Debt Analysis of Agricultural Cooperative’s Members in the Southern Thailand

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to investigate: the debt of household and farmers household in Thailand in 2017, the debt and the factors that are related to the debt of agricultural cooperative’s members in the southern Thailand. Research methodology was survey research. The population and sample used in the research were 400 members of agricultural cooperatives in the southern region of 14 provinces. The instruments used was a 5-rating scale structured questionnaire which passed the quality inspection by experts with IOC value of 0.91, and the reliability test got an Alpha value of 0.914. Statistics used in data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi–square and ordered logistic regression analysis. The findings disclosed as follows: The households in Thailand in 2017 had 50.7% of debt, the average household debt of 178,994 baht. Thai farmers households in 2017 had 67.0% of debt, the average household debt of 160,587 baht. 52.5 percent of agricultural cooperative members in the southern region have liabilities between 10,000-100,000 baht and 18.2 percent have liabilities of more than 200,000 baht. The factors that are related to the debt of agricultural cooperative’s members in the southern Thailand were: 1)the personal factors were age and education 2)the factor of values was money management and 3)the factors of consume were medical expenses and 4 basic needs (food, housing, clothing and medicine). The research contributions  were 1) The members of agricultural cooperatives in the southern region can use the results of the study as a guideline for financial planning. And agricultural cooperatives in the southern region can use the results of the study to establish credit policies for members of agricultural cooperatives in the southern region.