Factors Affecting Farmer's Readiness for Entitling the Standard Swine Farm

Abstract

The objectives of the study were to obtain: 1) farm management of the farmers under the swine farm standard and 2) factors affecting farmer’s readiness for entitling the standard swine farm. The samples were drawn from 78 swine farmers in Sam Khwai Phueak Sub-district, Mueang District, Nakhon Pathom Province. The analytical tools of the study comprised descriptive statistics and a multinomial logit model for analyzing the factors affecting farmer’s readiness for entitling the standard swine farm. The finding indicated that according to the swine farm standard, the majority of the farmers have performed as follows: 1) farm composition aspect: the barn is strongly constructed; 2) farm management aspect: the farm production is separated from resident area and feed is freshly mixed and prepared according to different swine races and ages; 3) animal health aspect: foot and mouth disease (FMD) and swine fever (SF) vaccination program must be provided at least twice a year and the separation of infected swine is required; and 4) environmental management aspect: waste accumulating pond must be installed on farm and wastewater inspection must be performed regularly. However, making a manual to keep the farm record for farm management was considered as the key obstacle to fulfill the farm standard. The key factors affecting the farmers’ readiness to perform in accordance with the farm standard were frequency of the information access on farm standard, farmers’ attitude towards the expected benefits derived from being a standard farm, and the farm size, respectively. In order to promote farmers preparing themselves to entitle the standard farm, the relevant agencies had to continuously and vastly disseminate information about swine farm standard and its expected benefits to the farmers. In addition, the farmers had to be encouraged and instructed to keep their farm record so as to serve the farm management aspect required by the farm standard.