Solutions to A Career Stability of Rubber Plantation’s Farmers

Abstract

Solutions to A Career Stability of Rubber Plantation’s Farmers

This research aimed to examine problems of the rubber plantation’s farmers in Northern, Central and Southern parts of Thailand and propose the solutions to the National Farmers Council in order to come up with policy suggestions to the government. The target groups of the study included farmers who grew rubbers in the North, East and South of 116 and farmers who participated in a public hearing of 150. Research instruments used were questionnaires and a space in a public hearing open for problem-related farmers. The quantitative data were then analyzed with the statistical Mean and Standard Deviation, while a conten analysis was used for the qualitative data.

The findings revealed that the farmers from three regions encountered the continous decrease in price for their products (Mean = 4.31, 4.76, 4.63) in the middle of a high production cost (Mean = 3.84, 3.96, 3.87) and were oppressed by the external market sectors when selling their products to. Thus, the farmers demanded the concrete solutions to these problems from the government. So, they could be more self-reliant, becoming more knowledgeable in their career in terms of production, marketing and creating a value added to rubber-proccessed and related products. The proposed suggestions drawn from the study for the National Farmers Council were to alter a goal in export to a domestic market by enhancing all possible alternatives to equip rubber farmers with knowledge of production, entreprueneurship and small and medium industries. To achieve this, there shoul be a collaborative action taken from large private organizations or enterprises, education institions and various learning resources in order to strengthen the farmers in a form of group system or agriculture cooperatives