Marketing Strategies and Community Culture: Certified vegetable farming and consumer markets in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand

Abstract

Certified vegetable farmers in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand use different strategies to gain access to vegetable markets. These markets are constituted by commodity networks bounded by different regulatory institutions, farm leaders, assemblers, retailers and consumers. Certified farmers’ strategies are based on factors such as price, reseller and assembler ideology, consumer preference for local vegetables, and the desire to participate in community culture. This research demonstrates how certified vegetable commodity networks are constituted by analyzing the information provided by 324 survey participants regarding consumer practices, attitudes and perceptions of certified vegetables. This research also draws from an extensive field investigation of certified farming practices and site inspections of retail locations in Chiang Mai to explain how farmers’ strategies are used to gain access to these networks. This paper identifies the importance of local vegetables to Chiang Mai consumers and how they are used as a marketing strategy by certified farmers.