Sustainability of Small Farming Households: an Outcome of their Being a Sufficiency Economy Unit
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Abstract
This study aims to investigate the effects of small farming households’ adherence to the principles of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) on the sustainability of their occupational pursuits, using the Sustainable Livelihood Index (SLI). It is confined to 447 samples of small farming households in Chiang Mai Province. The results from the least-squares regression method reveal three factors that have a statistically significant positive effect on the households’ sustainability and confirm that the factor of being a Sufficiency Economy (SE) of the household is the most crucial for the realization of sustainability compared to the other two factors, namely, farmland area and adequacy of water for farm irrigation in descendent order. Furthermore, the tendency for the farming household’s sustainability is found to be higher with the increased level of the household’s being an SE unit. Therefore, the knowledge about sufficiency economy principles and guidelines should be extended to farmers to enable them to have a greater understanding of the nature and the benefits of the SEP. Moreover, the application of the SEP in the development efforts employing the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) can enhance the capability of the development agencies to help eliminate rural-farming households’ poverty problems effectively and concretely toward achieving the long-run sustainable livelihood of farming households.
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