GH of Thai farmers rises to highest level

BANGKOK, January 22 (TNA) - A latest survey has found that the gross happiness (GH) of Thai farmers has increased to a highest level, thanks to good produce and prices, as well as growing demand and support by the Thai government. Apirom Sukprasert, President of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperative (BAAC), told journalists on January 21 the BAAC's research and development center found from its survey, themed "levels of happiness of Thai farmers", during December 1-29, 2017 that the GH of Thai farmers of all regions has reached a highest level of 82.78 on average from the total 100 scores. Apirom said most of the 2,177 samples of Thai farmers during the one-month random survey revealed that they were happy with the good produce and prices of their major products, like fruits, oil palms and fresh water fish, as well as growing demand on both the domestic and the world markets and the Thai government's measures on supporting them to boost their competitiveness and to ease their problems from floods. Apirom acknowledged the latest survey found that the Thai farmers are now very happy in all six dimensions, including having happy families, society, health, work, finance and learning opportunities, with most of them grading their happy families the highest among the six dimensions at 87.56 scores, followed by their good health and work. According to the BAAC president, local farmers who grow major crops were, however, found to be the happiest among the Thai farmers, with the GH score of those growing fruits slated the highest at 84.99, followed by those growing oil palms and raising fresh water fish at 84.94 and 84.62 scores respectively. The BAAC president noted that, if categorized by different regions, the GH of local farmers in the Upper Thai South was slated the highest at 86.36 score on average, followed by local farmers in the Upper Thai Northeast, the Thai East, the central region and the Far South at 84.51, 83.44, 83.36 and 80.36 scores respectively. (TNA)