Model of smart farming herbs towards drive sustainable herbal city of Maha Sarakham Province

Abstract

This research developed a prototype of herbal product production in the smart farming system and integrated products at the provincial level from the starting flow, the middle flow, and the downward flow with concrete cooperation from various sectors, including the government, the surrounding community and the private sector. It is also aimed to transfer intelligent agriculture innovations to increase the efficiency of herbal production in the area with the Maha Sarakham Province of the Kingdom of Thailand. The experiment lasts 12 months from June 2020 through to May 2021 in Maha Sarakham Province. The research method consists of 6 steps: 1. the selection of smart farmer herbal prototypes, 2. the transcription of lessons learnt from smart farmer herbal prototypes, 3. the zoning arrangement and knowledge transfer of herbs, 4. the transfer of innovations in smart agriculture with internet technology, 5. the transfer of knowledge of herbal products according to the smart famer system for the herbal enterprises, and lastly, 6. the development of marketing and publicity channels based on the smart farmer system. The results display that 554 smart farmers are recruited and selected in the process of the creation of the prototypes of herb production, under who are divided into 6 groups, 5 districts with medicinal planting areas. This amounts to 444 rai and is used to produce herbs, such as turmeric, plai, bitter gourd, wan-chak mod-louk. The vital markets for such products are as follows: Somdet Chaopraya Abhaibhubejhr hospital and the public market. The lessons learnt are directly taken from the smart farmers, a herbal model, selected from 6 groups, emphasize information on the outstanding (successful management of the herb garden, income, production) and practical agricultural systems (GAP), organic farming systems, and important factors that makes the smart farmers prototype successful. The transfer of knowledge regarding herbs according to the age of harvesting, can be divided into 3 groups. The study creates an innovative smart farming herb system for 3 communities, bringing knowledge of herbal products to the smart famer system in the enterprise groups via seminar workshops, consisting of 22 of them and the development of the marketing and publicity channels in the form of contract farming with government agencies such as Prayong Ban Rai Herb Company and Pracharat Market, Maha Sarakham Province. Through the efforts, it is able to promote the production and processing of herbal products to uplift the herb quality according to the smart framing system and to meet the GAP and organic standards; in addition, generating sizeable income for agricultural producers and the community enterprise. The questionnaire satisfaction survey and the utilization of knowledge discover that the content aspect was the most valuable, closely followed by a lecturer, and the aspect with the lowest value was understanding.