Community Ability in the Planning Process of Agricultural Development at Sub-District Level: A Case Study of Sub-district Technology Transfer Center in Kumphangphet Province

Abstract

     The purpose of this study was to find out how to support sub-district agricultural extention officials' ability in the planning process of agricultural development, implemented by Participatory Assessment Planning PAP). Action research was conducted to set an integrated activities of central, provincial, sub-district and village level. Interview was designed for chief of Provincial Agricultural Extension Office in terms of PAP implementation strategies and supporting system. Focused group discussion and questionnaires were designed to study the 17 volunteer sub-district officials' knowledge, attitude and skill on PAP. Two hundred and sixty four local leaders who joined in the planning process were the indicators of participation and adoption, then analysed by descriptive method. Results revealed that sub-district officials had problems to facilitate the learning process and could not set up the linkage upon group activities. Besides, statistics test showed that there were significantly different level of participatory during the proceeding and adoption on component system analysis, which reflected differences in local leaders' perception on solving the agricultural problems at sub-district level and affected to the efficiency of Agricutural Development Planning, respectively. According to these findings, the strategy was to recreate the local leaders' perception by supporting them to analyse the agricultural system properties. Technological information network must be provided for subdistrict officials, to manipulate action learning lessons for community which would be necessary for the Agricutural Development Planning Process efficiency. Therefore, the conclusion could be drawn that Department of Agricultural Extension (DOAE) should support Local Area Network (LAN) system for serving the on farm information on physical, biological, economical and sociological aspects.