Soil and water conservation of households in community learning centers according to the philosophy of sufficiency economy in Ban Klongarang, Bankaeng Subdistrict, Muang Sa Kaeo district, Sa Kaeo province
Abstract:
The aims of this research were to 1) study the problems of soil and water conservation in the Ban Khlongarang community, 2) compare the level of knowledge and awareness of the people classified by personal factors and analyze the relationship between the knowledge and awareness concerning soil and water conservation according to the philosophy of sufficiency economy, and 3) investigate the methods for soil and water conservation using the philosophy of sufficiency economy in the Ban Khlongarang community. The research population was the 507 people living in the Ban Khlongarang community. Taro Yamanes method was applied to randomly select 224 individuals for the research sample Finally, a sample of 16 experts to study soil and water conservation were purposefully selected from community leaders, scholars, community health volunteers, local people as well as professional representatives. The research tools were 1) a questionnaire on the state of the land and water utilization in households with a reliability value of 0.75, 2) a knowledge test with a reliability value of 0.90, 3) an awareness test with an index of Item-Objective Congruence between 0.80-085, and 4) interviews on soil and water conservation, which were evaluated by 5 experts, and had a correlation coefficient between 0.75-0.95. Percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, F-test, Pearsons correlation coefficient and content analysis were used for the data analyses. The results revealed that: 1) A total of 45 % of the people were found to have problems with conservation of soil, whereas, 55 % of them had problems with conservation of water. The major problems were a lack of knowledge and understanding of soil and water conservation, a lack of land for living on, water shortages during the dry season, and soil degradation resulting from forest burning. Moreover, some plants, such as Eucalyptus and Cassava, were affected by soil degradation. Additionally, the use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides also dramatically increased soil and water contamination. There was also a lack of support from government agencies to promote soil and water conservation policies. 2) The levels of knowledge and awareness of the local people concerning soil conservation were found to be at high levels of 69.64 % ( = 4.24, S.D. = 0.87) whereas those concerning water conservation were found to be at medium levels (58.15 %). Differences in education level and career were found to significantly affect knowledge and awareness at the statistical level of 0.05. In addition, knowledge and awareness were found to have a positive correlation at the medium level (r2 = 0.52). 3) The local people used the philosophy of sufficiency economy for soil and water conservation. The allocation of farmland was done using the new agriculture theory (30: 30: 30: 10). To decrease their living costs, they grew food crops for personal consumption, did crop rotations used, less-water, planted, organic crops, and replaced chemical fertilizers with animal manure as well as organic fertilizer extracted from household garbage.