Livestock and Livestock Health in Northern Thailand: A Socio-economic Analysis of a cross sectional Survey of Villlages

The development and growth of the Thai livestock industry in recent years has been significantly hindered by the level of endemic livestock disease in the South East Asian region. In rapidly developing countries such as Thailand, livestock diseases represent significant costs at the private and national level. Infectious livestock diseases such as Foot and Mouth, Aujeszky and Newcastle diseases reduce production and hence the income of livestock owners and create barriers to export of livestock products. Consequently animal health is becoming increasingly important in national development programs undertaken in Thailand and other South East Asian countries. There is a growing need for more rigorous economic and epidemiological analysis of livestock disease and disease control to enable more informed decisions to be made in terms of national animal health management. National disease control programs require significant expenditure and effort and have considerable information needs for effective management. The collection and analysis of socio-economic and epidemiological data in rural Thailand plays an important role therefore in the development of efficient and effective disease control programs for livestock. In this report we analyse data supplied by Mr Angus Cameron on behalf of Hang Chat Veterinary Centre, Lampang, Northern Thailand. This data was collected in late 1994 by direct survey of villages in three provinces in Northern Thailand.