Som Chan Women Farmers Group is established in November 2000 by Ms. Supasorn Pongpanich, a female village headperson at that time. She encouraged women farmers at Sa Yai Som Community, U-thong, Suphanburi Province to group together after farming period. The group will work to generate supplementary income to support their family economic. By selecting group committee and raise the investment fund, 48 women have started working together.
The group produced products using bananas as raw materials, which are easily found and has plenty amount in local community. In the beginning, the group will process bananas into scrambled bananas and variety of banana toffee. Later, the members saw scrambled desserts are produced a lot in many areas. So, they came up with the idea to produce a new product that is different and unique to the group. It is a baked banana roll. Baking bananas is a quick process that has no variable control on weather like normally dried bananas and it is easier to control cleanliness. In 2002, the group sent baked banana rolls to the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) Contest and received a 5-star award. According to OTOP 5-star awarded, it helped group’s products have been well known to local people and public in general. Later, the group’s products received food standards and many awards from relevant government agencies.
In 2002, HomeNet Thailand did a research study on Occupational Health, Safety and Working Environment (OHS) problem of informal workers with Sa Yay Som Women Farmers Group. HomeNet Thailand implemented activities to take care of OHS problem with group members by providing OHS knowledge and helping designed safety standard working environment. In addition, improvement of the group’s economic livelihood activity, such as development of products identity by maintaining new, fresh, fragrant, delicious, and clean without adding on color, smell, and preservation substance. Encourage and support the group to develop its products to get certification by the Food and Drug Authority (FDA). Finally, the group’s products met with market demand, the group could recruit new members and changing the group name into ‘Som Chan Women Farmers Group ‘
In the past period, Somchan Women Farmers Group has been supported by government agencies and educational institutions continuously. The group maintained stability of production skills and produced standard products, received acceptance by consumers. However, it was found that in 4-5 years before Covid-19 pandemic, the products produced by the group have nothing changed either product design or pricing. Consequently, numbers of gross sales are fixed and decreasing continuously during the economic downturn. Negative impacts on the group emerged, members’ income did not meet the target setting as well as the number of members gradually left the group.
In 2020-2022, when Covid-19 outbreak lasted for 2-3 years, it has severely affected the group’s business. Trade has been stopped for a long time. The lifestyle of people has changed. Goods cannot be sold normally. Under this circumstance members have no income, and the group cannot adapt to cope with the situation. There were questions that “Why old customers did not place orders from the group and why there are no new customers”.
In 2021, HomeNet Thailand came to support by providing training on problem analysis and developing Business Model Canvas (BMC). Members can identify marketing problems and limitations of products such as costing and pricing are unbalanced. The group can create too little profit. Lack of product design to increase its value and no new product development and lack of access to online marketing.
The group gave the opportunity to new generations from the community to know and become group members. Therefore, there is a collaboration of 2 generation people. The new generation thinks quickly and acts immediately. While the older generation has long production and marketing experiences but is quite careful and dare not to challenge new things. When they come together, their attitude is adjusted, exchanging experiences, and learning from each other supported to development of the group.
In 2021, the group has developed 3 new products, banana mixed with cereal, banana mixed with cereal and cannabis, and banana mixed with sesame. During market trialing, bananas mixed with sesame can be marketed well and receive regular order. While banana mixed with cereal and cannabis is considered as herbal medicine. in the beginning, the sales were quite good but facing with problem of cannabis license. Finally, the group decided to stop production. For bananas with cereal, there is also a difficult storage problem and customers often complain of being expensive. In the future, the group must look for an improvement process to address those issues.
After the development of new products, the group tried to create a modern and nice packaging to attract customers. Started by designing group logo and package. They find a nice bag, add different sizes of bottles and boxes. The hardest thing about packaging is “how to make consumers memory of the products”. At the same time, the products must maintain the same quality in different packaging and will not be damaged during transport. The group takes a long time to develop a package to get satisfactory quality.
When getting the best products with a satisfactory package. The group planned to increase marketing channels by creating online marketing channels through Facebook page and shops in Shopee, and Line application. Luckily, HomeNet Thailand conducted online marketing training to provide knowledge and skill to members. Helping monitor sales results and providing on the job training by allowing descendants of the group members, a new generation of youth to take responsible of all of these online marketing channels. Currently, online marketing channels that the group can continue to operate are the Facebook page and Line application because it is easy to manage without complicated conditions. For the shop in Shopee Application, there is a problem with the selling price. The group needs to increase the price to pay for management cost of the application while the application took long time to transfer money gained from selling products. With long time to get transferred money back from Shopee, it affects the working capital of the group. At the same time, the group needs to pay for advertising to increase customers’ views, which will add up to the cost of group products.
Based-on data on profit and cost analysis, HomeNet Thailand and the group worked together, the group should adjust selling price of all kinds of products by adding 20% from the previous price setting up since more than 20 years ago. Developing new products and adding a variety of packaging styles and sizes helps the group to adjust the price of products without complaint from customers. In addition, during the New Year festival, the group organized different types of promotions to stimulate sales. For example, accumulating purchases amount and bringing it as a discount for next purchase. Give new products free for customers for tasting. Besides, having new types of products with nice and different styles of packages helps to increase sales. It results in sales increasing during the New Year’s festival, by 70% in 2022 and 100% in 2023. The head of the group said “At the beginning of 2023, we worked very hard. We had to add 3-4 more members producing our products in a day. We have overtime work quite often. It has never happened before. Our members are very happy”.
For future challenges, the group is concerned about production capacity. Although the group is highly experienced and skilled, but members are getting old. Thus, the group needs to develop a recruitment plan to replace these workers as well as transferring production knowledge and skills to them.
In terms of marketing, the group needs to continually develop online marketing and adding new platforms through Instagram. Sale promotion must be planned 3-4 times a year during important festivals such as New Year, Songkran, and governmental retirement period. Likewise, product development also needed to be done regularly to meet the needs of customers. At present, the group plans to develop low-sugar bananas for sale among health lovers including plans to produce bananas coated with chocolate, strawberry, or green tea to extend the market covering the new generation.
Somchan Women Farmers Group has started and continue its operation by giving all members opportunity to participate and receive equal benefits. There is a group committee to steer its operation. Members participate in raising investment funds by being shareholders. Profits gained are shared with members as dividends almost every year. Moreover, the group also allocated some profits to helping members who suffered from disasters such as floods or drought. Sharing products or profits to support community activities on Elder’s Day, Children’s Day, and every New Year Festival.
Products from the group use local raw materials. The group will distribute a good variety of banana shoots to farmers to grow and buy bananas back to process as goods of the group. This practice helps generate income to other farmers in their village and others in surrounding area as well. meanwhile, banana peels left over from production process will hand to herdsman who raise cows to reduce feeding costs and reduce waste in the community.
The operation of the group helps home-based workers earn sufficient income to support themselves and their families, to have greater access to social welfare and a better quality of life. It is a form of collective economic activity. Group members gain mutual benefits by sharing and owning together. Consumers get quality, clean and hygiene products while the community can maintain a good environmental atmosphere. Cowherds and community people all gain benefits from the operation of the group, this practice can be concluded as one of Social Solidarity Economy activity.
Kanoknart Thepnupha
HomeNet Thailand, April 2023
