The farm village societies in the Chao Phraya Delta in Thailand, are completely different to those found in Java, which are typical 'outward-looking and open village societies'. The Chao Phraya Delta, which is an important area of Thailand, had been the last largest area of unused land in human history, but since the mid-nineteenth century it has been rapidly developed as suitable land for export rice production, and a frontier style of life in which people act freely has been established.
A fixed difference in income due to relative farming scales hardly existed because basically there was plenty of unused land available. It can be said that the farm village society which was created on the delta was an outward-looking and open village society, with no distinction between insiders and outsiders, formed by merchant who had strong connections with world markets. Economic development in Chao Phraya Delta was a typical example of a 'vent for surplus' type.
Recent annual agricultural developments in Chao Phraya Delta are based on agricultural diversification such as production of commercial crops rather than rice, led by city-based merchants, just the same as the period from the mid-nineteenth century. Prawn farming is a typical example. It has been developed using the water and canals originally prepared for rice cultivation, in the Langsit area, which since the mid nineteenth century had been the central area for rice growing in the delta. A poultry industry has also been developed through contracts with the city merchants of Chachengsao and Chol Buri, which are both located on the eastern side of the delta. These were typical examples of contract agriculture.
Such agricultural development in each area of the delta has been brought about through contact between the rice growing farmers and merchants who colleted the changing domestic and intenational informations. These merchant led agricultural developments were also in response to the varying food consumption within Thailand, and avoided the 'Ricardian trap' in the wider sense. Also it must be noted that the economic power of the delta farmers has
