. In fact it has the highest area under vegetable crops among the provinces in the country.
In the past, the wet-season rice cultivation was common practice in the northern part of the country though some vegetables and semi-commercial crops were parts of the farming system. The transformation from rice-based farming to fruits and other permanent crops, and vegetables and ornamental plants are evident in the region including the Chiang Mai province [7]. The commercialization of the agriculture is taking place at faster rates in the Chiang Mai valley [8, 9,10] and surrounding upland areas [11]. Due to the increased market opportunity the contract farming (for orchard, vegetables and ornamental crops) was also increased in the Chiang Mai valley area [7].
The diversification was facilitated by economic changes including marketing facilities. Crop diversification was mostly the economic response to the decreasing profitability of “traditional” crops. The commercialization, specially the increased vegetable cultivation, has enhanced by the use of modern agricultural technologies. The farmers are replacing their traditional crop cultivars with the new innovations; the improved varieties, in many cases with the hybrid varieties. The improved varieties, including the hybrid, provide higher economic return due to their higher productions and thus provide better livelihood opportunities. But it is not always that high input agriculture result into improved quality of life especially for the poor small farmers in Thailand [12].
In order to better understand the real impact of bio-innovation, it is necessary to explore the intra-household impact of modern agricultural technology from gender perspective [13]. In some cases, with the involvement in commercial vegetable production women farmers are able to improve their livelihood [14]. But in other cases it was not clear whether the benefit from commercialization was realized by women and poor farmers. We can also relate it