The Adjustment of Villagers in the Market System and Food Supply Chain in the Mekong River Basin: A Case Study of the Production of Mekong Sour Fish Sausages

Abstract

 This research aimed to understand the adjustment of villagers living in the Mekong River Basin in Northeast Thailand due to the changes in available natural resources and market access through the development of the popular local cuisine named “Som Pla Do” or the soar fish sausage. It employed qualitative methodology involving documentary research, interviews, and observations of sour fish sausage producers in Tambon Chaiburi, Amphor Tha-Uthen, Nakhon Phanom Province, and other stakeholders involved in fish resources, such as restaurant owners, local fisherpersons, and local villagers. The study addressed the extended food supply chain and the transformation of food production from the use of local ingredients to ingredients from elsewhere. In the past, villagers were highly dependent on fish and developed their local knowledge to diversify this resource to produce related foods. However, over the last three decades, the transformation of village economies from subsistence to market driven has led to greater opportunities for villagers to sell their fish products to a wider market. However, the great snakehead fish or Pla-do, a key ingredient in fish sausage, became significantly limited in numbers and is now rarely found in the Mekong and Songkram Rivers. Villagers compensated by ordering fish bred in mud in central Thailand to replace local fish. The research highlighted the adjustment of villagers to the wider market and their attempt to seek for new ingredients from places far away from their villages. At the same time, they had to maintain the identity of sour fish sausage as a local product made from fish from the Mekong River for their economic benefit, despite the ingredients no longer being from local sources.