The Demand for Loans for Major Rice in the Upper North of Thailand

Though Thailand is the largest rice exporting country, its yield is relatively low. This might be a result of the under use of purchased input factors. Amongst other factors, high input prices and capital constraints could be some reasons. The latter could be removed by loans providing favorable market conditions exist. This paper seeks to investigate factors affecting the decision to borrow, and the demand for loans, for rice. The Tobit type-II models are estimated using the survey data collected from 656 rice farmers in the Upper North of Thailand in 2004. It is found that significant factors affecting the decision of borrowing include; the land planted to rice, dummy variable for off-farm income sources, and annual interest rates. In the second step, the farmers who borrowed from the rural financial sources, including 202 and 250 farmers from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai respectively, are considered. According to the OLS estimation, only the land planted to rice has a positive significant effect on the amount of loans for major rice. Further, the interest rate affects the probability of loans but has no impact on the amount of loans, for rice.Upper North of Thailand, Tobit type-II model, Probability of loans for rice, Amount of loans, Rural financial sources, Agricultural Finance, Crop Production/Industries,

Marketing of the selected upland crops between Chiang Mai and Bangkok markets

This study investigates the pricing and operational efficiency of the Chiang Mai central crop market for soybeans, peanuts and garlic. It is based in part on the surveys of the Chiang Mai regional market and the Bangkok central terminal market conducted in 1972 and 1973 to 1974, and in part on price information for Chiang Mai and Bangkok obtained from the Chiang Mai Provincial Economist, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs respectively. It is proposed that pricing efficiency would be improved if competition in the Chiang Mai market could be increased. It is also proposed that operational efficiency could be improved by a movement towards large scale operation if large firms could operate at lower cost structures than small firms. The possibility of conflict between pricing efficiency and operational efficiency in achieving overall marketing efficiency is recognised. The effects of some of the factors influencing price levels in Chiang Mai merchants are determined by regression analysis with autoregressive techniques. The results show that the Bangkok price is the major factor involved. The other important factor is the change in Bangkok price. The dummy variables representing the buying season and the selling season are not important. In most cases, the price in Bangkok positively accounts for more than 50 percent of the level of the price in Chiang Mai. The extent of this influence is shown by the value of the regression coefficient of the Bangkok price, which varies from crop to crop and from year to year. An inverse relationship is obtained between the regression coefficient of the Bangkok price and the absolute (and percentage) margin. The annual average price in Bangkok and the total supply from Chiang Mai are the major factors affecting the relationships between prices in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, though the effect of the former dominates that of the latter. It was not possible to test rigorously the hypothesis that Chiang Mai merchants receive constant levels of profit. An attempt is made to explore the proposition that Chiang Mai firms operate at least cost. Inadequate information enable only the handling cost components to be quantified; administrative costs are not estimated. The cost components are the costs of the commission charged to the Bangkok brokers, transportation, prepacking and grading. They are determined by the competitive input market and are beyond the merchants' control. Lastly, the study highlights the difficulties and discusses the problems of estimating economies of size and, consequently, operational efficiency in the Chiang Mai market. An outline for a more comprehensive study of operational efficiency in the Chiang Mai market is proposed

"Time Series Modelling of Tourism Demand from the USA, Japan and Malaysia to Thailand"

Even though tourism has been recognized as one of the key sectors for the Thai economy, international tourism demand, or tourist arrivals, to Thailand have recently experienced dramatic fluctuations. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relationship between the demand for international tourism to Thailand and its major determinants. The paper includes arrivals from the USA, which represents the long haul inbound market, from Japan as the most important medium haul inbound market, and from Malaysia as the most important short haul inbound market. The time series of tourist arrivals and economic determinants from 1971 to 2005 are examined using ARIMA with exogenous variables (ARMAX) models to analyze the relationships between tourist arrivals from these countries to Thailand. The economic determinants and ARMA are used to predict the effects of the economic, financial and political determinants on the numbers of tourists to Thailand.

A comparative Study on Government and Non-government Based Microcredit Programmes in Thailand

Objective: Microcredit refers to a variety of financial services that target low-income clients, particularly the rural customers.Microcredit programme provides small loans to the very poor in order to undertake selfemployment and other financial and business activities to generate income.It has proven to be an effective and popular measure in the ongoing struggle against poverty.Currently, there are many microcredit programmes offered by government and non-government organizations in Thailand. This paper aims to conduct a comparative study on government and non-government based microcredit programmes in Thailand. The paper also assesses and compares the impacts of various microcredit programmes in enhancing income generating activities among the poor people in Thailand.Methodology: Literatures for review were identified from various sources such as journals, reports, proceedings, and other related documents by searching comprehensively both electronics and nonelectronics databases. Websites of the organizations known to have undertaken research in this area were also searched to find related documents and reports. Findings: Based on the review of literature, it was found that only a few government institutions are currently engaged with microcredit programmes in Thailand.The Government Savings Bank (GSB) is a well-known institution that has several programs for the poor including group savings and loans. However, most of the activities of this institution are for urban poor.The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives (BAAC) is a very large government institution that works mainly for the rural farmers. On the other hand, there are a number of non-government organizations that provide credit and other financial services to the poor people in Thailand.The pioneer non-government institutions are Compassion Thailand, Common Interest International, Mirror Art Group, Population and Community Development Association (PDA), Upland Holistic Development Project (UHDP) and World Vision.Implication: Findings of the study show that microcredit programmes offered by both government and nongovernment organizations contribute to the development of socio-economic status of the poor people in Thailand through adequate and timely availability of credit for income generating and productive activities

Enhancing Productivity and Resource Conservation by Eliminating Inefficiency of Thai Rice Farmers: A Zero Inefficiency Stochastic Frontier Approach

The study first identified fully efficient farmers and then estimated technical efficiency of inefficient farmers, identifying their determinants by applying a Zero Inefficiency Stochastic Frontier Model (ZISFM) on a sample of 300 rice farmers from central-northern Thailand. Next, the study developed scenarios of potential production increase and resource conservation if technical inefficiency was eliminated. Results revealed that 13% of the sampled farmers were fully efficient, thereby justifying the use of our approach. The estimated mean technical efficiency was 91%, implying that rice production can be increased by 9%, by reallocating resources. Land and labor were the major productivity drivers. Education significantly improved technical efficiency. Farmers who transplanted seedlings were relatively technically efficient as compared to those who practised manual and/or mechanical direct seeding methods. Elimination of technical inefficiency could increase output by 8.64% per ha, or generate 5.7–6.4 million tons of additional rice output for Thailand each year. Similarly, elimination of technical inefficiency would potentially conserve 19.44% person-days of labor, 11.95% land area, 11.46% material inputs and 8.67% mechanical power services for every ton of rice produced. This translates into conservation of 2.9–3.0 million person-days of labor, 3.7–4.5 thousand km2 of land, 10.0–14.5 billion baht of material input and 7.6–12.8 billion baht of mechanical power costs to produce current level of rice output in Thailand each year. Policy implications include investment into educating farmers, and improving technical knowledge of seeding technology, to boost rice production and conserve scarce resources in Thailand

Economies of Size in Multiple Cropping in Northern Thailand: A Random Coefficient Model Approach

154 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1983.To raise production and make efficient use of farm resources, size efficiency and factors affecting size efficiency are examined. The Chiang Mai Valley, the most intensive agricultural area in Northern Thailand, is chosen for this study. Since the Valley is characterized by multi-product farming, there is a need for an appropriate analytical approach. Past studies in size economies have usually dealt with multi-product farms as if they were single product farms. An alternative approach to estimate the long run average cost for each product for multi-product farms is considered and applied to investigate whether size economies exist in the Chiang Mai Valley.A variant of the Belsley random coefficient model is used in this study. Total cost is expressed as the summation of the product of each output times its average total cost. Average cost is modelled as a function of explanatory variables plus a stochastic error term. The model is heteroscedastic in nature, so parameters are estimated using estimated generalized least squares (EGLS) with Hildreth and Houck's estimation technique of the unknown variance-covariance matrix. EGLS provides reasonable estimates of the cost curves of rice, but does not perform as well for soybeans. This likely happens because soybean production is usually affected by high variation in water availability and disease factors.The efficient size of rice cultivation is approximately at the sample average (8 rai or 4.8 hectares). The unit cost of rice decreases at a decreasing rate within the rage of 2 to 30 rai. For soybeans, the unit cost also decreases, at least up to the land holding size of 20 rai. Therefore, policies should be considered to limit decreases in the land holding sizes, which mainly result from the inheritance custom, to take advantage of size efficiency.An analysis of size efficiency, using lower rent rates, is undertaken. The cost curve of rice is flatter when all farmers pay rent by the same proportions of the rice and soybean crops than when the cost curve is figured using actual rent data. However, the cost curve for soybeans falls sharply with the lower rent rate. This finding implies that the farmers with smaller land holdings pay higher than average rent, while the farmers with larger holdings pay lower rents. The rent paid for soybeans is compensated for partly by rent paid for the rice crop. The present rent is not an overcharge for the rice-soybean cropping system when unit costs are compared to average unit prices.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Progressing Towards a Sufficiency Economy in Small Rice Farming Households in Northern Thailand

This study’s purposes are to evaluate and search for ways to progress towards a Sufficiency Economy (SE) in small farming households. The data were taken from farmer self-evaluations by assigning scores to their practices and activities to reflect whether and how far they follow the concept of a sufficiency economy, in both the production and the personal life domains. A total of 447 samples of small rice-based farming households in Chiang Mai Province covered in this study are categorized into those pursuing three different production systems. The investigation reveals that the households in the alternative farming system have a higher degree of a SE than those in the conventional and the subsistence farming systems which are almost at the same SE level. From the ordered logit regression, nine factors were identified as being able to contribute to the higher level of farming households in practicing according to the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) including; 1) more than 12 years of educational attainment, 2) farming in the irrigated area which enables the farmers to have adequate water for agricultural production and involve a diversity of farming activities and systems, which in turn leads to the next factor, 3) taking up a wide range of economic activities, 4) household savings, 5) positive attitude toward a rice farming career, 6) willingness and sharing which includes being satisfied with the external environments comprising the next three factors, 7) good social surroundings, 8) access to financial sources, and 9) availability of good public infrastructure. The presence of all of these nine factors will make the farmers ready to learn and practice the principles of SEP more intensively

Sufficiency Economy Philosophy and Happiness of Farmers in Thailand

Although Thailand has previously applied the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy in its development paradigm, few quantitative studies focus on the magnitude of the effect of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy on happiness. This focuses on the farmers who live in upper northern Thailand. Result from Ordered Logit regression shows that Sufficiency Economy Intensity (SEI) has a strong positive relationship with subjective happiness. The more the SEI adaptation, the happier the farmers are. Subjective happiness is also positively correlated with objective happiness and absolute income. Comparing the effect of all including variables, SEI is the most powerful variable to increase happiness while the power of objective happiness and absolute household income are limited. While real relative income variables are insignificant, attitude toward relative income has a strong positive significant relationship with the subjective happiness level. That means “attitude or perception” is more important than “real situation” in the view of farmers. Moreover, farmers with less income aspiration or ambition seem to be happier than those with more. After the effects of objective happiness, household income, relative income, and income aspiration were controlled through the research model, SEI still affected subjective happiness. This result confirms that Sufficiency Economy Philosophy can effectively affect one’s mental happiness, which is the core concept of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy

Sufficiency Economy Philosophy and Happiness of Farmers in Thailand

Although Thailand has previously applied the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy in its development paradigm, few quantitative studies focus on the magnitude of the effect of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy on happiness. This focuses on the farmers who live in upper northern Thailand. Result from Ordered Logit regression shows that Sufficiency Economy Intensity (SEI) has a strong positive relationship with subjective happiness. The more the SEI adaptation, the happier the farmers are. Subjective happiness is also positively correlated with objective happiness and absolute income. Comparing the effect of all including variables, SEI is the most powerful variable to increase happiness while the power of objective happiness and absolute household income are limited. While real relative income variables are insignificant, attitude toward relative income has a strong positive significant relationship with the subjective happiness level. That means “attitude or perception” is more important than “real situation” in the view of farmers. Moreover, farmers with less income aspiration or ambition seem to be happier than those with more. After the effects of objective happiness, household income, relative income, and income aspiration were controlled through the research model, SEI still affected subjective happiness. This result confirms that Sufficiency Economy Philosophy can effectively affect one’s mental happiness, which is the core concept of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy

Happiness and Community-Specific Factors

The majority of previous studies on happiness have mainly focused on individual factors, such as gender, age, income, educational level, and religion. Only a few studies have examined the role of community or society on individual happiness. This study analyzes the effects of community-specific factors on individual happiness using the survey data of 700 farmers in Thailand. The result of the ordered logit model reveals that community- (community economic strength and social capital) and individual-specific factors are significant determinants of individual happiness. Thus, previous studies that have ignored community environment have led to biased estimates of individual happiness. This study also proposes suggestions for policy makers