Abstract:
The objectives of this research were to study i. the decisions in choosing chemical fertilizer ii. the factors affecting the use of chemical fertilizer by agriculturists iii. the relationship between personal aspects and the farmers decisions in choosing chemical fertilizer iv. the differences between marketing considerations and the determination of applying chemical fertilize by the agriculturists in Surat Thani province. The population comprised of the 400 agriculturists who put the fertilizer on the plantation in Surat Thani province and those were interviewed and done by questionnaires to get the expecting data. Then, data was analyzed by the statistics methods which were frequency, mean, percentage, standard deviation, T-test analysis, F-test, One-way ANOVA and Scheffé.
The research findings were as follows: Most questionnaires were done by males between the ages of the 41-50 years old whose educations were lower than high school. Palm was the main agricultural plant grown on the less than 25 rai plots that yield over 4 metric tons earning revenue more than 20,000 baht per month. The decisions of selecting chemical fertilize found that before making the decision, the prices and qualities were compared. The agriculturists bought fertilize from the familiar retailers about twice time per year because of the lower prices. The payment method was made by cash costing over 15,000 baht each time. Finally, the reasons of applying chemical fertilize were to grow faster and yield higher products. The highest marketing factors that impacted on buying decisions was products following by people, promotion, places, processing, physical features, and prices. The relationship between personal factors and the decisions in choosing chemical fertilizer found that sex, age, education, average income per month, type of plant, area and product quantity were related to the making decision of using chemical fertilize by farmers in Surat Thani province with the critical significance level of 0.05. The differences between marketing factors and the decisions in buying fertilize discovered that all marketing aspects did affect on the decisions in choosing chemical fertilize by agriculturists in Surat Thani province.