Marketing channels of chili in the Upper Northeastern Region of Thailand

Abstract

The number of chili cultivation areas steadily declined from 317,573 to 169,911 rais from 2014–2019; thereby, Thailand almost doubled the value of imported chilis and chili products. This study is helpful to understand better about chili farmers in the upper northeastern region, both their personal and agricultural production factors. Therefore, the researcher intended to identify the channel pattern and the marketing channel selection factors for fresh chilis and processed chilis in the upper northeastern region of Thailand. As a research instrument, 300 questionnaires were distributed to farmers in three provinces. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics by t-test and F-test. The results showed that many respondents were engaged in rice cultivation as their primary occupation and chili cultivation as a secondary source of income. The experience in chili cultivation was more than five years. The factors influencing the selection of marketing channels through intermediaries were convenience, speed of coordination, and buying quantity, at the mean of 4.51, 4.33, and 4.32, respectively. Furthermore, the hypotheses testing indicated a difference in the production factors, such as total production cost and productivity per crop cycle, resulting in the difference of almost all influencing factors towards marketing channel selection. On the other hand, the cultivated size area factor had no statistically significant difference at 0.05, neither overall nor individual factor.