Agricultural development: Poverty, conflict and strategic programs in country border

Abstract

Study on agriculture resource development and poverty in the country border regions were rarely found. This paper investigates the strategic program in increasing agricultural production for poverty alleviation of smallholders and reducing agriculture resource conflict, by employing Interpretative Structural Modeling. The results show that, strengthening institutional management of agriculture local resource potential should be more focused on institutions in the border regions (districts level) to avoid resource conflict in agriculture. Among the 10 strategic programs was revealed, there are three programs to encourage agricultural development and help poverty reduction in borders region. They are (1) the application of primary product processing techniques (for the farmers), (2) secondary product processing techniques for downstream (for industries), and (3) price policy improvement in borders local market (for the government). These three programs are the driving force for agricultural development in help rural poverty alleviation. In addition, local community needs more social supports and public services improvement in the border region.