Abstract:
Objectives of the Research 1. To study general economic and social conditions of fanners including production and marketing. 2. To study general conditions of middleman and farmers motivation in dealing with selling and getting credit from middleman. 3. To study the organization of local agricultural market in order to understand its structure, marketing channel, price fluctuation, communication and transportation system. Methodology This research is a case study carried out in a specific district. Data are composed of 1. Documents from both government and individual research reports compiled ty variance scholars concerning farmers and middleman. 2. Data obtained from field observations and interviews conducted by the researcher are main information for the analysis. The field study was carried out from June 15 to September 10, 1982. The interviewees consisted of the following group of people. A. 150 household heads who are farmers in 7 village in wang Sai Pnun District. B. Middlemen at all levels of the local market, such as middlemen in the-district market, ricemill owner and brokers. The total number of middlemen is 25. C. Tambon and village headman, civil servants are those who gave general information about the farmers living conditions and their way of life. They contributed important information for this study. The analysis is descriptive statistics and figures are presented in percentage Finding The result showed that farmers in Wang Sai Fnun Destrict were economically poor, landless and in debted 56.67% were tenant farmers and 43.01% of the landlords were traders. Out of these farmers 71.33% were in debted.4 They borrowed money from government financial institution (56.68%) and private sector (43.93%). Their educational level was generally not higher than Prothom 4, and 15.34% them were illiterate. The method of cultivation was transpanting method (Na Dam Method) depending a great deal on rain. Rice production technique included both traditional technique, such as using buffulors to plough the land and mode in technology such as using tractors and fertilizers. The everage yield per rai was about 300-450 kgs. There were two kind of labourers employed in the field. The first kind was household labour. The other was hired-labourers who mostly came from within the village itself. The farmers didnt generally organize as a selling cooperatives.1 Each sold individually of selling crops can be classified. 1. Debt-related selling. After the payment of rental fees and interest with rice, the farmers who were look na or debtors gernerally sold the rest of the produce to the money - lenders or landlords in order that they right recieve help from them in the next cultivation season. The crop was usually sola at the market price .However, because of the debt obligation, farmers were at a disadvatage. They had to pay higher rate of interest than the rate of the government. Moreover they had to sell their produce immdiately after harvesting so that they could obtain money to pay for their debt and for household expenditure. 2. selling with intimation. That is, there was a close relationship between farmers and middlemen who had been dealing with each other for sometime until a trust was created. Farmers sold their produces to that trader every year. 3. Maximum profit selling. This method was praticed only by well to do fanners. Therefore farmers had the chance to sell their produces to anyone who offered the highest price. Fanners had a positives attitude towards traders and their activities and enjoyed such personal relationship. On the controry, their attitude toward traders participation in village activities was negatives. As for middlemen, they competed other fierely in marketing and this gave farmer in Wang Sai Phun District an advantage. There were about 15 middlemen who will involed in marketing. Cooperation among middlemen was on kinship base rather than on business relation. There was no known business co-operation among middlemen as they did business individually. They did compete each other which inturn enabled fanners of Wang Sai Prrun District to increase their shares in selling their crop.