Farmers’ Coping Adaptive Strategies towards Drought
Regarding to field visit in the areas where rice severely hit by drought in a villages selected site.
Some farmers decided to plough the paddy fields in October and planted cassava replacing rice
before harvest, while some farmers planted cassava after rice harvest in Kalasin province. On the
other hand, some farmers decided to grow mungbean in the paddy fields after rice harvest in
Nakhonratsima province. The crop cutting study was sampled for cassava in Khummex village
selected site which occupied by lowland rice fields within a toposequence landform. Because of
large variation in water availability among the upper toposequence position, middle position and
lower position, the rainfed lowland rice can be separated into three paddy fields types, namely
upper paddy, medium paddy and lower paddy. In the present study, farmers grew cassava in upper
paddy and medium paddy. The author observed that farmer does not cultivated cassava in lower
paddy. They mentioned that if cassava is grown in the lower paddy they may experience
waterlogging early in pre-rainy season, due to lower paddy located at the bottom toposequence
position. Crop cutting study was done for two farmers sampled (farmer A and B) who grew cassava
in upper paddy and medium paddy in Khummex village. In the recent study, soil in cassava
sampled plots are sandy in texture with low total N, available P, exchangeable K and organic matter
both in upper paddy and medium paddy (Table 5). However, overall views of soil in medium paddy
fields are more fertile than upper paddy (Table 5). Farmer A planted cassava in November after rice
harvest while farmer B planted cassava in October before rice harvest. Cassava was harvested in
June before normal rice planting. Cassava was grown in post-rainy season. Therefore, cassava must
start their growth on residual soil moisture remaining in the soil and supplement with rainfall in
summer season and pre-rainy season. The soil moisture contents were measured at 0-15, 15-30, 30-
45 and 45-60 cm soil depth entire the growing season (Figure 1, 2 and 3). The results showed that
soil moisture content (SMC) at 0-15, 15-30 cm soil depth close to the permanent wilting point
(PWP) value during November to February. However, the SMC at 30-45 and 45-60 cm soil depth
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were mostly higher than PWP during the growing season, except their close to PWP in March and
April. In general, SMC in Farmer B’s sampled plots was observed to be higher than Farmer A’s
sampled plots. This was due to Farmer A’s sampled plots being situated at higher toposequence
positions than Farmer B’s sampled plots, even though their classifications were the same as
medium paddy type.