World Development 173 (2024) 106421 0305-750X/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Going organic: Challenges for government-supported organic rice promotion and certifcation nationalism in Thailand Ian G. Baird Department of Geography. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 550 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706, USA A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Thailand Rice Certifcation Organic Political ecology Scalar politics ABSTRACT There is increasing interest in organic lowland rice cultivation in Thailand. Farmers are becoming more wary about the human health and environmental impacts of using herbicides and pesticides. In addition, consumers are increasingly demanding rice cultivated without the use of chemicals. There is also more interest in accessing international and local organic rice markets. Thus, in 2017 the government of Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives rolled out a project designed to promote organic rice farming through subsidizing the con- version of one million-rai (160,000 ha) of lowland rice farms to being organic over a three-year period. Although the initiative was well intended, and constitutes local agency, the project has faced serious obstacles because the organic certifcation standards associated with the project do not align with international standards. This has negatively impacted the structures that support organic farming, by giving farmers unrealistic expectations regarding what is required to produce organic rice for the international market. The Thai certifcation system also has different ecological implications compared to other certifcation systems, because value systems always affect certifcation systems and their material implications. Applying a political ecology approach—with an emphasis on political relations, economic structure, ecological change, and scalar politics—this article examines the one million-rai project. It is contended that ‘certifcation nationalism’ is manifesting, and that there are important lessons to be learned about planning and implementing such certifcation initiatives. 1. Introduction Over the last few decades there has been a gradual but sustained increase in interest in organic lowland rice farming in various parts of mainland Southeast Asia, including Thailand, 1 Laos 2 (Baird, Piyadeth, & Ninhchaluene, 2021; 2022; Vientiane Times, 2021c) and Cambodia (Maeng et al., 2017). In Thailand, the focus of this article, farmers have become more concerned about the negative environmental impacts of agricultural chemicals, especially on aquatic life, including fsh, frogs and aquatic insects. They have also become more wary about the human health impacts associated with using herbicides and pesticides (Baird, Manorom, Piyadeth, Gaja-Svasti, & Ninhchaluene, 2022), and farmers and other consumers have become increasingly concerned about the human health impacts of consuming food producing using harmful chemicals, and older and wealthier Thai consumers have particularly shown interest in purchasing organic food (Roitner-Schobesberger, Somsook, & Vogl, 2008). This has led retail supermarkets to provide more in-depth information to consumers about product organic certif- cation (Kantamaturapoj & Marshall, 2020). In line with these societal concerns, and the politics associated with it, the government of Thailand—led by the Ministry of Public Health—has recently banned some dangerous agricultural chemicals (Tanakasempipat, 2020; Khun- song & Peck, 2019), and has variously signaled to farmers and con- sumers that the government is becoming increasingly wary of agricultural chemical use. The shift toward safer and more organic methods of farming in Thailand has been promoted by the government through its National Program for Organic Farming (referred to as the ‘one million-rai project’ from here onward), which was launched in 2017. The conversion of one million rai of lowland rice farmland to being organic was expected to have been completed by 2019. However, the government of Thailand has generally been looking further into promoting organic agriculture. At one point it hoped that organic rice farming could expand to as much as 20 million rai of lowland rice farmland by 2021 (Srimalee, 2017), E-mail address: ibaird@wisc.edu. 1 Offce of Agricultural Economics, 2020; H´ erique, 2019; Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, 2019; Rice Department, 2018; Srimalee, 2017; NNT, 2017; Taotawin, 2011; Vandergeest, 2009. 2 Laos is now exporting a signifcant amount of clean or organic rice to China (Baird et al., 2021; Vientiane Times, 2021a & b). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106421 Accepted 29 September 2023