Factors Affecting Crop Choices in Thailand: Rice or Sugarcane?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This work identifies the key factors affecting the substitution of rice with sugarcane production in Thailand. We col-lected primary data from 223 farmers in a targeted area of Chachoengsao, Lopburi, and Saraburi Provinces. To de-termine the most important factors using stepwise and PCA in logistic regression approaches, aspects such as physical and crop characteristics, socioeconomic indicators, and personal perspectives were examined. Our stepwise selection procedure with a 95% confidence interval revealed that 9 out of the 38 features were retained for Area 1 and a total of 12 features were retained for Area 2. From using PCA in logistic regression, the knowledge of sugarcane farming and the cost of sugarcane farming were the top features of encourage and inhibit factors in the choice to switch crops in Area 1. Conversely, rice farmers in Area 2 base their decisions predominantly on their knowledge of sugarcane farming while the adaption of sugarcane production technology contributed to the farmers' concerns about the switching. Finally, to capture farmers’ financial considerations, the cost structure and net present value of profits cor-responding to sugarcane farming yield 5–6 times more net profit in NPV than rice farming.