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 "In a landmark speech in December 1997, the highly influential monarch (of Thailand) addressed the Thai people: 'To be a tiger is not important. The important thing for us is to have a self-supporting economy. A self-supporting economy means to have enough to survive. About this, I have often said that a self-sufficient economy does not mean that each family must produce its own food, weave and sew its own clothes. This is going too far, but I mean that each village or each district must have relative self-sufficiency. Things that are produced in surplus can be sold, but should be sold in the same region, not too far so that the transportation cost is minimized. Some other people say that we must have an economy that involves exchange of goods that is called 'trade economy', not 'self-sufficient economy' which is thought to be unsophisticated. However, Thailand is a country that is blessed with self-sufficient productivity…”
(The following is an excerpt from an IPlan sponsored project in Thailand. We hope to develop our center after their model and with ideas from other organic farms in the country. Also, read the following article on Farming and Us that also explains the lifestyle philosophy I espouse).
'Modern' agriculture here in Thailand strives to produce high yields of single crops such as rice, sugar and corn. Forest land is cleared to make room for large fields. Motorised farm machinery, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are all employed to increase production. These techniques do initially boost yields and their short-term success has contributed to their wide spread use.
Farmers buy or rent motorized farm equipment to care for both larger and in some cases even small fields. This is due to:
- The modern value system of consumerism i.e. "consuming"
- More than half of the family members have migrated to far away industrial and commercial areas to work - causing labour shortages for farming. Also, because they are shorthanded, they cannot keep buffaloes for farming which require daily caring.
- Limited pasture land (public and private) for buffaloes or cattle.
However, these practices are disastrous to fragile local ecologies. As the forests disappear so do their bounty of fruit trees, edible and medicinal plants and insects and other animals, which are important local food sources.
Pesticides become less effective as pests develop immunities to their poisons. More and different pesticides are needed. Pesticides along with chemical fertilizers pollute local water supplies. This is not only a health threat to humans but also kills fish and other aquatic life, which are also important food sources.
Farmers have become less self-reliant. They must buy motorized farm equipment, petrol, fertilizers and pesticides. They also have to purchase herbs, fruit, fish, insects, etc. they used to get for free from the forest. Overall, they are worse off than before modernization.
A Better Way of Farming: Permaculture
For some years now, small groups of Permaculture farms have been a successful alternative to 'modern' agricultural practices in other areas Thailand. However, Permaculture farming is just starting with model farms in the village of Nong Sai (and around Mae Sot).
Permaculture is a term coined in 1978 by Bill Morrison, an Australian ecologist, to refer to a sustainable way of farming where people and nature support one another.
Permaculture is a philosophy and an approach rather than a predefined set of farming practices. We watch the natural local ecosystem to learn how to live and produce food in harmony with nature. We also utilize techniques developed by older Permaculture farms in this area and learn from traditional farming practices. We are constantly experimenting with new ideas and improving our methods.
Plant Synergy
We grow a diversity of plants together, instead of large fields of a single crop. Banana, coconut, mango and other trees grow together along with herbs and vegetables planted in between. This is a more efficient way to use the land and is also how plants grow in nature.
- Water is conserved since run off from one plant is utilized by another.
- Food is produced throughout the year rather than one large harvest.
- Space around a maturing plant is utilized. For instance, coconut trees take many years to grow large enough to bear fruit. Several generations of banana trees can grow around the coconut tree and produce fruit during this time.
- Plants such as Sweet Lemon Grass are grown because insects do not like their smell. They act as a natural pesticide for the other plants.
- Watering and fertilizing are easier to do in a compact space so it also conserves the farmer's energy.
Natural Fertilizers
We do not use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Instead we use an organic, locally produced, liquid fertilizer, known as Grow Water. It is made by mixing a variety of local, ground up, plants with sugar, water and microorganisms from a previous batch of the fertilizer. The mixture is allowed to ferment for seven days, becoming a molasses-like fertilizer. Grow Water can then be diluted with water and used for a variety of purposes including fertilizing, grafting plants and repelling insects.
Of course rice is an important staple here. We prepare the soil for rice paddies by growing a type of bean plant in the paddy during the off-season. The bean plants are then plowed into the soil before the rice is planted to add nitrogen and humus to the field.
Less Work for the Farmer
Sustainability also requires the conservation of the farmer's energy. We plant trees and vegetables in a circle around a compost pit. Discarded plant matter is placed in the compost pit. Grow Water is sprinkled on the dead plant matter to encourage decomposition. These compost pits are referred to as Fertilizer Banks because they are a reservoir of nutrients for the crops. The trees send roots under the Fertilizer Bank and make 'withdrawals' directly. It is easy for the farmer to fertilize vegetables because the Fertilizer Bank is right next to the plants.
Fishponds
Another local technique is to plant crops around small fishponds. We contour the land into mounds and pits. The pits are then lined with plastic sheets. Rain or water pumped from nearby reservoirs turns the pits into small ponds and Grow Water is added to these ponds to encourage algae growth. Baby fish are put into the ponds to grow into a delicious food source. A variety of plants are grown on the mounds. The nutrient rich pond water is used to water the plant, conserving human energy by its close proximity to the plants. After the growing season, the mud on the bottom of the pond is used to enrich the soil.
A Better Life
Our farms are quite self-sufficient which is also important to sustainability. There is very little we need to buy. We are even able to generate income by selling surplus fruit, vegetables and fish.
It is very satisfying to work with the people of Nong Sai developing a better way to grow food. Hopefully, the children, who are learning the long-term benefits of sustainable agriculture, will spread the news in their own village, to villages throughout Thailand and the world.
Read more about Permaculture here, and Fukuoka here.
From Farming and Us (The Influence of Agriculture on Human Behavior) by Raoul A. Robinson
Of all the solar energy that falls on agricultural land, less than 0.1% of this energy is actually converted by people to food. There is room for huge improvement. Constructive fermentation that can produce antibiotics, and other complex drugs, can also be made to produce delicious flavors, vitamins and other essential food components. This development would represent a second thousand-fold increase in the carrying capacity of our environment. And it would make a total of about a million-fold increase since the days when our plant-gathering ancestors first used naturally shaped stones as tools to break large bones abandoned by carnivores, when they first became scavenger-gatherers, about two million years ago.
The significance of such a modern development is enormous. It would be remembered that much of our first thousand-fold increase was made at the expense of our love relationships and pair bonds. Provided we keep our population size close to its present level, our second thousand-fold increase could have the reverse effect. Provided that we prevent further increases in our own population, our second thousand-fold increase in the carrying capacity of our planet could restore its environment. It could also restore our human social altruism, and our system of love relationships. The restoration of our system of love relationships would result from living in some form of commune, or an extended blended family of 30-50 individuals of all ages, in which all individuals were bonded to others in the group. (This is a good description of HTF Home School) And every individual would be unselfishly concerned about the welfare of every other individual. Each such community would have plenty of land and would be able to grow their own produce if they so wished. But there would be none of the land pressures that limited food production in the past, and that led to such debilitating conflicts and wars. Each community would be surrounded by similar communities (a fair description of the villages of Thailand or Myanmar), but would be well-separated from them by nature reserves and forests. Visiting and social co-operation between communities would be greatly encouraged. All this space would become available from the abandonment of (commercial) agriculture (and its replacement by local production for local farm economies).
Cities would tend to disappear as their functions were replaced by automation and the information revolution. A complete restoration of the environment is obviously impossible because we cannot resuscitate all those species that humankind has made extinct. But the elimination of commercial agriculture would restore the environment in a way that is difficult to contemplate in its entirety. The use of crop pesticides and artificial fertilizers would cease. Huge areas of land that are now devoted to food production would become available for other uses, which would be mainly forests and nature reserves inhabited by these small communes. Really large numbers of trees would do much to solve atmospheric pollution problems, and the greenhouse effect. Our rivers, lakes, and ground-waters would recover from many of the ecological strains and stresses that we have imposed on them. And renewable clean energy, obtained from the use of solar power and fuel cells, would replace our current use of fossil fuels. This would be the reverse effect of the enormous crowding caused by agriculture, which compelled most of us to live in over-crowded villages and cities, and caused our relapse to authoritarianism. Combined with a modern knowledge of psychology, and greatly improved systems of communication and education, this new availability of land could lead to an elimination of authoritarianism. It could lead to an entirely new style of living in which everyone consciously aimed at non-authoritarianism, and at the elimination of control relationships and dominance hierarchies. Each group, or commune, would consist of several land holdings. These land holdings would ensure that each human family could enjoy nature to its utmost. Combined with the greatly increased leisure that will emerge from the information revolution, and the elimination of poverty with a system of well-distributed education, work, and wealth, the quality of human life, and human leisure, could be transformed. And humankind could eliminate forever the horrors resulting from those three brutal laws of nature. Everyone could live in complete harmony with everyone else, and in complete harmony with the whole of nature. (A good description of Taoism as I understand it).
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HTF Home School