Factors Influencing Extension Needs on Integrated Farming to Replace Animal Feed Maize Farming of Farmers in Mae Chaem District, Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

     Integrated farming is another choice to reduce the animal feed maize growing area for alleviate the smog problem from animal feed maize stubble burning which has become more severe in the upper northern Thailand. Hence, this research was aimed to study the basic information, knowledge and attitude towards integrated farming systems, extension needs on integrated farming to replace animal feed maize farming and the factors influencing extension needs on integrated farming to replace animal feed maize farming of farmers in Mae Chaem district, Chiang Mai province. Data was collected using interviews schedule with 281 households from 8 villages in 4 sub-districts of Mae Chaem district by choosing 1 sample each household by purposive sampling from those registered as a farmer with the Mae Chaem district Agricultural Office during the year 2023-2024. Therefore, the total of sample group of the study is 281 farmers. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis with the Enter method.

The study found that the majority of farmers were male (53.38%), completed primary education (43.06%) and lived in the community for an average of 43.42 years. The farmers had an average land area for animal feed maize growing of 13.44 rai, and had an average household income of 114,779.36 baht per year. The farmers mostly had a source of fund for agriculture from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (39.15%). They had received the information about integrated farming for 7.72 times per year on average from TV, radio and community broadcasting station. The farmers mostly had high level of knowledge about integrated farming (59.80%) and had attitude towards integrated farming systems at a favorable level (mean 3.96). Meanwhile, farmers had extension need on integrated farming to replace animal feed maize farming as a whole at high level (mean 4.04). The results of multiple regression analysis using the Enter method found 3 factors influencing extension need on integrated farming to replace animal feed maize farming of farmers in overall with statistical significance at the 0.05 level namely: marital status (t-value=2.060*), length of residence in the community (t-value= -3.190*) and knowledge about integrated farming (t-value= 5.006*), which all 3 factors could be able to predict the variation of the extension need on integrated farming to replace animal feed maize farming of farmer at 38.20% (r²= 0.382).