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โครงการหนังสออเล็กทรอนกสด้านการเกษตร เฉลมพระเกียรตพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว
Abstract

The agricultural sector has been facing increasing inequality problems and most farmers
are still in poverty compared to labors in other economic sectors. To alleviate the suffering of
agricultural households, the Thai government from the past to the present has adopted a variety
of agricultural policies, which used large budgets each year. However, there is relatively little
research that assesses the advanced impacts on the economic well-being of farmers and the
cost-effectiveness of implementing these policies in the agricultural sector. In addition, findings
from previous studies may face the “selection bias problem” and does not take into account cases
where agricultural households often participate in more than one policy at the same time.
This research aims to assess the impact of eight public policies in the agricultural sector
on net income and debt burden of participating Thai agricultural households using the Multi-
Valued Treatment Generalized Propensity Score. This study conducted in-depth interviews with
agency administrators in the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and farmers representatives
involved in the studied policies. It used data from the survey on economic, social and agricultural
labor covering three years of cultivation, 2017/18-2019/20 crop years, and weather data that are
adjusted to match the agricultural data in the administrative region using the Weighted Least
Square method.
This study found that the Water Management policy increased the direct farm net income
for farm households by 178,852 baht/household/year. However, the Comprehensive Rice
Production Plan policy reduced the direct farm net income of agricultural households by 43,158
baht/household/year, the Zoning by Agri-Map policy reduced the direct farm net income of
agricultural households by 32,976 baht/household/year, and the Agricultural Commodity Banking
policy reduced the direct farm net income of agricultural households by 125,568
baht/household/year. As for the rest of the policies, it was found that the direct farm net income
of agricultural households did not change. Considering the impact of eight policies on farm
households' debt burden by using the indicator of agricultural households' debt burden through
the ratio of debt to total assets of agricultural households, the study revealed that only the Zoning
by Agri-Map policy was able to reduce the debt-to-total asset ratio of agricultural households by -
0.38. On the other hand, the Agricultural Commodity Banking policy increased the debt-to-total
asset ratio of agricultural households by 0.18.

By multiplying net income by the number of agricultural households benefiting from the
policies, the study found that Water management policy generated positive benefits equal to
378,221 million baht/year, which is worthwhile compared to the national budget that spent each
year on average 60,742 million baht/year, while the remaining 7 policies were not worth spending
on the national budget. When the benefits values of the eight policies mentioned above were
combined, the results of the study revealed that the eight agricultural policies studied generated
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benefits equal to 8 0 , 6 8 6 . 2 5 million baht/year and when deducted from the budget spent over
the three years of the all 8 policies which was estimated to average 3 , 7 7 9 million baht/year,
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making it possible to conclude that the eight policies could generate a total positive net benefit
value of +106,908 million baht/year, reflecting that the overall budget was worthwhile. However,
it is recommended to improve the remaining seven policies. This study presents several
recommendations for improvements that will lead to improving economic status for Thai farmers
with the efficient use of limited fiscal budget.

Keywords:
program evaluation, Thai agriculture, agricultural policy, farm profitability, household debt

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