Rice Farmers’ Attitudes toward Farm Management in Northeatern Thailand

Abstract

Rice production plays a key role for Thailand’s economy and for the food security and cash income of Thai small-scale farmers, especially in the Northeast region where the country’s largest area of rice cultivation is located. To increase rice production, the Thai government has introduced several strategies to support farmers such as new technologies, farm practices, and financial institutions. Achieving these strategies, the responsibility from the government and copperation from farmers are crucial. Specifically, these strategies will be more effective if they coincide with the attitudes of farmers. Accordingly, we aimed to estimate the technical efficiency of rice farms, including pure technical and scale efficiency, and to ultimately understand rice farmers’ attitudes toward farm management by comparing efficient and inefficient farms. Our findings suggested that there was significant requirement to increase technical and scale efficiencies of rice production in the study area. In addition, both efficient and inefficient rice farmers were favorable to farming, open to ideas, and strongly enjoy farm activities, such that they would cooperate with an extension officers when transferring information and/or training programs. Finally, policymaker should focus on both improving the quality of farm production and reducing production costs due to develop and establish new strategies and/or agricultural policies.