Orchard Management of Farmers in Mueang Samut Sakhon District, Samut Sakhon Province

Abstract

Objectives of this research were to study 1) personal demographic characteristic data, 2) socio-economic data, 3) orchard management of farmers, and 4) comparative of personal demographic characteristic data, socio-economic data, and orchard management. Data were collected by interviewing 179 farmers in Mueang Samut Sakhon District by multi-stage random sampling. Statistic to analyze data included descriptive. The results revealed that 1) most of farmers at 65.4% were male with average age of 57.2 years, they had elementary level of education at 61.5%, their average number of household members at 4 persons, 2) they had an average of 3 farm labors and did self-employment at 52.0%, they had an average in agricultural experience at 22.5 years, their main career was agriculture at 87.2%, the coconut plantation was the main activity with average area of 8.6 rai, of which 76.5% belonging to landholder, they earn an average of 301,092.3 Baht/year from their farming by using 80.4% of their own funding, they were not an agricultural group members at 63.1%, 3) less than 50.0% of farmers managed orchards in terms of money and management aspect, however, more than 50.0% of farmers managed in terms of man and materials aspect, and 4) gender, employment and main career related with man management aspect, and also, members of agricultural groups related with management aspect.