Until the 1960's when Thailand began to become more industrialized, the country was classified as an agricultural society. Advances in technology and economic globalization have caused change to agriculture and influenced the standard of living of the rural people. This means that farmers need to learn new and better ways to farm their land. Thailand's important relationship with world markets has created changes to many of the old traditional ways of using and caring for the land. In the modern era, farmers must produce crops that meet the standards of the food industry. Agriculture is increasingly becoming a business that requires investment in better technology and the use of more scientific methods to work the land. This means that farmers need to be more educated and regulated about how they use the land. Farmers who have not been able to change or find ways to pay for new equipment in order to meet government standards for the use of fertilizers and chemicals have remained very poor. In other situations, farmers have learned to use science to produce higher crop yields, raise healthier livestock and develops new forms of farming such as farming of fish and shrimp in man-made ponds. These farmers have been able to become more prosperous businessman and often they work in partnership with business leaders in big cities. Several Thai agricultural produces have formed agreement for production and pricing of products for foreign markets.