Sources and agricultural products selling through roadside stalls in the Northeast Thailand

Abstract

From initial exploration in the northeast Thailand, it was noted that number of the roadside stalls carry mainly agricultural products has been recently increasing on the side of the national highway. This observation raised interesting questions. In this region; How the roadside stall business clusters being spread out? How the business being run? And how it helps in distribution of local agricultural products? This study aims to explore location of roadside stall clusters and to understand products and sources of products selling by roadside stall in this region. Three to five Key Informants(KIs) of each cluster were selected for semi structure interview, a total number of KIs interviewed were 148 persons. The survey was conducted along Mittraphap highway and almost all of the main roads within the region. The study reveals that there are 47 clusters with a total of approximately 1,100 stalls along the surveyed routes, 57.5 % of the roadside stall clusters operate for the whole year, 76.6% of agricultural products of are fresh products. Stall clusters in the mountainous zone carry a greater variety of products than those in the lowland zone significantly (P<0.05). Even the products are not always produced in roadside stall communities but 93.6% are produced within the northeast Thailand. Most of the production sites are contextually specific and reflect the products sold in the clusters such as agro-ecosystem, crop production extension area, and farmers’ knowledge and skills. Therefore, roadside stalls can help the distribution of the local agricultural products to wider areas in the region. This study demonstrates roadside stalls is also an important part of the community economy based on community production.