for dams, canals, locks, ditches, and other infrastructure in the Greater Chao Phraya Project. Pro-small farm mechanization policies protected agro-machinery manufacturers from outside competition. They also stimulated small machinery research and development that resulted by the late-1990s in nearly two million locally produced two-wheel tractors, as well as one million axial flow pumps for irrigation, hundreds of thousands of small horsepower rice threshers, and 10,000 small horsepower caterpillar track-propelled combines that are able to harvest in small, fragmented, and still wet fields. With the combination of improved access to water and machinery, these policies prompted rice farms to increase from 35 million to 59 million rai from the 1950s to the 1980s. Rice production has about tripled in terms of total paddy rice produced. While Thailand's rice production has not increased every year, the trend line shows significant increases since the 1960s. Starting in 2010 the government went from encouraging rice production to discouraging it. It initiated a program to encourage rice farmers to switch to other crops. The government's policy offered a 2,000 baht per rai subsidy for paddy fields converted to other crops. At the time, Thailand's 54 sugarcane processing plants were short of raw cane to meet demand. A ready market for sugarcane and the falling price of rice made switching to sugarcane compelling and many farmers made the switch. The transition has not been without controversy: first, because rice is a food staple whereas sugar is not, and secondly, due to undesirable environmental impacts linked to sugarcane farmers' use of between of paraquat per rai of sugarcane. Impact on farmers While all of these advances helped improve overall production of rice in Thailand, many low-income farmers in Thailand were left worse off. Many peasants were unable to hold on to their land and became tenants. The UN estimates that Thai farmers who owned their own land declined from 44% in 2004 to just 15% in 2011. The government demanded tax revenues, even during bad years, and this pushed many low-income farmers even closer to the margin. Farmers have accumulated 338 billion baht in debt. In 2013, the average household debt in Thailand's northeast was 78,648 baht, slightly lower than the national average of 82,572 baht, according to Thailand's Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE). But the region's average monthly household income, at 19,181 baht, was also lower than the national average, 25,194 baht, according to the National