Factors Which Encourage Farmers to use Pesticides for Vegetable Agriculture in Thailand

The aims of this study are: 1) To study factors which inform farmers’ decision-making for the use of pesticides, and 2) The opportunities for farmers to stop using pesticides in vegetable production. Methodology is qualitative with indepth interviews as the primary techniques, and a semi-structured interview as the tool for collecting data, with content analysis and triangulation technique for data analysis. The results showed that the main factors which induce a farmer to use a pesticide in vegetable production was the pesticide’s value in responding to the needs of the farmer to produce vegetable in a way which is “easy, but good price”. The farmer’s expectation for high-yield vegetable production is to get more money from vegetable product ( = 5, SD.=0), and the expectation associated with the use of pesticides from the viewpoint of easy to treat product management is very important ( =4.47, SD.=0.552). Possibilities for farmers to stop using pesticides exist, but these must exhibit benefits similar to the use pesticides. The alternative products for weed control, insect and plant disease control, however, remain a big challenge for the further development of chemical pesticide-free vegetable production.