Increasing Value of Agricultural Processing Products as Thai Folk Sweet For Local Cultural Conservation.

Abstract

        Research title Increasing Value of Agricultural Processing Products as Thai Folk Sweets for Local Cultural Conservation purposed to 1) study community context, statement of problem, and community’s agriculture products situation, 2) study the increasing value of agricultural products to generate sustainable income for the community and 3) to cost analysis of processed agricultural products of the community. Research collected data by interviewing processes 4 heads of villages, among 8 persons, families of farmers who grow sweet potatoes (purple potatoes, yellow potatoes), taro and coconuts. Researcher chose sampling size by 10-15 percentage, among 53 families, and used the purposive sampling method for select sampling in this study, and interviewed the Head of Kwae Village Community Enterprise. Results found: Kwae Village community was a community whose occupation was agriculture, mainly rice cultivation and vegetable cultivation secondary, annual income among 39,500 THB/person. After the rice harvest season, almost households did a variety of farming activities, such as growing up the vegetables (green onions, coriander, morning glory, basil), coconuts, cassava, sweet potatoes (purple potatoes, yellow potatoes), taro, potatoes, mushrooms, etc. Nevertheless, they got so trouble problem about low agricultural productivity, sell less price and the productions were not of quality. They requested to government units solved this case by agricultural proceeding products for increasing their value, be able to sell and get as much as profits, increasing distribution channel and loan budget to farmers. Researcher participated with Kwae Village Community Enterprise to study and develop the local sweets, Sao-Aung. In order to increase the value of agricultural products for the community, to have another source of income. Mainly locally grown raw materials were used as ingredients for flour production and dessert fillings, such as sweet potato (purple potato, yellow potato), taro and coconut, which will develop into local snacks, souvenirs, souvenirs for tourists who visit the village and was a souvenir of Khukhan District, Sisaket Province the cost analysis of products transforming agricultural products into traditional Thai sweet "Sao Aung", it was found that the cost of traditional Thai sweet "Sao Aung", purple sweet potato filling, yellow potato filling was 5.03 baht, taro filling was 5.39 baht, and coconut filling was 5.18 baht, respectively.