section_path: Economy/Agriculture and natural resources
section_name: Agriculture and natural resources
paragraph_text: Agriculture and natural resources
  
  Forty-nine per cent of Thailand's labour force is employed in agriculture. This is down from 70% in 1980. Rice is the most important crop in the country and Thailand had long been the world's leading exporter of rice, until recently falling behind both India and Vietnam. Thailand has the highest percentage of arable land, 27.25%, of any state in the Greater Mekong Subregion. About 55% of the arable land area is used for rice production.
  
  Agriculture has been experiencing a transition from labour-intensive and transitional methods to a more industrialised and competitive sector. Between 1962 and 1983, the agricultural sector grew by 4.1% per year on average and continued to grow at 2.2% between 1983 and 2007. The relative contribution of agriculture to GDP has declined while exports of goods and services have increased.
  
  Furthermore, access to biocapacity in Thailand is lower than world average. In 2016, Thailand had 1.2 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, a little less than world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In contrast, in 2016, they used 2.5 global hectares of biocapacity – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use about twice as much biocapacity as Thailand contains, resulting in a deficit.