A Possible OTOP Project for Poverty Reduction: the experience of lower northern region in Thailand

OTOP initiative is the most challenging project to alleviate poverty of Thai people in rural areas by the following reasons :it is the heritage capital and the poor can do because of only small amount of money for running the business. There are a number of studies on OTOP Project , but most of them are presented with a case study and descriptive approach. The research question of this work involves the economic impact on workers working under the scheme. In this study, the research hypothesis is that the average income for workers exceeds U.S.$ 456.25 per year which is the line of curiosity established by the World Bank. On site surveys were conducted in 2012 in the whole nine provinces in the lower northern in Thailand. Primary data was obtained from questionnaire and interview by using the stratified random sampling technique with a sample size of 169. The questionnaire was prepared for workers working for the OTOP project focusing on the financial status of them. The results also revealed that the cost share distributed to workers was 25,279.3 baht; Furthermore, most of the workers were female who participated the project as the second job. The majority of them were 40 years of age and 88% of them were married. The educational background of the workers showed that 106 respondents (62.72%)finished primary school education . With the inferential statistics, the author had the statistical significant at 0.01 to conclude that the average additional income increased above the poverty line. Furthermore, we could be 95% confident that the interval 22,318.25 baht to 28,240.33 baht contained the mean annual income cost for labor. Therefore, this study explored the huge positive impact on the economic well being of the workers. So, the scheme like OTOP might be helpful for poverty reduction in Thailand.