ABSTRACT
One constraint of Thai soybean production is the volume of seeds used for cultivation in the dry season or after the rice season. PhuPha Man district, KhonKaenprovince, in Northeast Thailand, faces the same problem and can be solved by producing seeds during the rainy season for use in the dry season. The collaborative brainstorming to participatory action development employed in this community-based soybean production project involves four steps: (1) needs assessment, (2) planning, (3) implementation, and (4) evaluation. From 2019-2020, a total of 40 farmers jointly participated in this project: 20 from the Non-Korm Sub-district and 20 from the Sawab Sub-district. They agreed to implement three missions: (1) Farmer group management. A Community-based Soybean Seed Production Center (CSSPC) was established in each area. Each CSSPC was responsible for determining the structure and role of management, including the implementation of disciplines. (2) Seed production management. During its implementation, a shortage of rainfall and drought occurred from September to October 2019, causing soybean production to decline. Moreover, product harvesting and project evaluation took place at the site during the COVID-19 pandemic from January to May 2020, influencing the ability of farmers and facilitators to work together on group activities which required delicate management of the monitoring, control, production, exchange, and learning to solve problems. (3) Seed purchasing and distribution management. Rainfall shortage and drought influenced the ability of the farmers to produce the required soybean seeds. Consequently, the CSSPC did not purchase the seeds and manage their distribution.Copyright © 2023, Anka Publishers. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The pandemic of COVID-19 has had impacts on mango export of farmers and they must have coping strategies to survival. Ban Haet Mango Export Community Enterprise is a leading community enterprise that exports Namdokmai Sithong mango. Since 2007, the enterprise has followed the standards set by the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in four season per year, ensuring high quality of their mangoes fit for sales in export and domestic markets. For exporting, sold premium graded to distributors and export to Japan, South Korea and China. A few premium graded and a graded lower were sold in the domestic market by farmer themselves and via middlemen. However, at the end of the year 2019, the COVID-19 epidemic erupted, which later spread across the globe that heavily affected on the mango market of farmers. The severity of the impact was identified in two phases, the 1st period during 10-24 March 2020 and the 2nd period during 25 March - 31 May 2020. It was found that three main partners have suffered and their coping strategies were divided into the following two periods: (1) Impact on members and their coping strategies;The 1st period, can't sell mangoes and they put on hold the harvesting of the produce and diverted manpower for finding new markets. The 2nd period, coordinate domestic marketing channel support with relevant sectors, they were able to sell some of their produce. (2) Impact on the community enterprise and its coping strategies;The 1st period, the enterprise was not able to gather the produce from the members for distribution. They coordinated marketing channel support with relevant sectors. The 2nd period, they could gather some of the produce with price slashed by forty percent for export and fifty percent for domestic market when compared with previous year. (3) Impact on export distributors and their adjustment. The 1st period, they were heavily impacted being unable to buy the produce from the enterprise for export. They looked for ways to buy the produce and distributed it to the international market. The 2nd period, they were able to purchase some of the produce for export and the mangoes were transported throughout the chartered flights.