Surin Farmers Support

Biodynamic Farming (BD) at Khon Kaen

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:28:00 +0000

Here’s a picture taken during the biodynamic course :

The course was held by Sir Hans van Florenstein Mulder who has been involved in Biodynamic agriculture since 1972. He was born in Netherland but he spent almost all his youth in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New Zealand where he has helped established educational project. He also served for many years as General Secretary of the NZ Anthroposophical Society until 2006.

Now he is travelling the world to promote biodynamic farming.

Biodynamic is a type of organic farming that includes an understanding of « dynamic forces » in nature such as : the rythm of the sun. By working creatively with these energies, farmers are able to significantly improve the health of their farms and the quality of food. It recognizes farms as a self-regulating, biodiverse ecosystems.

The course first started with an introduction of chemical farming and monoculture impacts : degradation of the soil, deterioration in the health and quality of crops and livestock. This awareness led to the emergence of various trends such as biodynamic farming.

We learned how to prepare a cow horn manure which is known as the preparation 500 prescribed by the philidopher Rudolf Steiner. Preparation 500 is made by filling a cow’s horn with cow manure, and burying it in the soil during the dry season in the best location as possible. If we use bull horns, we have to put in bull manure. The manure must come from a lactating female cow or bull which will bring in the calcium processes to the preparation. To ensure the good quality of manure, the cow should be fed with organic fodder. Then the horns should be buried in a hole about 40 cm deep and covered with soil that has been enriched with good quality compost. Be careful not to allow weeds to grow, otherwise the weed roots will grow into the preparation and also avoid tree roots. The horns should be buried open end down so that they will not become water logged if the hole is over watered. The hole must be kept cool by mulching with paddy straw for example. After 4 months, cow horns should have turned into dark humus and should be sweet smelling. Horns are now ready. It is used in small quantities at the rate of 25 g in 13 litres of water per acre (2,5 rai). In a bucket, the mix preparation is stirred for one hour making a vortex in one direction and then reversing the direction and making a vortex in the other direction. Preparation 500 is sprayed at the descending phase of the moon and four times a year : October and November and then February and March.

The second day, we learned how to make BD compost. In BD farmind plants are maintained in the soil by addition of compost (animal manures combined with plant material : fodder and straw). The organic materials OM are conberted into a stable humus through a fermentation process. Composting the OM will avoid the nutrients (NPK) losses from oxidation or leaching. In BD, making quality compost is very important as a way to maintain humus in the soil. The best way to learn manking compost is ti do it. Be careful on the aeration of the OM. Without air, the heap will not heat up and it will become anaerobic and smelly.

We started by building a tunnel out of dry matter that will allow air to flow through it easily. Then we put some straw that formed the perimeter of the bed and sprinkle water over the straw. We sprinkled cow manures onto straw and then add a green layer (fresh grass) for nitrogen. Finaly sprinkle a fine dusting of hydrated lime. Another layer of straw and sprinckle it with fresh grass. Again, sprinkle a fine dustung of hydrated lime. Another smattering of manure and then more greens. We can also use kitchen scraps. Repeat operation several times to get layers and layers of straw-grass-manure.

"Using a stick, make five spaced holes (about 30 cm apart), along the top of the heap. One portion of each preparation (5 ml) in turn should then be mixed into a small piece of moist (clay) soil or compost, kneaded into a ball and dropped into one of the holes. Once the preparations have been inserted, the holes should be filled with compost material or pushed together to ensure that the preparation comes into full contact with the soil and does not hang in an air pocket." (source : www.biodynamic.org.uk)

Fair Trade and Alter-Eco

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:36:00 +0000

One of the great things about interning with CAEF for the summer is getting to see how a Fair Trade business model works from the ground-up. Alter Eco, a France-baded Fair Trade company, made it's annual visit to the Surin Cooperative recently. Being a native French speaker, Liliane must have been a big help with communication during the recent visit from Alter Eco!

I have spent one day with Cécile and Carmen who came from France to audit Rice Fund Cooperative. They are both working for Alter-Eco, Cecile is the sales Manager of North France and Carmen is one of her staff.

The Organic Rice Fund Surin Agriculture : ORFSC was founded in 1992 and became FLO-Certified in 2003. In 2000, Rice Fund and Alter-Eco have begun to work together and over the past few years, Cécile told me that it is one of the best fair trade cooperative project.

Surin province is situated in the North-east of Thaïland, a region caled Issan. The saline soil of this area provides the best condition for growing aromatic Jasmin rice : Hom mali rice. That is why, Surin province was assigned to conduct the pilot projet in 1999 of producing organic Hom mali rice known domestically and also worldwilde. Rice Fund has been working for many years with small-scale farmers to create a sustainable, fair and local food system. Together, they promote sustainable livelihoods and green community (food security and environmental conservation). For 13 years it has been certified organic by ACT (a thaï Label). CAEF provides training modules for organic farming to help farmers growing their rice organicly and the Rice Fund Coop. provides a structure for joining forces and exporting rice to Europe and the United States.

Rice Fund carries out its own packaging. Rice goes to a quality control system before being packed by labors.

After examined one by one the whole packaging process, we went to Donlengthai village where we interviewed P’ Pakpum. Then, we went to an other village : Tabthai and learnt how to grow rice. We all enjoyed planting rice with the local farmers.

The activity of Alter Eco has always rested on two foundations :

· knowledge and control channels on one hand

· distribution, and the attractiveness of the offer in the other.

Since 1998, we use and enrich our own audit methodologies and control pathways that allow us to complement the Max Havelaar label, to have a perfect knowledge of channels and local issues. Within our team, Audit & Sourcing plays a key role alongside the Sales Department amd the Financial Department. We continuously measure the positive impact of our work on the producers in the South, and also to continuously improve our effectiveness in this respect.

By being continuously directly involved in auditing our producer, we can directly see any irregularities or issues and raise them directly with the producers as well as bring such issues to the attention of WFTO.

These unique methodologies are specific to Alter-Eco. We’re recognized for our commitment from upstream to downstream sectors. This is possible due to the unique knowledge of local issues and sectors that Alter Eco has. Consequently, Alter-Eco has been chosen by FLO-Cert to sit on its Certification Committee that meets to decide on labeling and non-labeling of producer organizations. » (source : www.altereco.com)

Introducing Liliane Phantharangsi, our Summer Intern!

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 01:07:00 +0000

The Community for Agroecology Foundation (CAEF) is happy to welcome our new summer intern, Liliane. Here is her first blog post:

Hi everyone,

First of all, let me introduce myself. I’m Liliane, a french student who work with CAEF (formerly SFS) as an intern. I arrived in Surin the 1st July 2011 and I will stay three months. I’m studying agronomy for sustainable development so that’s why I’m here in Surin. To understand the challenges of sustainable agriculture in developing countries such as Thailand I will observe all along my stay how CAEF makes things change and helps strengthened "Green Community." I have known and contacted this organization thanks to this blog. So here I am, in Surin : the city of elephants.

My first month will consist in observation all the activities that have been set up by CAEF. Thus, I will update this blog as often as possible. I want to apologize for my bad English.

The first thing I saw when I have started working here is the Saturday Green Market. One of farmers’ initiatives was to sell their food excess (vegetables, fruits …) so they though of an alternative way to sell it. With the help of CAEF, they built the Green Market in 2003. It has given the opportunity to farmers to sell their fresh organic products and to meet directly the consumers. Now we count more than 80 farmers that sell every Saturday in the Green Market. In addition to that, the mobile green market in Prasat district has developed. Once, I went to sell traditional homemade cake in front of Prasat Hospital with a farmer, she said to me that "it is a good way to earn money quickly." During one morning, she can get around 1500 THB ($50).

CAEF has also an other alternative market : the Kao Hom grocery. It promotes organic products. Every Thursday, Farmers come to deliver their fresh products and within two hours, consumers have bought almost everything.

The alternative market is a platform that build intimate relationship between farmers and consumers.

However there are still some challenges to overcome. For example, farmers are biased by the non-organic products that are invaded the Green Market. In fact, the current place of the Green Market is next to the traditional Saturday market so consumers can be confused. CAEF is now negotiating with the local authorities to find the best solution for stopping this conflict between the Green Market and the traditional market.

I have also been in the countryside for one week. P’Samrat who has kindly opened is house for me is the chief of farmers’ groups in Donlengthai village. Since ten years now, the farmer group use organic practices with the help of CAEF. They banned chemical pesticides and has been using organic fertilizers (chicken manure). For the first time of my life, I had replanting the rice, it was a hard work because the weather was really hot. But this is the daily condition of farmers here, in Surin. Even if they are poor and they work hard, I found that people were really nice to me and I can feel their happiness every day. They cooked me some delicious dishes that we shared with all the family and the neighbors.

The night before I left, with P’Samrat we talked about the agriculture future in the village. He told me that, nowadays our children don’t want to be farmers anymore, they studied in University downtown Surin or in big cities (Mahasarakham, Bangkok) and left the countryside. He is still wondering who will take care of his rice crops. He was smiling and told me "I will plant rice until my last breath."

Organic Pigs

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:23:00 +0000

From the Alternative Agriculture Network - Esan (AAN) blog:

P’ Kanya Onsri smiles whenever she talks about her organic pig project in Surin. As one of the first organic farmers in her village, she has always been willing to try out new techniques in order to make her farming practices more sustainable. Since 2006, Kanya has pioneered a organic pig raising producers’ group in Tamor subdistrict, Surin province. With support from Surin Farmers Support and the AAN, the program has expanded to more than 70 families and provides 2 whole pigs at the Surin Green Market every Saturday.

The pork is now so popular that consumers now put in orders before the weekend and pick up their labeled packages at the Green Market.

The project wasn’t initially focused on being a money-maker for villagers in Tabthai, who have historically earned lower incomes than larger landowners in nearby villages. The goal was to produce more organic compost from the high-nitrogen pig manure. The pigs are raised in 3 meter by 2 meter, 60 cm deep pens and are filled with shallow layer of rice husks and biojuice (made from plant materials fermented in molasses) before pigs are raised.

Organic pork is an essential part of the Surin Green Market’s success. When Thais go to the market, they’ll often come up with their menu based on what foods are fresh or in season, and while the AAN’s Green Markets have always sold seasonal fruits and vegetables, meats are still limited. Consumers are often frustrated by having to go to the conventional market to get their meats, and often criticize Green Markets for not having enough protein. By bringing 2 whole pigs to the Surin Green Market every Saturday, loyal consumers are satisfied and new consumers have increased, simply by word of mouth. This is also what we hope to accomplish in Yasothon.

Certain things stand out when it comes to the quality and flavor of the organic pork in Surin. Consumers say that when they buy conventional pork from the market, which is often raised in large, closed-system commercial farms and treated with antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals, the meat will lose it’s freshness quickly and the fats coagulate after a few days in the fridge. With the Surin Green Market’s organic pork, this is not the case. The pork stays a nice pink-red color and consumers say that the dishes they make using the various cuts are naturally flavorful, requiring less seasoning.

Consumer demand has helped make the project a commercial success. Though the first group of farmers to raise organic pigs may have focused more on producing manure for their compost, the income from raising organic pigs has been an important incentive for new producers. Because investment costs are low and the opportunity to sell directly to consumers, farmers usually earn about 2,000 baht per pig. Most conventional producers barely break even, after buying expensive antibiotics, feed and selling to middlemen.

The success of the organic pig project has inspired organic farmers in Kudchum, Yasothon to start raising pigs themselves. We now have a group of about 10 farmers who are ready to begin raising the pigs organically and selling their pork at the Yasothon Green Market. Farmers will need to set aside a small piece of land to plant green vegetables to feed their pigs throughout the year, as well as make fermented feed supplements from paddy fish, snails and local herbs. These supplements will help keep the pigs healthy and happy.

The Yasothon Green Market group will also need to plan out a schedule for breeding and slaughtering, with someone in the group responsible for raising a breeding male and several people responsible for breeding females. Villagers in Kudchum have little experience with slaughtering and butchering pigs, but they are committed to learning more – slaughtering may also be a new job for young people in the community without any work (youth in Surin have learned about the entire process and now earn money helping with birthing and slaughtering pigs).

The project in Surin took about 4 years to successfully develop. The principle of not focusing on making money, but raising safe, healthy, organic pigs and making compost has always been at the project’s core. Now that the market has grown, however, the group is thinking more about new ways to manage the market – developing new pork products, and more direct sales (a membership or CSA structure).

Following the seminar last month, Kanya explained about the success of the Surin Green Market, “I have to say, this project really comes from what I learned in the U.S. with MOFGA [Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association], from the Slow Food conference in Italy and from my study trip to South Korea.” As a farmer who works with Surin Farmers Support (SFS) and the Alternative Agriculture Network – Esan (AAN) – Kanya has taken the opportunity to learn about the global sustainable agriculture movement. By exchanging with students and farmers in the U.S. with ENGAGE – a student network that works in solidarity with local social and environmental movements), Kanya saw the importance of making use of all available, compostable materials. By attending Terra Madre in Italy, she got to see how much value could be added to organic fruits and vegetables by making organic foods and food products. And finally, by exchanging with the Korean Women’s League (KWL), Kanya understood how essential it is to sell a diversity of products at the Surin Green Market.

Next week the Yasothon Green Market group will meet to plan out the production process and exchange about useful techniques for successful organic pig raising. The Surin group helped to develop Thailand’s organic standard for pigs with IFOAM, so the farmers in Kudchum will have to follow their example. One of the major challenges for the Surin group, now that their pork is commercially successful, are farmers who seek to quickly fatten their pigs using feed. Our committee will follow up with members to make sure organic practices are being followed. We’ll continue to provide updates throughout the process here on the blog, and expect to have organic pork at the Yasothon Green Market by August.

Local Fair Trade

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:09:00 +0000

Rice Fund Surin members agree that organic agriculture is a solution for small-scale rice farmers in the province. And the organic food market that has developed is a result of a strong people’s movement for sustainable livelihoods and safe, healthy food. Yet, given how farming is inherently risky, the transition to organic farming is difficult for many farmers. The expansion of the organic market has taken a long time in Surin, but for many, the movement seems stagnant – organic farmers keep farming organically, and conventional farmers keep using chemicals.

The Rice Fund Surin meeting on Jan 14 sought to look further into the possibilities for local fair trade to help revive interest in organic farming among villagers and further develop urban consumer awareness about food systems. Fair Trade has always been an important part of Rice Fund’s ideology (the mill is Fair Trade certified and farmers’ groups have independently managed fair trade premiums for yeas), but is often overlooked by producers and consumers on the local level. “Domestic Fair Trade” is a small movement in the U.S., and is organized by a network of organizations and producers cooperatives, including Equal Exchange.

There are many similarities between Domestic Fair Trade and what Rice Fund Surin would like to do on the provincial level. With the small-scale farmers’ quality of life at it’s base, local fair trade focuses on 4 main points:

- A fair price between producers and consumers

- Environmentally-friendly business (processing, packaging, market management)

- Safe, health-oriented food

- Group-based process of production and marketing

P’ Kanya, a community leader and organic pig farmer in Tabthai village pointed out how focused farmers and consumers continue to be on price. With prices at a record high in 2007 and government income support this season, many farmers don’t see a reason to farm organically. Conventional producers simply wait in the middle for good prices.

This year, however, with the implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), most conventional farmers will be unprepared for price fluctuations and insecure markets for their rice. Cooperatives like Rice Fund equip their members with information about what policy changes imply for farmers, which in turn helps them make smart decisions about how to organize their farm plans each season. Many Rice Fund members agree that themselves and fellow members of the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) are well prepared for AFTA – they mill and sell rice independently in alternative market approaches. Planting indigenous rice varieties, while they are well suited to the local ecology, are also beginning to earn good prices at AAN Green Markets and other market channels – here farmers can set their own price, based on the needs of themselves and consumers.

For farmers who may transition towards organic farming, but through contracts with larger mills or rice corporations, their market is growing, but possibly insecure – if organic rice is not viewed as profitable, then farmers can easily be cut off or put back into conventional production systems. Further, rice corporations are increasingly purchasing large tracts of land and growing themselves – one company in Surin has bought a large piece of land in the northern part of the province and is growing “Kao Hom Nin” an improved rice variety which combines characteristics from a black Chinese rice with Thai Jasmine (this variety is not a hybrid, but it’s short growing season allows it to be grown during the off-season). These processes may be viewed simply as economies of scale, but farmers continue take on considerable risk and the organic standard may also be compromised.

Farmers in Surin understand that consumers abroad are concerned about health, food safety and the environment when they purchase food, but most local consumers are not yet taking much interest. More work is also needed to develop farmers’ way of thinking about organic farming and fair trade. In turn, Rice Fund Surin, Surin Farmers Support and the Alternative Agriculture Network will work together to develop a consumer campaign on fair trade concepts. This campaign will also be a way to work together with state organizations and provide clarity for outside groups and organizations about what fair trade really means.

As P’ Ubon concluded the meeting, we can think of fair trade as supporting a fair economy, fair environment, fair health and fair society – these issues are all here, but few people understand. It is up to our farmers’ movement to transform a consumer trend into proof that fair trade is better for society, especially those who grow food.

Pakphum Inpaen and Rice Fund Surin featured in Green America

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:30:00 +0000

From the Green America Thanksgiving e-newsletter -

Thanks to Andrew Korfhage for visiting Rice Fund Surin and writing this story:

True confession: Before I started working at Green America almost seven years ago, I had never heard of the Fair Trade movement. In my interview with our Green Business Network director Denise Hamler, in fact, I got confused and accidentally called it “free trade.”

“You mean Fair Trade, right?” she asked me. “Oh, yes,” I said, “What did I say?”

But like many conscious consumers who aren’t yet connected to the Fair Trade movement per se, I was already deeply interested in the concept of making sure that the products I buy are traded fairly – that producers at the beginning of the supply chain make a decent wage, that the products that pass through my hands on a daily basis aren’t tainted with the suffering of others. It’s part of why I wanted to work for Green America in the first place, because the definition of “green” should always be about the health of both people and the planet.

Over the course of my time with Green America, I’ve learned a lot more, naturally, about the Fair Trade movement, whether working to promote Fair Trade events like last month’s reverse trick-or-treating, meeting Fair Trade leaders who come to speak at our Green Festivals, or writing articles for our newsletter whenever new Fair Trade products receive certification.

It was in 2007, when I began work on an updated version of our Fair Trade Guide, that I made a connection that would eventually lead me to the rice farms outside of Surin, in rural northeastern Thailand. In that guide, we published an interview with Kyra Busch, then the global action director for ENGAGE, an educational network that organizes consumers to increase demand for Fair Trade rice. As I asked Kyra questions about the effect of the Fair Trade system on rural rice-farming cooperatives, she encouraged me to visit Thailand to learn for myself.

At the time, the idea of following the Fair Trade rice supply chain to its source seemed distant, remote, or impossible. But in early 2009, when a friend of mine moved to Chiang Mai in the mountainous northwest of Thailand, I decided this would be my chance to travel to the rice cooperative in the northeast as well. I decided to follow up with Kyra. I e-mailed ENGAGE, and although Kyra was no longer working there, it required a total of only two e-mails to connect with Bennett Haynes, the man who would eventually meet up with me in Thailand, accompany me to the rice cooperative, and translate for me because I don’t speak Thai.

I want to emphasize the ease of that connection. With just a handful of e-mails I was able to board a plane, then catch an overnight train, and then climb into the pick-up truck that would take me straight to the beginning of the Fair Trade supply chain. The system is that short and direct.

Imagine any conventional consumer product you buy. How many steps do you think it would it take for you to come face to face with the person who made it? Would all the middlemen involved even allow it, knowing you’d be able to see for yourself the conditions at the beginning of the chain, and talk to the people who are there? What do you think you would see, and would you want to?

For me, when I got out of the truck in Denleng Tai, the rice-farming village where I would be staying, about 25 kilometers from the Cambodian border, this is what I saw: I saw a simple wooden house with an outdoor staircase, on stilts, with a kitchen underneath and a bathroom out back. I saw an older woman sitting outside, weaving silk, shaded by a verdant canopy of tropical trees bearing coconuts, avocados, and limes. Beside her, I saw her silkworms, spinning in their baskets beneath a bug net. And I saw a coffee plant that I later learned had been acquired from a Fair Trade coffee cooperative in Laos, a trade for some organic, Fair Trade rice.

The weaver I met was Coo-eye, the lady of the house, the mother of Samrieng and Pakphum, her two adult children in their forties. I would be working with Pakphum for the rest of the week, so Bennett and I sat down to wait for Pakphum to return.

When Pakphum arrived, we greeted one another through Bennett, and Pakphum cheerfully chopped down some coconuts and cracked open their tops, for us to each sip a refreshing drink while we got to know one another. Pakphum had been at the elementary school that morning, he told us, catching up on some paperwork for the class he’s teaching on organic farming, hoping to instill an appreciation for natural, pesticide-free production in the younger generation.

While not every farmer in his village farms organically, organic farming predominates in Pakphum’s cooperative, and Pakphum farms exclusively organically. After being sickened by the pesticides he was using around ten years ago, he made a promise to himself to stop using toxic chemicals in his work, and that promise has paid off in a big way. Not only did his health improve, he told me, but the switch to organics helped him climb out of debt, as he and stopped spending his hard-earned money on chemical fertilizers from giant agriculture companies, and began to rely on the organic material already on his land for his fertilizer.

During my work with Pakphum later that week, I would learn more about how this cycle works. I would see, for instance, Pakphum spotting small snails in his fields at ten paces (tiny things I never would have noticed) before picking them up and pocketing them. When I asked about this later, I learned they’d be crushed and fermented in a special compost bin, because snail compost is so effective at correcting for certain ill conditions in the fields. Bennett and Pakphum showed me the separate containers by the shed in the fields; the jackfruit compost is perfect for one condition, while the mixed compost is perfect for a different condition, and the water buffalo manure is just healthy overall, and so on. This is genius, I thought.

As we sipped our coconuts on the first day, Pakphum explained how what we’d be doing that week would be intimately related to his decision to farm organically. Pakphum had some damaged fields, he told me, and we’d be repairing them. “When people find out I’m an organic farmer, sometimes they ask me ‘What do you do about weeds?’” Pakphum said smiling. “’I pull them out,’ I tell them. It’s not that hard to figure out.”

So, starting before the dawn the next morning, we traveled out to the fields to begin the work – transplanting healthy rice plants from a weed-damaged field into the spaces cleared in an adjacent field by the damage from the fresh-water crabs. We collected the crabs in a bucket that we handed off to Samrieng (she’d be cooking them later, I believe, though the family was kind enough to cook vegetarian for me while I was there), and we carried the rice plants by hand from the weed-damaged field, using a hoe to re-plant them in the soft, rich earth beneath the standing water in the paddy. When the transplanting was complete, we’d be plowing under the weed-damaged field, preparing it for new planting.

The work was hard and the hours were long. The sun felt scorching and when the rains came on the second day, they were fierce, but we worked from dawn to dusk no matter the weather conditions. We would break around 8AM (after having left the house at 5) for breakfast, and between noon and 1 for lunch – eating deliciously fresh rice dishes (topped with fresh veggies, fresh peanut sauce, fresh chili sauce) and supplemented by fruits from the orchard behind Pakphum’s shed (pomegranates, bananas, and pomelos – the grapefruit’s larger cousin).

We’d toss the rinds and the seeds into the compost bins, knowing they’d be recycled into the rice fields. In fact, the entire time I was there, I never saw so much as a single bottle or jar or can opened for a meal. Everything was local in the truest sense of the word – it was the most delightfully waste-free week in my life to date.

When the sun was almost down, Pakphum and I would walk back to his shed, and wash our clothes and our bodies in the pond next to the orchard. We would swim and stretch our sore muscles in the cool water, and relax from the long day. Then we’d head back to the village and socialize with the other farmers before dinner. My first day, I rested and didn’t socialize. My second day, I socialized, but minimally, because I didn’t have my translator with me. But the third day, Bennett was there, and we got to talking with the other men about their lives.

One man, named Yam, asked me how I felt not being able to speak Thai, in a room full of Thai speakers. We talked about that for awhile, and I noted that I had learned some phrases, and that it wasn’t the first time I’d been in a position of being unable to speak the language in the room. We chatted some more, and eventually I asked him if he’d ever been in a situation of being unable to speak the language the others are speaking.

“Yes,” Yam said. “When I lived in Taiwan…” And then he went on to tell me how he had left the farming village as a young man. Unable to make ends meet there, he needed to seek his fortunes elsewhere, to make enough money to come back to Denleng Tai and marry and settle down. He told me that he ended up in Taiwan, accepting a job at an electronics factory, where he was housed with all the other men in a dormitory that also housed huge drums of fuel for the factory. When he arrived, he was the only Thai. The factory bosses all spoke Mandarin Chinese, and the other workers all spoke their native languages.

One night, not long after his arrival, Taiwan experienced an earthquake. He’d never felt an earthquake before, and was confused as he leapt from his bed, and heard all the other men screaming “earthquake” in their own languages. Afraid that the drums of fuel might explode, the men all ran outside in the night, and that night he realized he’d need to learn some of the other languages to get by. He was away for a decade, Yam told me, and it was tough, returning to Denleng Tai only three times during that time. He told me how happy he was to be back, and to be farming rice again as part of the cooperative.

The night before I left, Pakphum and I shared our longest conversation translated through Bennett. We talked about the importance of rice in Thai culture, and the nutritional value of the kinds of rice produced by his cooperative vs. the standard white rice often found on supermarket shelves. We talked about the yearly cycle of the work on the farm, and how the long-long days we had put in that week are balanced by the five months of the year when the growing season is at a standstill and there is more time for leisure pursuits.

We talked about growing older and Pakphum’s plans for the future, such as whether to go back into debt by purchasing a sit-down plow (a tool that might help him farm longer into his later years). Pakphum said he was turning against the new-plow idea at present, focusing instead on maybe leasing some of his paddies to townspeople in Surin City who might want to get back to the land. He could teach them about organic farming, he told me, and they could keep the rice they produce, and he could still earn a living from his land.

Finally, we talked about the Fair Trade system, and how it’s important for small-scale producers to be paid a decent wage for their labor, how it’s easy for the conventional supply chain (with its many, many layers) to squeeze the producers at the beginning, and how Pakphum is skeptical of the aims of the mega-corporations that are switching tiny portions of their lines of Fair Trade products like coffee. Pakphum objected to a mega-corporation knowing how to get involved in a better supply chain, but not choosing to commit to a better system 100-percent. Those companies’ scale, he said, could give them power to dilute standards, or could pull market share away from the smaller, purer Fair Trade product lines.

Fortunately, at present, there is no mega-corporation threatening to compete with Alter-Eco, the company that brings Pakphum’s rice to market in the United States (and a member of our Green Business Network). Early in my visit – the day I met Bennett at the train station and took the pick-up ride to the village – Bennett and I first stopped at the headquarters of Pakphum’s cooperative, where its US-bound rice is packaged.

It was here where I saw the scales where Pakphum would drive his rice harvest in to be weighed and paid for. It was here where I saw the giant machines that strip off the inedible portions of the rice husk, which are saved to be turned into compost for the farmers. And it was here that I peered through a window at workers who were packaging the finished rice in boxes and bags bound for various destinations: the cooperative store in Surin City, as well as distributors in Europe and the United States. If you purchase a box of Alter-Eco Fair Trade and organic rice in the United States, that box was filled in this room, by workers who personally know the farmers who just dropped it off.

After my tour of the facilities, I sat down with Sompoi Chansaeng, the leader of the cooperative to ask her some questions. She was very busy that day, and we talked for maybe 30 minutes, about the history of the cooperative, about her thoughts on the Fair Trade system (she has the same misgivings a Pakphum about mega-corporations), and finally about what one factor could be the most successful at helping expand the use of organic farming and Fair Trade practices in the Surin area. I suggested greater government support, NGO support, farmer education, and consumer demand as possibilities.

Without hesitation, Sompoi stopped me in the middle of my list and replied: “It’s consumer demand.”

The last day of my visit, I saw the effects of consumer demand in full force.

I rose even earlier on Saturday (at 4AM!) to catch a ride with some of Pakphum’s neighbors who would be driving their products to Surin City to participate in the Saturday morning “Green Marketplace” there. Pakphum would not be joining them this week, but he rose with me to say good-bye, and waited with me until the truck jostled along to pick me up. I climbed in the back with the sacks of fruits and coconuts, and a couple of other farmers, and we were off for a pre-dawn ride into the city.

When we got there, I helped Pakphum’s neighbors, and the other farmers who were arriving, to unload their supplies. It was barely beginning to be light outside, and already the excited shoppers in Surin City were milling about, ready to start purchasing the delicious organic produce and meat from the surrounding farming villages. Surin City is a town of only about 40,000 people (about the size of the attendance at one of our Green Festivals), and yet the marketplace was packed – a visual demonstration of consumer demand.

It’s been about three months now since I said good-bye to Bennett at the Green Marketplace, and walked to the bus station munching on an organic pomello – so I’ve had some time to reflect. Here are some conclusions that I’ve come to:

First of all, while I’ve met some motivated advocates for the Fair Trade system here in the US via my work with Green America, I have never encountered such passion for Fair Trade as I did with Sompoi Chansaeng and Pakphum Inpaen. It’s working for them, and they see the benefits in their community. Second, whenever I need to purchase a new electronic device, I will think of Yam, who was treated as much like an expendable resource as a drum of fuel, and I wonder when the day will arrive when dependable Fair Trade certification will be available for things like electronics products – going even beyond the commodities currently Fair Trade certified (tea, chocolate, bananas, sugar, etc.

Finally, whenever I need to purchase rice, I will think of Pakphum, and the hard labor it requires to produce his rice, and how he’s working hard to make sure that he doesn’t poison others in his village the way he once poisoned himself with pesticides – how he’s teaching others, young and old, to go organic.

True confession: I had a big bag of conventional jasmine rice sitting three-quarters full on my kitchen shelf when I got home, leftover from before my trip. The sight of it made me reflect on my values. I also had conventional coffee in my cupboard, dissonant with the Fair Trade chocolates from Divine in the bowl in my dining room, or the Fair Trade sneakers on my feet. I just now finished up that conventional bag of rice last week, and later walked down the street to purchase a box of red jasmine Alter-Eco rice from my local organic market.

There on the box (right next to the Fair Trade Certified™ label) was a picture of the vista that I saw every morning on my way out to the fields – bright green rice plants waving in the breeze, with the view broken only by the occasional shade tree or water buffalo. And next to that picture, a story about what you’re supporting when you buy this rice – fair prices paid to farmers, a Fair Trade premium for community development, support for organic practices to keep communities safe and healthy.

Here’s a link to to the photo slideshow

RESOURCES:

Find Alter-Eco Fair Trade rice near you by entering your ZIP code into the interactive map on their Web site, or order directly from Alter-Eco.

Keep up with the latest from Pakphum’s cooperative, by reading their blog, Surin Farmers Support

Learn more from the Alternative Agriculture Network, Bennett’s employer and another organization of which Pakphum is a member. AAN focuses on a range of issues from sustainable agriculture systems to trade policy.

Download Green America’s Guide to Fair Trade.

Back from the Herbal Festival!

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:50:00 +0000

Photos from the Herbal Festival!

We sold a delicious local desert called "kanom niel" for the second year in a row and it was still a major hit! This year, there were some male farmers along too - P Pakphum, Jansri and Bapipat came to meet with urban consumers and exchange about herbal knowledge.

Galangal, etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:41:00 +0000

Some Green Market photos from early July!

Organic Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:38:00 +0000

The title says it all – SFS is starting a new project to raise organic egg-laying hens! The project will not only provide additional income for our members, but provide consumers with a fresh, high quality and healthy alternative to the eggs from factory farms. Companies like CP, Betagro and Saha farms dominate the egg and poultry market – most fresh markets throughout Thailand will have only eggs from these three companies.

This SFS project is starting small. There are currently 15 families involved, with a 2,400 baht start-up investment cost for a small flock and feed. SFS has been able to provide a 1,000 baht subsidy per family to help cover part of these costs. SFS still needs to buy chicks from an organic egg company based in Buriram. Once the provincial livestock office has this breed, prices will lower significantly. Feed is currently being produced by P’ Kanya in Tabthai village, based on her organic pig feed formula. The chickens are also being fed green vegetables.

The eggs will be sold at 5 baht per egg, and will be a part of the green consumers club’s upcoming CSA program. This program is a way to diversify income earning for SFS members, and given the growing demand from consumers, it should be a great success. Farmers in Tamor, Tabthai and Samrong are all involved in this new initiative. As it expands the reach of the Green Market and the green consumers club, it also helps strengthen food rural and urban food security. Hopefully this project will expand to reach more producers and consumers as we work to lower start-up costs.

ThaiHealth - Food Security Network

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:04:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the new Alternative Agriculture Network - Esan website - check it out here:

Local vendors at the Warin Bus Station market in Ubon Ratchatani – selling local plants on the ground, in front of the dumpster.

Several provinces in southern Esan were brought together by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation last Thursday to discuss the possibilities for forming a food security network. Representatives from Yasothon, Surin, Sisaket, Amnat Charoen and Ubon were brought together to focus on a few key issues: resources – rights and management, food and agriculture – organic and sustainable production, and consumers – alternative markets and public movement. The Sesa Asoke community, Kunatam rice cooperative, Community Forest Network, Ubon Green Network, Surin Farmers Support and AAN were all represented.

The meeting worked towards forming a plan for food security in these provinces, working based on the existing relationships between villagers’ organizations, local government and NGOs. There is a concrete basis for food security in southern Esan, so the meeting focused on ways to utilize this basis for future work and expanding a movement for food security. Regional-level research and policy-making efforts are end goals for the network as well, as these efforts can build consumer awareness and “society security” as ThaiHealth put it. Below, a diagram presented to our group and translated into English.

The diagram focuses on 4 major points: access, safe food, farmer livelihoods and the market system. It’s a useful way of conceptualizing what food security looks like in this region. Before we got to brainstorming next steps based on this diagram, we approached the current food system situation. Along with P’ Ubon Yoowah, I gave a presentation about my food ways research with Non Yang village. By following food from conumption to local markets, regional markets and eventually to it’s orginial source, we see an accumulation of “food miles,” excessive use of chemicals and unfair prices for the producer. Further, consumers’ health is at risk when eating these fruits, vegetables and meats. My presentation focused on chili, catfish and scallions – three items commonly purchased by villagers. We are thinking of experimenting with using food ways research on a larger-scale, throughout the network, to expose problems in the food system.

Paw Bunsong Mahtkao – the current president of AAN-Esan – continued with commentary, highlighting three major problems: the “mono-think” behind production, the management of production and consumer practices. Everyone in the village at this time of year line up at the local food shops to buy food before hading to the fields – those who have changed their way of thinking away from “mono-think” aren’t as dependent on this market system. But most farmers are focused only on getting rice transplanted and getting it done as fast as possible, so growing kitchen gardens or other crops is largely disregarded. The food management system is inefficient in rural communities – vendors buy crops from the district fresh markets every morning, while villagers send local crops to that same market in the evening. It’s dependent on long-distance trucking and unnecessary use of fossil fuels, yet foods are being grown in the community and sent to the district for consumption. Finally, consumers’ practices have change significantly – people no onger want to eat local foods, and are influenced by media and advertising to want foods from outside their community. The AAN promotes diversity and low-cost production, how do we get those outside our network to change their way of thinking and change food security for their community?

Urban consumers make up another important part of our food system. Those who are informed about food safety or considered “alternative” are middle-class and in the minority – creating more opportunity for change, but in a smaller part of soceity. P’ Baramee of the Community Forest Network also made an important point – we can grow and sell all the healthy, organic vegetables we want, but we’ll also have to work on food preparation as well. People don’t always cook healthful foods – MSG use has become the norm and cooking oil is being used too long by many small restaurants.

How do we generate a trend for local foods? Youth in Thailand are now obsessed with all things Korean, but they don’t know very much about local foods. A Buddhist monk attending the meeting from the Suan Tam forest temple in Yasothon suggested an Indigenous plant advertising campaign to be carried out by ThaiHealth. It’s a great idea, but will it hold much sway with youth or adults?

The afternoon featured small, province-based sessions to map out next steps. Yasothon will begin working on forming a green consumer club connected to the Green Market held every Saturday and develop a position for a middle-person to work with both urban consumers and producers groups. Surin will continue focusing on food security at it’s Green Market, and has recently begn accepting applications from “lite-Green” producers (those who may still use some chemical fertilizers, and are not affiliated with SFS). A CSA is also in the works for their green consumers’ club, providing pork, eggs and vegetables every week. The green consumers will also begin working with the Public Health Office to inspect food safety in the city and provide a ratings guideline for restaurants and stands throughout Surin city. Below, P Nok presents their outline for future food security work in Surin.

The network’s efforts in Ubon will focus on bringing together the diverse Green Markets and continue building consumer support. There is also interest in food ways research to help build a clearer picture of the main food ways in the province – especially with so much movement through the Jalurn Sri market in Warin. Based on this information, efforts would be directed towards creating a “safe food way” mapping project and website, for people to access information about safe food alternatives. In Sisaket, the Community Forest Network will continue working with producers on sustainable techniques and alternatives for shallot production. Many shallot producers will spray their crop with pesticides and herbicides 13 times during and after harvest. P’ Ubon Yoowah suggested that they also conduct some food way research, as the Sisaket market is a hub for the national (and regional) shallot and garlic markets. Sisaket is deeply connected with the rest of the country’s food system.

Local foods are an important response to the food security issue in Thai society. They have a lot of potential to re-emerge in our daily diet, as consumers are taking more interest. But the job of our network will be to connect province-level efforts, regionally and effectively campaign for consumer support of alternatives. In the next 2-3 months we will continue preparing and beginning local efforts. We need to start with what we have – if we want consumers to connect with the issues we’re concerned with, we need to connect them to our concrete solutions. Beginning with Green Markets and consumers’ groups is an important starting point – it is a long-term learning process that can expand locally.

Isaan Student Activism

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Education

For many university students in northeastern Thailand, life outside of class is often summed up in three words: “eat, play and sleep.” This is no different than many students in the U.S. Last week, however, I had the opportunity to join up with a network of student activist groups on the Mahasarakam University campus, including the Create Dreams Club and the People’s Farmhouse Organization. Both groups are engaged in the revival of the Student Federation of the Northeast, an organization long in existence, but which has faced membership challenges in recent years. In late August, Mahasarakam will be hosting the Federation’s Assembly, with student groups and activists from all over the region coming together for dreaming and strategizing.

On Wednesday the 15th, the Federation hosted a seminar titled “A History of Isaan Farmers’ Fight Since ‘Puu Mee Boon’ to the Present Time.” Students from Ubon Ratchatani and Khon Kaen University were also involved. The event was kicked-off with a musical performance and slideshow of rural people’s movements in Thailand, as well as La Via Campesina in Chile and the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. I was impressed by the presenters’ knowledge of these movements as it shows their efforts to connect with peoples’ movements globally. The seminar was led by P’ Leuhn of the Assembly of Famers’ and Agriculturalists, along with Joy and Muon, a young NGO and a student-activist, respectively. Most of the discussion focused on the relationship between Isaan (northeastern Thailand) and the Thai state, which historically has been characterized by state pressure to control and exploit rural communities. Isaan people were not always viewed as Thai, but more so as forest people that needed to be brought into civilization. Via the expansion of state bureaucracy and infrastructure, the state was able to exert power and control over the hinterlands.

P’ Luehn pointed out that according to the government’s democratic growth, over the past 20 years power has been put into the hands of the people. But after spending time in a lot of rural communities, this power has yet to be seen with in the people. Villagers are unable to access the government offices of environment, natural resources or land reform. The Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), during it’s short life, was able to bring change for rural people, but the government only wanted to stop the party – destroying forest, building roads and cassava promotion meant people followed government policies.

But resistance has always characterized this historical landscape of environmental degradation. Beginning with the “Puu Mee Boon” movement in Phibun, Ubon Ratchatani during the formation of the Thai state, to movements beginning more than 25 years ago for community forest rights. By 1985, communities throughout southern Isaan formed a conservation network to resist the government’s Kor Jor Gor “forest management” policy of eucalyptus plantations and community forest destruction. By the end of Kor Jor Gor in the early 1990s, with a chaotic political situation and increasing militarization in the northeast, the Assembly of the Poor (AOP) formed around a number of important issues. Representing people’s movements against large-scale dams, for slum communities’ rights, alternative agriculture (AAN), and community forest management, the AOP continues to struggle to make the people’s voice heard. P’ Luehn concluded by again pointing out that power is still not the people’s, and asked simply, “where does exploitation come from? Why are villagers exploited?”

Muon, a student-activist from Mahasarakam, continued the discussion on the present day socio-political situation in the northeast. He pointed out, “Students don’t feel they have anything to do with farmers – these issues aren’t connected to them. But students can be a force for justice in society and work with their energy for farmers. Farms surround this university – I saw two older farmers working in the fields recently, while two students were flirting with each other right nearby. It made me think, what are these people thinking? Maybe they just see the farmers as low class, but they fail to see the importance of these farmers or respect them.”

Following up on this ignorance on the part of students, Joy described a conventional educational system in which students are supposed to study, go to class and once finished, get a good-paying job. But to young NGOs like Joy, there is still a lot to learn from traditional wisdom in society. Joy also put a request out to students to go and work with villagers and see how it makes them feel – does it bring happiness?

The exchange that followed the seminar was wide-ranging and lively. There was some consensus created that many students do care about social and environmental issues, but they need someone to help them approach these issues and help them begin to work for change. Further, the student-activist groups were told by a few professors they need to believe that they can have a role in future societal change. As Isaan farmers’ struggles are for their survival, students can have a role in expressing this struggle. Yet class self-awareness is a challenge, as youth no longer want to be farmers or even help their families in the fields anymore. This also prevents students from seeing the value in activism. Few students are like Muon, who pointed out that as the son of a farmer, he wants to complete his education and continue his father’s livelihood.

In the evening following the seminar, everyone gathered at the nearby evening market and hooked up the amps and speakers for a concert and campaign event. The night was filled with protest songs, folk songs and even a few pop hits. At one point, a student from Khon Kaen got on stage and made a call to students to join in and work for change, which was definitely the most moving part of the night. The market served as a great forum, as students sat and ate their noodle soup and listened (at least we hope) to what we had to say. After the show was over, we headed back to the People’s Farmhouse to plan out next steps for the Federation’s assembly in August and plenty of discussion late into the rainy night.

Action

The student-activist network in Mahasarakam isn’t all talk. When classes were over on Friday, six students, along with Udee and P’ Breeo from the AAN came here to Baan Non Yang in Yasothon province for a weekend-long photography class for local youth. The group even got out into AAN President Paw Bunsong Mahtkao’s fields to help with rice transplanting.

P’ Wik, from the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation in Bangkok was our teacher for the weekend, as she is a talented photographer with some teaching experience. Students got to take the lead in learning techniques for photocomposition, tone, balance and content. We all worked together in small groups and gave feedback on each other’s photos throughout the weekend. In the end, the local high school and middle-school students, who rarely have the opportunity to pick up a camera, took beautiful photographs and I think they got a lot out of walking around their community and finding interesting things to take photos of or talking with villagers before taking their photo.

While this past weekend’s activities were small and may not seem all that “activist-y,” they represent students’ genuine interest in working with rural communities and taking the time to work with villagers. For these activists, their time at Mahasarakam means a lot more than “eat, play, sleep.” By working to inform and educate their classmates on campus and heading into rural communities with their free time, these students represent a tradition of activism on which many Thai NGO careers are built. Their efforts are enabled by the strength of farmers’ organizations like the AAN, which welcome students into their communities and help coordinate activities, despite even this season’s busy planting schedule.

Since studying with CIEE Khon Kaen in 2006, I’ve wanted to learn more about the student movement in the northeast and engage with young Thai activists. It is important that these student networks are working to revive the Student Federation of the Northeast. Simply organizing events like the ones this past week represents an empowering process of coordination and critical involvement. I look forward to seeing where this movement will go next.

Coming Together for Food Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Here's a post I recently submitted to Organic on the Green - some thoughts on the possibilities for food and agriculture movement organizing after the 2009 ENGAGE Global Convergence:

How do we form new relationships within this growing movement for sustainable agriculture and food justice? Where are the opportunities and what are the limitations?

As someone who has gained from the diversity of food and agriculture blogs (as well as building my own - surinfarmersupport.org), I’m often content with accessing new information and campaign updates via the web. It’s been an important tool for educating us all on important and complex issues. This medium will only go further in empowering our ideas for what a more sustainable and just food system should look like.

Further, as an activist living in Thailand and working with Thai farmers and NGOs, much of my connection to the movement in the U.S. has been built upon e-mail messages and blogpost comments. This is what it has to be, given time differences and schedules. And, I do feel connected – Civil Eats posted a link to my blog, and the Greenhorns invited me to post on their Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles.

Yet, at the same time, activists online seem to spend a lot of time debating – I’m thinking here about the comfood discussion this winter about Alice Waters’s food elitism or last week’s back and forth about the validity of the term “food desert. Yes, Alice Waters says some elitist things and yes, food desert is an “inadequate term” (thank you, Brahm Ahmadi of People’s Grocery). It seems we spend a lot of time critiquing our agreement, which is important for uniting the movement under similar language, yet when folks actually come together, share ideas and work for a common cause, this movement benefits greatly.

This coming together is the working model for the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) in Thailand. Realizing that Thailand is a much smaller country, one thing I’ve begun to realize is the importance of forming local groups or networks. When Thai farmers, activists and NGOs are able to spend a day or two critically approaching their work and planning for future efforts, the AAN maintains it’s direction and strengthens allies throughout Thailand and abroad.

Upon returning to the U.S. for a visit this summer, I realized the simple beauty (and importance) of seeing people face-to-face and exchanging with them, discussing current issues and planning out solutions. I’ve been away from the U.S. for one year and will be away for another, and despite the current recession, the movement here for a better food system continues going forward and gaining strength. Though Costco seems to now be filled with organic carrots, lettuce and apples from all over the world, small farmers’ markets are popping up all over the country. Meanwhile, organizations like Our School at Blair Grocery are empowering urban youth in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Here we have opportunities for critique and celebration.

This past weekend at the 2009 ENGAGE National Convergence, I got to learn more about the work happening in New Orleans for food justice, as well as link up with Kandace Vallejo, Erica Dodt and Dylan Cook from the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA). (Thanks to Gillian’s last post - Bigger Than Just Tomatoes - for introducing their work). ENGAGE is a coalition of returned study abroad students that builds lifelong connections and cooperative action between peoples and social movements working towards a just and sustainable world. It was great to make these new friends and build allies for ENGAGE and Thailand's Alternative Agriculture Network. Together, we organized a workshop and brainstormed ways for ENGAGE members to get more involved with fair food around the country.

How are we going to connect rice farmers in northeastern Thailand with Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian immigrant tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida? We’ve got plenty of ideas and we look forward to acting in solidarity for the CIW Encuentro in October. There are a lot of challenges in bringing together the different parts of this movement, but we can’t overlook the value of sitting down together for a common goal. Nor can we fail to integrate all the tools that Internet communication provides for us. And I hope that more local, regional meetings or convergences will be important in the future of coordinating our efforts. How do we find a balance? What do you think are our next steps?

Sanitsuda speaks

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Here's an important Op-Ed from Sanitsuda Ekachai, an editor for the Bangkok Post:

Fear of foreigner on the farm

Hands off! The back-breaking rice farming work is only for Thais. If you are a foreigner wanting to invest in farming here, our laws allow you to partake only in the more profitable business of food processing and other agriculture-related investments which require high capital and technology.

No, no, you foreigners cannot engage in contract-farming here, either. That would turn independent farmers into hired hands on their own land. That would be daylight robbery. Only Thai agro giants can do that and still call it agricultural development!

But if you still want to invest in farming, get a Thai front. The law says it is okay if the paperwork states that your Thai partners own up to 51%. Reality does not count.

No, this is not a joke. This is how our laws on farming protection work.

What is more stunning is that when the government cited this law to appease the nationalist outcry against the Gulf Cooperation Council's interest in rice farming here, it worked like magic in ending the anxiety, leaving the real issue - that of environmentally destructive farming - as unaddressed as ever.

Should we allow foreigners to invest in farming in Thailand? When the world is galvanised by global warming and economic globalisation amid depleting natural resources, this is no longer an applicable question.

Intensive chemical farming has hardened the soil, destroyed the organisms that nourish soil fertility, and severely contaminated the waterways and the food chain with cancer-inducing residues. Is this not a crime if the Thais do it?

What if some foreign investors want to invest in ecological farming; should we say no to them? Rice farming is a politically sensitive issue because rice is not only a major export but also a national symbol of sorts. But if the government wants to protect poor farmers, why have its policies principally served the middlemen and exporters while strengthening the grip of agro-business monopoly?

Thai or not, no one should be allowed to engage in farming which destroys the ecology and poses health threats to society. Period.

Is it possible that our fear of land grabbing by oil-rich Arabs has political, even racist, elements? When ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra wanted to introduce a rice farming scheme from the Middle East, he was lambasted as engaging in a sell-out. PM Abhisit Vejjajiva certainly does not want to be seen as following in the same footsteps.

But why a thunderous no to the Arabs, when no one in power has paid any attention to the Chinese investors who have massively cut down the forests in the North for their orange plantations, filling the valleys with the deathly stench of toxic farm chemicals? And had it not been for fierce opposition from grassroots groups, China would have enjoyed the eucalyptus tree farms deal from the Forestry Department, too.

Aren't orange and eucalyptus plantations farming activities?

Amid fears of land-grabbing foreigners, the Democrat government is all set to give local landlords a big bonanza. Deputy Interior Minister Thaworn Senneam has promised to elevate some one million informal land ownership papers called Sor Kor I into fully-fledged land title deeds within February next year. Such a rush will make it next to impossible to investigate land ownership irregularities.

Many Sor Kor I sites are located in the commons, on scenic hills, or by the beaches where they should not be. Thanks to corruption, they are already in the hands of land speculators.

The land reform movement demands the return of this illegally acquired land to be distributed to the landless under a community ownership system. The government said yes to one such pilot project, then immediately announced a plan to reward the landlords.

The landlords are Thai, Mr Thaworn claims in defense. And the more land you own, the more taxes you will be paying to the state, he added. With such an absurd rationale, there is no hope for land reform - and the political instability rooted in social injustice will continue with no end.

Santisuda provides useful commentary on the issue presented in my last post. Contract farming, as already carried out by companies like CP, has meant farmers becoming laborers on their own land (or what once was theirs). We certainly ought to imagine what land reform for ecological farming could look like - think MST in Brasil - but fault also lies with Thai consumers. Consolidation into the hands of Thai or multi-national agribusiness is partly the result of domestic consumer demand, as people deserve convenience, but serving foods that represent injsutice and unsustainability. Why do we love Chinese or northern Thai oranges so much? If we knew the kinds of pesticides sprayed on them, would we still eat them? The same goes for cabbage, apples and many other popular fruits and vegetables. Alongside fair redistribution of land, we ought to also envision a new consumerism, that looks to local and regional food culture. As my friend Samrat often says - กินสิ่งที่ฉันปลูก ปลูกสิ่งที่ฉันกิน - eat what you plant, plant what you eat.

No land grab in Thailand, for now...

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:14:00 +0000

From the Food Crisis and Global Land Grab blog:

Thailand says no to farm investment by foreigners

BANGKOK, June 23 (Reuters) - Thailand said on Tuesday it would not allow foreigners to invest in farming and livestock businesses in the country, after requests from several Arab investors.

“According to our laws and our policy, foreigners or foreign companies are not allowed to rent or buy land to grow rice or any kind of food, including raising any livestock in Thailand,” Deputy Commerce Minister Alonkorn Pollabutr told reporters.

He referred to Thailand’s Foreign Business Act (1999), which forbids foreigners from owning businesses relating to farming and livestock.

Thailand is the world’s biggest rice and rubber exporter, producing around 30 million tonnes of paddy and around 3 million tonnes of rubber sheet annually.

The law allows foreigners to run farm businesses in Thailand in the form of a joint-venture company in which Thais must own at least 51 percent.

Gulf Arab countries are targeting investments in farmland and agricultural businesses in developing countries after rampant inflation last year highlighted their dependence on food imports.

Bahrain-based Islamic bank Al Salam has signed an agreement with Thai agriculture and food company Charoen Pokphand Foods to jointly invest in agricultural businesses.

Alongkorn said several countries had expressed interest in investing in growing food in Thailand since he made official visits to the Middle East from March.

The issue was expected to be raised in the first ministerial meeting between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on June 29-30 in Manama.

The GCC groups Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

I think this is one of the more sensible Thai laws. Denying this land grab (backed by CP, no surprise) sends an important message about agricultural land in the Global South. National food security in the Middle East is more important than trying to circumvent the global market for surplus grain and future hoarding/speculation. If only Thailand's neighboring countries would reject these land grabs as well.

from Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:48:00 +0000

Spent last week in Hong Kong - a surprisingly green (and expensive) city. Lots of incredible food and fun times. Got to meet with Fair Partners - but more on this in the next post. A number of shops and restaurants sold organic, Fair Trade coffee - it seems like there is a "green consumer" base on the island. The cost of living is so high that it seems like any premium is worth paying. There are beautiful, old Chinese working bikes with double top tubes and huge front racks, but they were only ridden by old Chinese men.

Here are some of Dan's photos from our trip:

On one of our first mornings, Nolan took us out to Red Pepper for some amazing Szechuan food - everything burned like back in Thailand, but had an unbelievable range of flavors. The Chinese eat a lot less rice than Thais, so we didn't have a big plate of rice to balance out our pallets. We walked out of the place completely overwhelmed (only to expect a classic American BBQ at the American Club for dinner). The foot traffic around Causeway Bay almost took me out. Below are some really nice looking planters we passed on the way to lunch. They were organized by some neighborhood group. No one was growing food, but I could see these fitting in well on sidewalks all over Southeast Asia:

We took the ferry out to Lamma island on one of our first days. Most homes had small gardens with papaya and lime trees in abundance. If I lived in Hong Kong, this would be the place to stay. According to my friend Diane, it's the "hippy island" and compared to the pace of life in Central, I see what she means. There was a natural foods store on Lamma Island - walking inside was like going to Morning Glory Natural Foods in Brunswick, ME - hemp scent and all.
We ate at this incredible seafood restaurant when we got off the ferry. Clams in a spicy black bean sauce, sweet and sour fried grouper, crab in a garlic sauce, garlic shrimp, honey and black pepper shrimp, and on and on. There were a number of small shellfishermen in the harbor, I guess many of the fishermen live in the shacks on their raft of nets. After reading this article in the New York Times a few years back, I had much worse images in my mind, but the island was clean and the food was delicious. We hiked to the other side of the island to find a large power plant and a singular wind turbine - quite the dichotomy. But perhaps it's symbolic for China's growth? We later went to Macau (bad decision) and saw a large hillside covered in turbines. It's kind of like China is using all the coal it can get it's hands on first, and then building up a green infrastructure as back-up.

Later in the week, we headed out to what we thought was Kowloon, but turned out to be the New Territories. Our friend Sandy told us about the Tai Po Market, so we took the train to check it out. I guess it was technically mainland China, because gone were all the white people and high-end restaurants and bars. We made our way to the market and were amazed by all the seafood and meats on the first floor:
The whole thing was great, and it was nice to get a sense for how urban folks in the New Territories shop for fresh foods. Below, granny smith apples and lemons from the U.S. Mangoes, probably from Thailand.
The market was pretty huge and clean, but mostly conventional produce was being sold. We couldn't really talk to anyone there beyond smiles and stares, but as Dan was asking me if I thought some of the produce was chemical-free, I saw some pretty organic-looking carrots and was surprised to see this:
We had walked into the organic section of the market. There were probably 10 different vendors, all selling very attractive, certified organic produce. It was a nice thing to experience, and I think speaks loudly about where urban consumers in this part of China are heading. For organic producers to have their own section of a large, busy market like Tai Po is really impressive and it must mean they have a decent market share. Below, Dan contemplates the roasted duck he wants to eat while staring at organic veggies, really nice looking (native?) corn, and a few advertisements for local CSAs.

I got to nerd out on local food info and Dan got his duck. We ate it in the upstairs cafeteria with some watery coffee and a very confused Chinese waitress. The soup they were serving looked like a really bland ก๋วยเตี๋ยวน้ำ noodle soup, so I think we made the right choice. Hong Kong was full of surprises, but I am really impressed. Next time I need a breakfast sandwich and I've got $200 to blow, I'm heading back.

If anyone can read the Chinese on the second to last photo, I would love to know what it means.

Tabthai to Bangkok and Back

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:21:00 +0000

I just found out about my friend Dan's blog - The Last Blog (บลอกสุดท้าย) - he's living in Bangkok building acoustic guitars and hanging out with applied arts students from Chulalongkorn University (also trying to find employment in the Green Building world...). He's also a really talented photographer. Dan and I stayed together (along with Sandy Chapman, who begins his internship with the Thailand Development Research Institute this week) with Bruan and Chaba Tandee when we were students with CIEE in Fall 2006. They are a young organic farming family and have worked with SFS for several years. Below are some photos from December 2006, when Dan and I visited after ending our semester:
In 2006 and 2007, Bruan left his bean patch after the New Years to work construction in Bangkok - this year, Chaba joined him. I wanted to share one Dan's recent blog posts about visiting our "family," as they worked construction in Bangkok for this year's dry season. After my family visited Tabthai village in late December and the New Year's festivities were over, Bruan and Chaba left their children in the care of their grandparents and headed for the big city. Here's Dan's post from April:

Visiting my parents

When I studied in Thailand 3 years ago, I stayed with a family in Surin Province that grew organic rice and other crops. The 5 days that I stayed there were some of the best of my semester, which is why I went back to visit them a few times. Last year one of my home-stay parent's lost their mother. At the end of the growing season they harvested all their rice, but instead of selling it they stored it for their kids and relatives and moved to Bangkok to work. In order to make merit for the temple they needed to make more money than their harvest would provide, so they came to work in construction just outside of Bangkok. Last week I went to visit them before they returned home to Surin for the New Year. They were working on a restaurant behind a gas station near Rama 2 Road. About 30 minutes from my apartment (without traffic). The day I went to see them, they were pouring the cement framing of the restaurant.

There were 7 other people working at the site, and with me and my parents we had 10 hands. The work went pretty fast as I helped them in an assembly-line fashion. Wearing jeans that day was a bad idea, as I was drenched in sweat and cement in the end.

We finished pouring the cement around 6:30, just as the sun was disappearing behind the distant skyscrapers, and went into their home for some dinner and rice whiskey. We sat in my parents room, drinking rice whiskey and eating chips and cookies that I had brought for them. We talked about Isaan, the northeast of Thailand where they all came from. They invited me to come see them at their homes, which I'm planning on doing soon.

Thanks to Dan for the blog post and photos. Chaba and Bruan have been back home since the Songkran holidays in mid-April and will be starting their rainy season rice transplanting soon. Organic farming has proven to be a sustainable livelihood for their young family, but their decision not to sell rice this season and the financial burdens of merit-making has has a real impact on their way of life. This family rents 6 rai of land (just over 2 acres, for the cost of rice) and will need to consume much of their rice production over the course of the year. Thankfully, however, weekly income from the Green Market is enough to cover costs of living (below, Chaba butchering organic pork at the Thurs. mobile Green Market).

When funerals are organized, families will spend much of their savings on music and dance performances, elaborate menus and donations to the local temple. There is a real social pressure to make the funeral as elaborate and attractive as possible. Those who attend the funeral traditionally bring a small donation and some uncooked rice, but it is often not enough to cover all costs. All of these elements combine into a complicated social and financial situation for small-scale farming families like the SFS members in Tabthai village. The transition to genuine sustainability can be a long one, especially for families with little to no financial resources. The challenges presented by social structure and changing norms about merit-making may be something organic farming cannot yet reasonably approach, but the Isaan farmers' struggle for food sovereignty and healthy, sustainable communities will continue...

Organic Ag. in India!

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:35:00 +0000

Here's a great story about India's response to the Green Revolution. These farmers' experiences are really similar to those in Thailand and though they've only been at it for 5 years, their yields will improve. But beyond yields, these farmers are growing a diversity of crops that provide seasonal foods and more income. It's a completely different story from this one from a couple months ago.

When is NPR going to write a story like this about organic farming here in Thailand?

In India, Bucking The 'Revolution' By Going Organic

by Daniel Zwerdling

Morning Edition, June 1, 2009 · Indian farmer Amarjit Sharma grows wheat and other crops on five acres in the heart of the region known as "the breadbasket of India," the fertile fields of Punjab.

Until four years ago, he was the kind of farmer whom government leaders and agricultural scientists hailed as a model in the developing world.

But now, he has gone organic and is part of a quiet but growing rebellion, which could affect the world's food crisis.

Decades ago, when the modern, chemical-reliant system of farming — the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s — swept across his region, Sharma became one of its biggest boosters. He abandoned traditional methods and embraced synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and modern, high-yield seeds, much like any farmer in Iowa.

And for about 20 years, Sharma says, the Green Revolution worked wonders. His crop yields and his income soared. But then, things unraveled.

"The Punjabi farmer's problems had reached such levels, he wasn't making any profit," Sharma says, through an interpreter, as he walks through rows of his waist-high wheat crop.

Kicking The Chemical Habit

Sharma's soil was deteriorating, so he had to buy more and more fertilizer every year to grow the same amount of crops. No matter how much pesticide he sprayed, insects still destroyed large portions of his crops. Sharma says he "realized the vicious circle in which we were stuck."

In 2005, Sharma kicked the chemical habit.

Environmental groups in India estimate that more than 300,000 farmers like Sharma have switched to organic growing methods in recent years, or have started the transition from conventional to organic farming. Comparisons between India and the U.S. are difficult because their economies and cultures are so different. But consider this: India has about three times the population of the U.S., but 30 times more organic farmers than the U.S.

Sharma's story symbolizes the dilemma that developing countries are facing around the world: What's the most sustainable way to grow enough food? The answers will eventually affect people from India to Indiana, because the world's population is booming — and if fast-growing countries like India can't feed themselves, it could trigger more global instability.

Agribusiness leaders and many government officials are convinced that genetic engineering will help prevent a world food crisis. Firms like Monsanto Co. have been inserting genes from animals and bacteria into plants so they can grow faster with less water and resist insects.

Monsanto's India spokesman, Christopher Samuel, says the company's advances will double the yields of major crops over the next 20 years, while reducing the amount of land, water, fertilizer and pesticides needed — in the process "protecting the environment and its natural resources," he says.

But activists in India are trying to block Monsanto and other companies from introducing genetically engineered food crops. They point out that it took decades to raise the alarm about serious, long-term side effects of the Green Revolution. They also say that, so far, there are not good studies examining whether biotech food crops could cause long-term problems.

Organic Farming Spreads In India

So a network of environmental groups has been traveling from village to village, preaching that organic farming is the only way that farmers can survive.

Sharma heard their sermon and became a believer.

He argues that organic means much more than simply not spraying synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. It requires farming in a more thoughtful way, he says.

For example, government policies under the Green Revolution have rewarded farmers for growing "monocultures" — vast areas of a single crop, such as wheat or rice. That can help boost yields, but studies show it has leached crucial nutrients from Punjab's soil, requiring farmers to use five to 10 times as much fertilizer as they used to about two decades ago.

Organic farmers like Sharma grow a mixture of crops in the same fields as their wheat or rice, including types of beans that replenish the soil — so they don't have to buy fertilizer. By growing a variety of crops, they also attract beneficial insects, which take the place of synthetic pesticides.

The difference between Sharma's farm and his chemical-using neighbor's is visible. The neighbor's fields are like an endless green shag carpet. Sharma's farm is like a busy quilt — a patchwork of wheat, beans and mustard plants exploding in bunches of bright yellow flowers.

Mixed Results, Hope For The Future

In the courtyard of his house in the village of Chaina, Sharma reviews his balance sheets.

"Our rice yields under the organic system are almost as good as before," he says, as his wife scoops up cow manure with her hands and pats it into disks to fuel the cooking fire. "And we're spending much less money on inputs, since we're not buying pesticides and fertilizer — although labor costs have increased."

On the downside, Sharma concedes that since he went organic, his wheat yields have fallen in half.

But he is optimistic. "I've been farming organically only for four years now. My land is still recovering from the Green Revolution. So I'm sure my yields will increase," he says.

Imagine how much organic farmers might be able to produce, Sharma says, if India's government spent even a fraction of the billions of dollars it has spent promoting chemical farming.

"We are not worried about how much yield we will get," he says. "We are worried about our families, and our children. We want them to be healthy. We will never sell or eat poison."

India's organic movement is getting some support from influential voices in the agriculture industry. Late last year, the Punjab State Farmers Commission, which advises the agriculture department, published a report that angered organic activists by concluding that if all farmers across India went organic — including in Punjab, the most intensively cultivated region — food production would drop and "seriously jeopardize the national food security."

But the commission's chairman, Gurcharan Kalkat, says the researchers reached another conclusion: "For 70 percent of the area in the country (outside Punjab), farmers must go for organic farming," he says, because organic methods will replenish the soil and improve their productivity. As for Punjab, the report concluded that 20 percent of its farmers could go organic and remain productive, too.

And the report says government scientists should begin to help them now.

"They should collect all the new [organic] techniques," Kalkat says, "so that over the next two years we are in a position to say, 'If you want to do organic farming, this is the way to do it.'"

Food, Inc.

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:51:00 +0000

Food, Inc. looks like an amazing documentary:

Their 10 simple things list:

1 - Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).
2 - Eat at home instead of eating out.
Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.
3 - Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.
4 - Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years.
5 - Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week.
An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
6 - Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
7 - Protect family farms; visit your local farmer's market.
Farmer's markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
8 - Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.
The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
9 - Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.
10 - Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections.
Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.

ENGAGE Convergence 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:56:00 +0000

Exciting Stuff - the ENGAGE Convergence was just announced on the Greenhorns blog!
Let's hope some Greenhorns in the Carolinas can join us for some exchange and future collaboration. I'm headed back to the U.S. from June 12 to July 8 - so I'll get to catch the Greenhorns Goat Spit Summer Throwdown event in Brooklyn, NYC. These two events could build new relationships between ENGAGE and the Greenhorns, and we can work together for a more sustainable and just food system.

Check out the ENGAGE Convergence announcement below:

Greenhorns, this is a solid opportunity for collaboration and activism. The convergence organizers would like to make farming and food activism a bigger part of ENGAGE. Let’s help them do that!

The ENGAGE Convergence brings students, educators, organizers, community members, and other allies together to reflect on the year’s work, to share victories and struggles, to learn from one another, and to set a course for the coming year.

Past Convergences have been held in Boston, Oakland, San Francisco, and Virginia. This is the second year that the Spartanburg Educators for Empowered Communities (SEEC) will host the Convergence in Upstate South Carolina, and it is the first year that SEEC will host the Convergence entirely in its home community of Glendale (photo inserted above).

Dates: Friday, June 26th to Sunday, June 28th. Please try to arrive in the early evening on Friday, and plan to stay through the late afternoon of Sunday. We hope to have as many folks as possible stay for introductions and evaluations. A more specific agenda is forthcoming.

Costs: The Convergence funds itself from what the participants can pay on a sliding scale. This year, the funding scale will be from $40.00 to $60.00. We will collect your contribution at Friday evening’s registration. Costs will go towards: food for Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning and afternoon; gas expenses for local coordinators during the Convergence; office/workshop supplies for the weekend; and honorariums for guest speakers, workshop facilitators, and community hosts. Please bring extra money if you intend to purchase alcohol, cigarettes, or anything outside of basic meals.

Also, please do not let costs prohibit you from being a part of the Convergence. If you have any concerns about paying, please contact spartanburgeducators@gmail.com so that something can be worked out.

Ashoka Changemaker?

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:09:00 +0000

This past week, SFS entered the Ashoka Changemakers' "Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities" competition! We're hoping to recieve a grant to support our Community Biodiesel Learning Center concept, which will train local farmers how to make biodiesel from recycled cooking oil. The process is only a few steps, and it produces an efficient, sustainable alternative for farmers' walking tractors.

Please check out our application and feel free to post comments on the Changemakers website. The competition looks pretty fierce, but it's always worth a try!

Big Chef!

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:44:00 +0000

Sawatdee from a rainy day here in Ban Non Yang, Yasothon Province. The past few weeks have been very busy and we haven't found time to update this site. This past week, CIEE students were helping with the Non Yang Food Ways research project, which concluded on sunday with a community forum. More to come on this research project later.

Here's a report from last month's Big Chef Conference:

(P' Kanya's organic pork: what about swine flu?)

April 27-29 brought the AAN’s four regions together in Tamor sub-district for the long-awaited Big Chef Conference. The meeting focused on a few major issues for our national network, and brought farmer-leaders together to exchange about challenges and successes in their local efforts.

(an attentive audience at the Khok Buk Forest Temple)

One major topic was the upcoming Office for Agricultural Reform and Quality of Life – an independent institution which will spend the next 8 months developing a working plan for supporting sustainable agriculture on a larger scale: connecting farmers with organic transition and training programs (inside and outside of the AAN), ending the use of chemicals, and changing government policies on the local level to support diverse production for local markets. After the 8-month research and planning period, the government will decide whether or not to move forward with a long-term agriculture reform ministry or similar type of organization. The Abhisit government is being surprisingly supportive of the AAN and sustainable agriculture more generally. At the Conference, however, our network decided to reject a proposal to sign on to the Farmers’ Congress, a set of regulations and clauses that many activists regard as similar to the U.S. Farm Bill.

During Day 1, P’ Ubon (above) reminded the audience that the word gasetagawn (agriculturalist or farmer) came after the use of the word utsahagam (industry). Farmers have always referred to themselves as chow naa and chow baan (farmer and villager), which reflects the ways in which farming is a way of life and a part of rural culture, not just a career in relation to industrialized society. Remembering the terms associated with this cultural identity is increasingly important for small farmers who are faced with the “specialization” of work and loss of traditional knowledge. This line of thinking moves along the same lines as the Spanish campesino movement, which reinforces peasant identity as an important force for change in society.

Day 2 featured a presentation from yours truly (farang, above) on the sustainable agriculture movement in the U.S. in the midst of the current economic crisis. I focused on the growth of the organic and fair trade sectors in 2007-08, the progress made by Slow Food, the campaigns organized by the AFF/CIW for food justice and fair wages for farm labor, and I tried my best to explain the Greenhorns “agricultural revival” and the Real Food Challenge, both of which are important youth-led movements for sustainable agriculture and local food systems. Finally, I talked about the significance of the Obama’s White House Organic Garden (which most of the audience already knew about) – here’s to 20 million American’s tending their kitchen garden’s seedlings as we move into summer!

P’ Kachai from Focus on the Global South swept in for a late-morning presentation on the relationship between the global economic crisis, the food crisis of 07-08 and global warming and Thailand’s agriculture sector. I won’t go into the details (partly because I couldn’t keep up with many of them), but his talk was mainly focused on price speculation in agricultural commodities and the coming drop in prices. He also gave a clear explanation of the sources of the food crisis (one interesting fact: between 1980 and 2008, chemical fertilizer usage increased from 12 to 112 kilograms per square kilometer). As is the case at many network-wide conferences, these types of presentations help local farmers to develop their own knowledge of global issues and link their communities’ experience to the struggle for alternatives to neoliberal globalization.

The next Big Chef Conference will be held in two years. But in the time between, the AAN will work to form a broader assembly focused on sustainable agriculture and health, based in what is accomplished by the Office for Agricultural Reform and Quality of Life. These are important opportunities for the AAN, and we will continue moving forward for positive social and environmental change throughout communities around Thailand.

Draining Slowly?

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:17:00 +0000

From The Bangkok Post on April 22 (photo above from the Tatoom district market - April 30):

Life is slowly draining from the farms: Fewer young people want to plant rice any more.

It is a job that produces the staple food of more than 60 million Thais, but rice farming these days is increasingly being left to aging farmers like Boonma Kantasorn.

At the age of 57, Mr Boonma works on rice farms in a village in Nong Saeng district, just as he has done for the past four decades.

"Rice farmers here are older than before. The majority of them are in their 40s and beyond," he said.

Like most families in the area, his three grown-up children took advantage of educational opportunities their parents never had, and have now opted for jobs in Saraburi town and Bangkok.

"My eldest son, now 28, has worked at a factory in Bangkok since he finished high school."

His second child works for a bank, and the third is employed in a local copy service shop.

"I told my children to carry on with their jobs, because they can earn more than me. Here you cannot get a steady income."

The flow of young people from rural areas to towns and cities could eventually result in the loss of a new generation of farmers, said Rice Department director Prasert Gosalvitra.

"There is a growing national trend which is seeing more aging farmers and fewer younger ones," he said. "The new generation just doesn't want to do it."

This reflects a reality that, with many rice farmers amassing debt and seeking financial rescue from the government, the occupation is fast losing its appeal with younger generations.

The number of people working in the farm sector is declining across the board, according to the Office of Agriculture Economics (OAE).

In 2006, Thailand had about 25 million farmers, who accounted for 40% of the population. About 10 years ago, half of the country's population farmed, but last year the figure had dropped to 23.8 million.

If the trend continues the agency estimates the number is likely fall to 37% of the population by 2013. This could threaten the country's food-producing capacity.

Witoon Lianchamroon of BioThai Foundation, a non-government organisation campaigning for increased biodiversity, said the situation was worrying and the government must act to reverse the trend, otherwise investors will exploit the opportunity to implement industrial farming methods.

"In the next 30 years, there'll be a much higher demand for food than now," he said. Investors could then rent or buy land from farmers to invest in large-scale farming, agricultural processing plants and hiring local people.

"The state must not encourage such investment," Mr Witoon said.

Farmers nationwide are increasingly selling their land then renting it back to grow rice, Mr Prasert said. "In the central region about 60% of land formerly owned by farmers is now occupied by non-farmers," he said.

OAE statistics show the total area of farm land in 2006 was about 130 million rai. Of that, about 93 million rai was owned by farmers, and 25% of this was mortgaged.

Mr Prasert said it was critical rice farming be made a more secure and profitable occupation by finding ways to reduce production and logistics costs, increase productivity and improve irrigation.

There should be better welfare for farmers and more local cooperatives to strengthen their capacity, he said.

Mr Witoon said farmers should have better access to markets, more negotiating power with traders, and have guaranteed security in terms of income and improved livelihoods.

In an effort to "mark the beginnings of a new generation of farmers", the Education and Agriculture and Cooperatives ministries last year initiated a project in selected colleges to make agriculture more business-savvy.

But for Aekalak Boonma, 22, whose parents are farmers in Phayao, rice farming would not be his ideal job no matter how profitable it was.

"I wouldn't do it. It's a tiring, laborious job," said Mr Aekalak, who moved to Bangkok after finishing high school and currently works in a convenience store to put himself through college.

"Even if we can earn more from it, it's money we only get once or twice a year. At home, people my age have moved out to work somewhere else."

The crisis of conventional farming in Thailand lends itself to the viability of alternatives. More "business-savy" farming should mean small-scale, sustainable production for local markets - this is where gov't institutions can support farmers. This past week, the Ban Non Yang farmers' group recieved funding for a "Career Seedling" training for people returning home from Bangkok, young farmers or conventional farmers looking to transition. Farmer to farmer training in organic farming will help make agriculture a desirable career for the future of food in Thailand.

Paw Bunsong Matkhao on China

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Here's a recent note written by AAN president Paw Bunsong Matkhao, after returning home from a trip to China with Focus on the Global South and other parts of our network:

What I've learned about Chinese Society.

Chinese society has changed faster than I thought. I thought China was a type of socialism, but I now see it’s also capitalist. Industry has developed and agricultural labor is currently moving towards working in industry. This is very similar to Thailand 30 years ago. You have Chinese farmers that think the problem of land limitation is a good thing. Farming means production for self-sufficiency, but if you’re able to find work elsewhere, you can earn a better income.

Once you have enough money to build a new home, your thinking begins to change. In this way, China is really entering the capitalist system within state controls. The space between rural and urban Chinese is wide. Pressure on the environment is great because of the expansion of industry. Water is polluted. There are impacts on the agricultural system, as the atmosphere is being poisoned. I got to see the agricultural system and it really worried me. If I were a farmer who ditched my land for industrial work like those in Thailand, it won't be long before I start to fall apart, because farmers are reliant on resources from outside, they are no longer self-reliant. The amount of seeds, chemicals, pesticides that a farmer must buy are all gradually increasing. They buy seeds every year because they can't save seeds - so what will farmers be left with in the long term?

There is a great chance for Thai farmers to destroy their soil and fall apart financially. Yet one good thing about China is that the state has worked to support farmers and control land grabs. They work to develop farmers' way of thinking and have insurance programs for food security, and production-focused careers. I’m not worried about China’s role as a competitor in the agriculture sector for the long term, because China is fully pursuing industrialization of their food system. The plan for the Chinese leaders is to develop a policy to become the world’s major food producer, growing domestically or internationally and exporting food, but this will take a long time.

As for the people's movement and the work of NGOs in China, it isn't yet clear or concrete, because of a lot of limitations. For example, in the structure of NGO leadership and work, NGOs are working to help the state. They don't think to work independently, as a movement for society. China is moving into a new type of socialism, with capitalism inside of the state system. It’s going to be the fuse of a time bomb’s that creates a new time of resistance from the people. Agriculture is China is much like Thailand 30 years ago, the only thing needed is to increase production, without thinking about the environment. There is labor migration, with the agriculture sector moving towards industry more and more - but maybe this is fitting - because farmers have very little land and have very little access to information about the impacts of free trade. For example, when I asked them about low prices for their crops, they answered, "it's because the economy isn't good."

Surin Organic Learning Center: Session 3

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:47:00 +0000

Farmers from Khorat, Suratthani and several districts in Surin joined SFS from April 6 to 9. Our members taught them about making several types of compost, rice seed saving techniques (including SRI planting), organic ducks, and organic pigs (which included another set of organic composts and animal feed). Beyond techniques, our members discussed the farmers' group-building process and the small-scale farmers movement for organic farming. This report will try to keep things brief, as much of the day-to-day details are very similar to those of Sessions 2 and 3.

The Khorat farmers’ group was coming from a unique place. Though most farmers in the northeast are considered small-scale (5 to 15 acres), the Khorat group represented a more central Thai approach to agriculture, growing rice in a mostly mechanized process and planting on large paddies (farmers owned between 25 and 85 acres). Yet they were genuinely interested in learning about organic techniques and trying to apply them on a large-scale. These types of farmers often view organic farming as a step backwards (technologically and development-wise), or are convinced that their productivity will suffer if they don’t use chemicals (as do small-scale farmers). It was refreshing and encouraging meeting a group of farmers that seek an alternative, especially with the support of the BAAC – much like the groups from Chaiyapum and Ubon Ratchatani during Session 2.

P’ Daeng, from Pi Mai district, Khorat province told the group on Day 2, “I’ve come here to see people with a way of life that is self-sufficient – my home is not self-sufficient, with mostly large-scale farmers. It’s a valuable experience, seeing farmers who are self-sufficient and growing diverse, organic crops.” Self-sufficiency was an important theme throughout the session, including for those groups from other villages and districts that sell vegetables at the Green Market, but came to train further in organic rice production and seed saving. This type of event can serve as both an introduction and a refresher.

Day 4 brought reflection from the farmer-students, as they had an opportunity to talk about the organic farmers they stayed with. P’ Wirawan, who is famous for her mushrooms, earns 4 to 5 thousand baht (up to $150) per week, but she told those who stayed with her that it’s taken 10 years to feel successful – it’s about hard work, commitment and freedom. P’ Jansee, who taught the farmers about SRI and rice seed saving, has a beautiful forest surrounding his house. The farmer-students recognized the value of planting trees and having such diversity around the home. It is an important part of sustainable agriculture (beyond planting rice). P’ Pakphum, another one of our educators, helped the group recognize that money isn’t the center of all things – health and nature are more valuable to a farmer. One person realized that organic farming is about learning a way of life; it is an opportunity to change one’s life.

Paw Samrit spoke about the endless cycle of pesticide and herbicide use: “there are 5,760 species of insects in our fields. We use pesticides and our vegetables are beautiful, but then we forget about the weeds...” Worms are essential: they break down waste and we use their waste as fertilizer.

P’ Bresong spoke about his neice who is now returning home after losing her job in Bangkok. She’s returning home as a last resort, but was a burden when in Bangkok and without any money to remit to her family. Her family’s land is an opportunity to return home to.

P’ Nok told the group, “you’ve finished college, now move on to grad school – keep learning in your fields!”

P’ Yae helped conclude: “There are a lot of excuses not to farm organically – it’s hard, don’t have family help, no time, ‘just give me a minute to start…’, my soil isn’t good, etc. But just start, a little bit, and if there’s some success, then take it further – it’s all up to you.”

That pretty much wraps up our Organic Learning Center for this season. Over the next few months, farmers will begin preparing their fields for the rice-planting season. With their new knowledge gained, we hope the farmers who joined our learning sessions will begin transitioning away from using chemicals – whether they have 200 rai of land or not. Below, the farmer-student group from Pi Mai district, Khorat province.

Green Manure in Tabthai

noreply@blogger.com (Surin Farmers Support) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000

P' Bo tills under his winter mung bean crop in a paddy near the forest. Nitrogen-fixing crops like mung bean provide essential nutrients for organic soil. Paired with the leaves and microorganisms from the forest, this paddy will be ready for planting come the rainy season. Using rotational green manure crops like mung bean are an important part of sustainable agriculture here in Surin, as farmers can save seeds each season and lower the cost of fertilizer inputs like chicken manure or rice husks. Mung beans are also used to make tasty deserts and to grow bean sprouts, which are really good when stir-fried. We've also just uploaded a report on green manure crops onto the wiki.