Abstract:
Sukhothai Province has been a vital area of burley tobacco production. Most of the amounts of output are derived from Srisumrong District. Within this district, most of the numbers of tobacco production farmers are concentrated on Tubpeung Subdistrict. Further, some of them try to grow three types of vegetables--cauliflower, chili, and sweet corn--regarding the crop complementary with tobacco. It enkindles me to investigate the tobacco production in this area. There are two research questions. How much does the burley tobacco production in Tubpeung Subdistrict cost in the sense of economics? The second research is emphasized on those vegetables production. It consists of three issues: economics cost, efficiency, and marketing channel. The expected results of research are the valuable information for the policy maker to promote the crop substitution in the future. The objectives of research project are as a follows: (i) to study cost and return of burley tobacco production, (ii) to study cost and return of the production of cauliflower, chili, and sweet corn, (iii) to analyze efficiency of input utilization for three types of vegetables, and (iv) to study the marketing channel of these vegetables. The research methods are separated into 3 steps. The first step is to identify the size of population and sample as well as to randomly select the sample. The population is comprised of two groups: (i) the farmers who grow only the burley tobacco and (ii) the farmers who grow the tobacco together with the vegetables. The former accounted for 53 farmers are drawn from 3 villages. On the other hand, the latter accounted 56 farmers are selected from 5 villages. Next, the second step is to generate the research instrument. Moreover, the questionnaire is verified by three experts in order to comment the logical error in each question. Afterward, the questionnaire is utilized for the pretest with the farmers who are not included in the sample size. Of course, the sentences of some questions are not clear for the farmers such that we can remark and review before taking the field survey. Last but not least, the data analysis consists of three parts. Part I is presented the analysis of cost and return on the burley tobacco production. Part II is illustrated the analysis of cost and return on cauliflower, chili, and sweet corn production. Part III is described the analysis of efficiency of input utilization. It is employed the two types of functions: Translog and Cobb-Douglas form. Part IV presents the study of marketing channel. With respect to the study results, the issues of cost and return on production are separated into two points. The first one reveals the net average return on burley tobacco production is approximately equal to -6,000 baht per rai in the crop year of 2008/2009. Obviously, the crucial cost of production is the labor input. Further, the economics cost is comprised of financial view and opportunity cost. Additionally, the second one reveals that the net return on chili and sweet corn production is about 26,000 and 2,000 baht per rai, respectively. This is because the farm price is guaranteed by the mill. It looks very much like the contract farming. Nevertheless, the net return on cauliflower production is about -2,000 baht per rai. This is because the volatility of farm price is normally derived from the agricultural market system. As the main results, the efficiency of input utilization for the vegetables production is as a following. Firstly, the case of cauliflower indicates that the variable of planted area contributes the most of technical efficiency. Meanwhile, the farmer can expand this input because its value of marginal product is still greater than the value of marginal cost regarding the economics efficiency. Nonetheless, the utilization for chemical fertilizer is greater than the level of optimization. Its utilization should be therefore decreased. Secondly, considering the chili production, the results reveal that the variable of labor input contributes the most of technical efficiency. On the other hand, both of the planted area and labor input utilization are lower the level of economics efficiency. The farmer should therefore increase their use. Lastly, the results of sweet corn production reveal that the variable of planted area contributes the most of technical efficiency. Nevertheless, the use of planted area and labor input are still low according to the economics efficiency. The study results of marketing channel are classified by the type of vegetables. The cauliflower outputs distributed firstly to the primary wholesalers in its village. And then they are collected for the secondary wholesaler in its province. The outputs are delivered finally to the central market in Bangkok province, which is named as “SI-MUM-MUANG”. Meanwhile, the less amounts of outputs are sole in the village market. Apart from this, the marketing channel of green chili is quite the same as the way of cauliflower output. On the other hand, the chili that can be a material for making sauce has a special type of marketing channel. The dealers allocate the quota of production to each farmer. The outputs are then collected to the mill of chili sauce. They are exported to international trader. Similarly, the sweet corn outputs are totally for the mill and then they are exported. The recommendations are as the follows: (i) regarding the issue of tobacco planted area reduction, if the farmers who grow only the tobacco realize the opportunity cost of labor input. They also consider that cost allocation of the crop complementary with tobacco production causes the making profit. Then the farmers would try to change the structure of planted area. Therefore, this information should convey to the farmer via the trainee program. (ii) The extension of efficiency of input utilization would lead the farmer to grow vegetable as the crop substitution. (iii) Though the tobacco production farmer would get loss according to the research result, the policy of farm price guarantee still motive the farmer. On the contrary, the farm price of cauliflower production is still volatile. Therefore, the related agricultural product industry should be promoted. It would consign the system of production to be contract farming. Nonetheless, this issue should be evaluated strongly by the benefit and cost analysis.
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