Planning for Conservation in an Agrarian Cultural Landscape: Feasible Value-Chain Upgrading for Indigenous Rice in Pak Phanang Basin, Thailand

Agrarian cultural landscapes depend not only on the symbolic value of place but also on the viability of the producers who sustain landscape-bearing practices. This study asks which indigenous rice value-chain pathway is most supportable in the near term under current production, post-harvest, market, and coordination conditions, and what this implies for conservation planning. Using the Pak Phanang Basin, Thailand, as an area-based case, the study integrates evidence from 52 indigenous rice-farming households in four subdistricts, farmer meetings and focus group discussions, value-chain actors, relevant agencies, spatial and documentary sources, and a consumer survey used as supplementary demand-side evidence. Seven value-chain pathways were compared qualitatively using six criteria: downstream demand or final use, quality requirements, post-harvest burden, investment needs, coordination burden, and producer readiness. The findings show that farmer participation remains concentrated in low-risk channels, especially household consumption and mill sales. Paddy rice for game fowl and native chicken feed emerged as the most territorially supportable near-term pathway because it showed the strongest practical fit among identifiable downstream buyers and final-use clarity, moderate quality requirements, manageable post-harvest and investment burdens, coordination requirements, and producer readiness. Its feasibility, however, depends on reducing post-harvest bottlenecks, improving aggregation, managing quality, and coordinating with downstream buyers. The study concludes that feasible value-chain upgrading should be planned as conservation-enabling support for custodian viability, rather than as a simple shift toward higher-value markets.