Indicators and Grouping of Rural Villages for Agricultural Training Project Appropriation

Abstract

This research had 3 objectives 1) to investigate appropriate indicators in groping rural villages by agricultural characteristics, 2) to group the rural villages, and 3) to organize the agricultural project trainings appropirate for each rural village. The data were collected by interview from 60 rural villages in 4 districts  in Chiang Mai, such as Mae Rim, Saraphi, Doi Saket, and San Sai, then analyzed by cluster analysis. The results revealed that, there were 7 indicators, such as 1) characteristic of rural village areas, 2) percentage of rice or field crop production areas, 3) percentage of orchard areas, 4) percentage of vegetable production areas, 5) percentage of area was ornamental plant production areas, 6) the number of livestock farmers, and 7) percentage of chemical agriculture areas. Rural villages were grouped in to 2 clusters, 1) most of rural villages had slope areas, orchard, ornamental plant and animal production, and 2) most of rural villages had plain area, rice and vegetable production, and using chemicals. Appropriate agriculture project  trainings for the first cluster were organic fertilizer production, organic fertilizer using, plant breeding, pest  management, orchard maintenance, animal feed production, and animal breeding. For the second cluster, the trainings  were on organic fertilizer production, organic fertilizer using, plant breeding, pest management, and postharvest products keeping.