# Getting Young People to Farm: How Effective Is Thailand's Young Smart Farmer Programme?
## 1 Introduction  
Thailand is facing an ageing farming population, with fewer young people continuing, returning to, or entering farming [1]. This is a common demographic structural change, also found in many other countries [2]. In Thailand, the share of farmers younger than 45 years decreased from ~30% in 2008 to ~19% in 2018, while the share of those 60 years and older increased from ~26% to ~33% [3, 4]. This is partly because of the economic development disparity between the agricultural sector and others, resulting in people with a farming career earning less than those with other occupations [5, 6]. Farming also faces many risks, such as the volatility of the agricultural markets and product prices, increasing product costs, labour shortage, deterioration of soil quality, climate change and natural disasters, and fraud by intermediaries [5, 7]. Farm work is also physically and mentally exhausting, with an augmented chance of work-related accidents, while medical and pension benefits are usually poor [8]. These factors make farming an unattractive career path for young people. Young people are also reaching higher levels of education, which leads to changes in their lifestyle and employment aspirations, with increasing opportunity to find off-farm employment [9, 10]. Particularly the well-educated young people out-migrate to urban areas, contributing to the global problem of a rural and farming exodus [11, 12]. Between 2015 and 2019, the average net immigration into the capital, Bangkok, was a surplus (32,920 people per year), while the average net immigration into other regions was a deficient (~222,500 people per year) [13]. However, the agricultural sector in Thailand is still an important source of livelihood, income, and raw material, and thus, it is essential to the national food supply. In 2019, of the total 37 million employed people, \(\sim\)32% worked in the agricultural sector [14]. Thailand is also a major food product exporting country [15], meaning that Thailand currently has a food production surplus, and food security is not an issue in most regions. However, if the number of young farmers continues to decline, leaving only older farmers to deal with increased farming workloads and risks, the agricultural sector competitiveness, sustainability, and national food security are likely to become a challenge in the future. This is because older farmers are generally less motivated than their younger colleagues to develop their farms, less open to new ideas and efficient methods, less daring regarding on-farm investments, and less productive as their health might deteriorate [9; 16]. To address this decline in the number of young farmers, the Thai government and governments of other Asian and African countries initiated capacity-building programmes for young farmers. The scope of such programmes is large, with differences in how they are implemented and their governance and incentive strategies. Some programmes follow a top-down approach [7; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23], while others are bottom-up [7; 18; 24; 25; 26]. Most programmes focus on collective incentives and developments, with fewer focusing on incentives for and developments of individuals [22]. Programmes either offer mainly monetary support and incentives, such as subsidy [7; 17; 20; 23; 26], or mainly non-monetary support and incentives, such as knowledge and information [18; 19; 21; 22; 24; 25]. An example for the latter strategy has been introduced in Thailand in 2014, under the umbrella of the Young Smart Farmer (YSF) programme, which has been the focus of our study [27]; the next section provides some conclusions about these programmes. Despite the given variety in programmes aiming to retain young people in farming employment, studies of the programmes have unambiguously concluded that they are only successful when they provide young people with a clear vision of the economic benefits of farming.