Development Guideline of Processed Agricultural Products Groups under Project for Pushing Farmer to be Smart Farmer in Lampang Province

Abstract

This research was initially conducted before following the research principles process that was funded by the National Research Council of Thailand for the budget year 2019 with the aim of studying the current operation of Processed Agricultural Products Groups under Project for Pushing Farmer to be Smart Farmer in Lampang Province with qualitative research. This represents the guideline for further developing 76 Lampang smart farmers from 25 Processed Agricultural Products Groups through the tools of In-depth interview, focus group and workshop training. The focus group was conducted with experts of Lampang Agricultural Office, namely, Lampang agricultural officer, Agricultural Extensions Officer, Senior Professional Level, District Agricultural Officer and Farmer Extensions and Development Officer. The research results on attributes of 25 Processed Agricultural Products Groups suggest that some group members were not ready for change due to the lack of knowledge in agricultural technology, insufficient data to accompany decision-making, inability to access official data source. Moreover, there was no connection between product management, marketing and sale, regardless of product quality and consumer safety in accordance with “Good Agricultural Practices: GAP” requirement, organic agriculture or other standards, ignoring the environmental and social responsibilities and majority had no pride of being farmers. Currently, most operation of Processed Agricultural Products Groups has never applied innovation or technology in the production process. As a matter of fact, the production process and products standards were inferior, without transparent marketing pattern as well as paid less attention to body of knowledge and network connectivity as they should have been.