Reconciling Climate Resilience and Farm Profitability: Evidence from New Theory Agriculture in Thailand

Climate change threatens agricultural sustainability, making the nexus of farm-level adaptation and economic performance a critical area of scientific inquiry. In Thailand, New Theory Agriculture (NTA) is a diversification strategy designed to enhance farmer resilience against climate and market risks. This study provides an experimental evaluation of the NTA's effectiveness, quantifying its impacts by comparing a treatment cohort of NTA adopters against a control group of non-adopters. The analysis reveals that NTA has a statistically significant positive effect on both farm diversification and profitability. Notably, participants in the NTA earned an average of $971 more in net farm revenue per growing season than their counterparts. This result contributes to the literature by empirically challenging the posited trade-off between resilience-oriented diversification and economic returns. Ultimately, the findings demonstrate that NTA represents an effective paradigm for concurrently achieving climate adaptation and economic sustainability in the Thai agricultural sector.