Agricultural and Food Production System Development for the Strength of Ban Lak Metre Community in Nakhon Pathom Province.
Research Title : Agricultural and Food Production System Development for the Strength of Ban Lak Metre Community in Nakhon Pathom Province.
Researcher : อ.ง่ายงาม ประจวบวัน
Office :
Research Grants : Research and Innovation for Transfer technology to Rural Community Project
Year : 2011
Abstract
This research project aimed to develop an agricultural and food production system for strengthening Ban Lak Metre community in Nakhon Pathom province. The project was established using an integrative knowledge approach of Engineering, Agriculture and Community Development. The Community Based Research (CBR) coupled with Participatory Action Research (PAR) was applied as methodology of the research process. By the concept of this methodology, both community and academic researchers own the research project. Together, they form a partnership to design, plan and make decisions on the project. The target of this specific methodology is to create an action in the community, the action has to remain in the community even after the cease of the project. And in the long run, the contributive thinking concept from the research is expected to be used as a tool to solve other problems or develop other issues in the community.
This research project was divided into three sub-projects, which are 1. Rice and vegetable production system development for strengthening Ban Lak Metre community in Nakhon Pathom province, 2. Conceptual guidelines of agriculture and food safety management for Ban Lak Metre community in Nakhon Pathom province and 3. Effect of the development of agricultural and food process on holistic health of Ban Lak Metre Community in Nakhon Pathom province.
The development of rice and vegetable production process was mainly emphasized on water management system. The conclusions are:
1) Farmers should control the water level in their rice fields. The appropriate water level, which can be easily controlled by draining some water out when its level is too high at some particular periods, would enhance high productivity. Furthermore, the problem of lacking maintenance of local irrigation ditch is pointing out. This problem causes insufficient irrigation for the rice fields located at the end of the ditch.
2) The sprinkler system for watering crops in the fields is not efficient. According to the theory, the uniformity of water distribution of the sprinklers falls into an inappropriate range. An experiment of uniformity measurement on various types of these sprinklers is presented. The unnecessary lengthy time of crop watering duration is also concerned and the reduction time is suggested.
3) The groundwater samples from some of the community’s wells have relatively high salinity levels. This may affect some productivity of salinity-sensitive crops. Suitable crops matching groundwater’s condition for households in each specific area are suggested.
4) To gain high productivity of sugarcane, farmers should add more watering durations, especially during the critical period of its growth (Vegetative growth phase, approximately 31- 170 days after planting). Alternative means for sugarcane watering is suggested. The alternative sugarcane cultivar, K88-92, is also suggested to replace the regular planted cultivar, K84-200; the K88-92 is more suitable to the land and has high potency to give better yield than the K84-200.
However, from the lesson learned review, the presentation of the result of collected data analysis seems to be useful in an academic point of view. But, practically, to be easy to understand by the farmers, the academic result requires to be transformed into a procedure of actions. Moreover, little change or modification in the agricultural production process would be more practical.
For the conceptual guidelines of agriculture and food safety management, the study reviews that, to meet the quality and productivity demanded from the markets, some farmers consider that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are required for crop planting. However, they are aware of agriculture and food safety issue and realize that the issue is important. From the analysis, the desirable necessities, for reaching the safe agriculture and food production, are:
1) Farmers prefer close coaching for the development on agriculture and food safety issue. To be efficient, there should be a specific organization performing the act of care and continuous coaching to build faith and confidence for the whole community.
2) Farmers would like to have means for solving agricultural problems. The means would lead to reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture by using knowledge of soil, plant diseases and pest insects. This understanding would lead to solve an agricultural problem on the right spot.
3) Farmers would like to be reinforced knowledge of understanding the use of fertilizers, both bio-fertilizer and chemical fertilizer, to meet the optimal demands of crops and prevent diseases and pest insects. This also would lead to the reduction in chemical uses and subsequently, lead to the safety of themselves and consumers.
4) Farmers would like to encourage all farmers to concern about their community’s environment.
From the study result, the researchers created participatory learning to a group of the farmers. A specialist had trained them to merge the new knowledge with their experiences, particularly, the exchange of knowledge in soil, plant diseases and pest insects. This activity led the community to the understanding of the problems concerned in agriculture and food production. At the same time, the specialist had passed on the knowledge and built up a conceptual guideline of safe agriculture and food production by introducing the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). Later, the detail will then be concluded and written to a manual for the community to use as a guide for self-management. Also, expert mentors or Q-volunteers will come to support the farmers to guild the way to achieve the certification of safe agriculture and food production in the future.
The results of the development of an agricultural and food production system as mentioned above show effects to the holistic health of the community in all aspects, physical, mental, social and intellectual. From the participatory learning process, the group of farmers named “sustainable agriculture learning- Ban Lak Metre” has been established. Recently, it holds membership of 20 fields and 6 fields is planned to obtain the certificate of organic agriculture production from the Agriculture Extension Unit of the Land Development Station of Nakhon Pathom province.
The indicators or evidences of holistic health of Ban Lak Metre community are considered in three levels. For individual level, each person is healthy and has no stress. For household level, each family lives comfortably and has warm relationship. For community level, people live with harmony and participate in community development activities. The community has good environment and no social problem. The participatory learning process of this research project enhances good relationship among people in the community and subsequently creates other community development activities in other aspects besides agriculture such as community waste management, promotion of English to children and youth. And the reforestation project for building a buffer zone to support organic farming.