การพัฒนาชุมชนเกษตร-ประมงในพื้นที่อำเภอติดชายทะเลจังหวัดชลบุรีเป็นชุมชนนวัตกรรมและสร้างผู้ประกอบการธุรกิจนวัตกรรม ด้วยเทคโนโลยีชีวภาพ การเพิ่มมูลค่าผลิตภัณฑ์ การบริหารทางการเงิน และการจัดการทรัพยากรท้องถิ่น

Title

Reinforcement of agriculture-and-fishery based communities located in coastal area of Chonburi province towards innovation based communities and innovative entrepreneurs through biotechnology, value-added production, financial administration and local resource management

Keywords

Innovative entrepreneur,Community innovation,Model community,Community financial institution,Pineapple,Jellyfish,Coconut,Community waste,Community-based tourism

Abstract

Chonburi is a key province located in Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) where industrial investment has been concentrated. Meanwhile, there are lots of local farmers and fishermen who have made their living here for generation where jellyfish, Sriracha pineapple, and coconut are well-known natural resources commonly found or cultivated. However, these local agricultural careers usually make less money than industrial counterparts. Therefore, our project aims to level up income of local farmers and fishermen through developing value added agricultural and fishery product and waste according to the new BCG economy model, and to improve the quality of living of community members via establishing accounting system of community financial institution. Collaborative learning process between researchers and community members has been engaged to co-create community innovators and community innovation in 11 communities from 11 subdistricts in 5 districts of Chonburi province. We were able to create 26 community innovators, 36 community experimenters and 27 community innovations. Of all community innovators, 2, so called local innovative business entrepreneurs were able to test and sell their innovation to the market. Furthermore, 2 community learning centers have been established, including the marine tourism learning center located in Ang-sila subdistrict and the modern agriculture and processing learning center located in Na-Jomtien subdistrict. Our work would generate new careers for community and provide more income from products and services in the area, projected approximately at 36 million baht within 5 years based on SROI prediction. Moreover, our results have been used to set agricultural projects in Chonburi’s annual action plan, and to extend our work in the University to Tambon (U2T) project. Finally, we found that the most suitable learning process to create innovation community was the learning process at which the community was set as a center and the university co-create knowledge and technology together in conjunction with networking and knowledge exchange processes. Altogether, this learning platform would establish a sustainable community providing a learning space to develop community innovators and to make more income from local innovative products and services thereafter.