Knowledge and Practice of Farmers who Join the New Theory Agriculture Project in Lop-Buri, Sara-Buri and Sing-Buri Provinces
Mana Thanompuvanat
Rajabhat Thepsatri Institute, Muang, Lop-Buri. 15000. Thailand.
---------------------------------------------
Purposes:
This research aimed to study social and economic profile, knowledge and agricultural practices, problems and needs, of farmers who participated the new theory agriculture project, which was initiated by his majesty king Bhumipol of Thailand.
Procedures:
Purposive sampling method was employed to 226 farmers in Lop-Buri, 125 in Sara-Buri and 78 in Sing-Buri provinces. Who participated new theory agriculture project. 35% of them, that was 79, 44, and 27 persons in these 3 provinces, respectively, were randomly picked out for interviewed. The total sample were 150 persons. Standardized or structure interview instrument was used to analyse quality to find out the difficulty value of the questionnaire, which was range from 0.20-0.80, discrimination power value ranged from 0.20 and higher, the precision value was at 0.65. The Kuder-Richardson formular ( KR 20), was deministered to the farmers with the help of Agricultural Promotion Officer in the area. The researcher met and interviewed the farmers at either District Agricultural Office or farmer’s house. The data was collected from 30 October 2000 to 15 January 2001, then analyse by a calculator, and SPSS ver. 9.3 computer programme to calculate the statistics, percentage, mean, T-test and ANOVA.
Results
1.Social and economic profile of the farmers
52.7% of the farmer interviewed were live in Lop-Buri province and 72.7% of these were male. Their average age was 49.9 years. 36.7% of them finished primary education level. The average of their farming experience was 29.61 years. Their average family member was 4.63 persons but, by average, only 2.51 persons of their family working on their farm. On average, each farmer occupied 28.70 rai, however, only 26.37 rai was allocated for farming. 40% of them watched agricultural T.V. programme every day. 76% of the farmers got knowledge on the New theory agriculture from Agricultural Promotion Officer. 85.3% of them grew rice as their major crop, whereas 39.3% of them grew fruit tree as their minor crops. Their average income were 85,800.50 Baht per year, however, the expense of them were only 59,400.51 Baht per year. 85.3% of them was a member of an agricultural association, but 73.4% of these had a purpose of borrowing money. 62% of them got loan from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operative (BAAC). The interest paid was 10.69 Baht per year. When they join the New theory agriculture project, nearly half of these farmers could reduce their debt, 52% of them join the project in 1999 (Table 1).
2. The score of farmers’ knowledge on the new theory agriculture
Farmers from Lop-Buri, Sara-Buri and Sing-Buri got 12.02, 11.02, and 10.48 out of 25 score, respectively. The average score of these three provinces were 11.57 (Table 2).
Most of the farmers dug ponds in their farm. There were 1.69 ponds in average. 30.7% of them can top up their pond by water got from irrigation canal when lacking of water. Jasmine rice variety were the most popular variety among the farmers. About half of the farmers using both chemical and organic fertilizer. 29.2% of these farmers who grew rice applied fertilizer grade 16-20-0 to their rice field. The average rate of the fertilizer used was 30.69 kg/rai. Almost all of them applied the fertilizer by broadcasting. 29.2% of them who grew rice and field crops applied fertilizer grade 16-20-0 to their field. The average rate of fertilizer used was 37.86 kg/rai. 55.8% of these farmers applied fertilizer by broadcasting. 52.9% of them who grow fruit trees applied fertilizer grade 15-15-15 to their fruit trees. The average rate of fertilizer used was 47.59 kg/rai, 62.6% of them dropped the fertilizer around the base of trees.
The farmers who grow ornamental plants, about 38.5% applied fertilizer grade 15-15-15 and 16-16-16 to their plants. The rate of fertilizer applied was 24.61 kg/rai. 6.29% of them dropped the fertilizer around the base of trees. 30% of the farmers who grew vegetables applied fertilizer grade 15-15-15 to their crop. The rate of fertilizer applied was 21.83 kg/rai. 40% of them dropped the fertilizer around the base of plants (Table 3). Most farmers did not applied pesticide, i.e. insecticide, fungicide, and herbicide to eradicate plant pest, disease, and weed. The chemical substance from Neem seed was used most to protect and eradicate insect pest. Cabarmate is a chemical substance which was used most to protect and eradicate plant diseases. Atrazine was the chemical substance which was used most to control weed. Muang bean was the crop grow most after paddy rice was harvested. The plant grow most on the small dike around paddy field was banana. The fruit tree that were grown most were mangoes. The method that used for multiplying fruit tree was grafting. Most of the fruit trees were bought from the sellers. Bananas were the fruit tree the had given yielded now. The vegetable that was grow most was chili. The ornamental plant that was grow most was the Crown of Thorn. The perennial crop that grow most was Neem tree. Fish was the one that farmers like to raise most. To make most used of the fruit trees grown were sell the products. 70.7% of the farmer gain a better economic, which was the result from practicing the new theory agriculture. 60% of the family members love each other and stay together. 66% of them increase their pride of being a farmer.
The problem that farmers got most was low price of their products and their most need was crops seed and better plants and animal varieties.