Hilltribe Farmers’ Participation in Arabica Coffee Extension, Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

The study on hilltribe farmers' participation in arabica coffee extension, Chiang Mai province aimed to find out how the hilltribe farmers participate in the arabica coffee extension and to analyse the relationship between participation and the personal, socio economic factors and to explore problems and obstacles for their coffee cultivation.

Data were collected by interviewing 100 farmers who grew arabica coffee in Chiang Mai province. Statistical analysis used were percentage, arithmatic mean and chi-square test.

The result of this study showed that 92.0% of the farmers interviewed were male, 40.0% of them were Musor and Hmong with the average age of 44.46 years old. About 60% of them could not read and write Thai language. On average 3.16 members were agricultural labours in a family. The experience in coffee growing was 15.10 years, there were 725.26 coffee trees per farmer, 67% of the farmers sold fresh coffee cherry. Coffee produced from a farmer was 156.54 kgs. and each farmer received 12,511.16 baht from his coffee produced. The investment in coffee farm was 90% of the farmer's capital and almost 70% of the coffee growers had no social status. Farmers who participated in the arabica coffee extension program had high expectation for some benefits from the program. The contact with extension officers was medium level. Farmers’ participation for all aspects was medium level. The relations between independent and dependent variables of the study were found that the participation in coffee extension was related to sex, tribe, educational level, income, social status, expectation of benefits from the program participated and the contact with the officers.       Problems and obstacles for arabica coffee cultivation were lack of agricultural labors, pests and diseases control, fertilizer application, supportive inputs, drought, animal digging, farm maintenance, coffee price decreasing, and discontinuous recommendations for farm management from the officials.