The road to Ban Tha Hin in Songkhla's Sathing Phra district is full of dust. Both sides are dotted with countless numbers of toddy palm trees, stretching out as far as the eye can see. There's nothing conspicuous about this remote village located in the basin of Songkhla Lake, recognised as a role model for community development.
In the past two decades, the locals have turned abandoned farmland into fertile ground and raised their standard of living by introducing their own community master plan.
The brains behind it is Poonsup Srichu, 54, a farmer and housewife who found herself transformed into a community leader. Her story is an example of how a village can rely on the availability of natural resources and a sprinkle of creativity to improve the local economy and sustain the environment.
"It started around the late 1990s, when many of us were in debt and didn't have enough income to support our families," said Poonsup, a mother of two.
At that time, the prices of palm sugar and rice were very low. Fishermen stopped fishing in the Songkhla lake as the amount of catch did not cover even petrol expense. Those of working age left the village to become labourers in big cities, leaving elderly and children in the community. But the earning was not stable. After the economic crisis in 1997, many of them did not receive their wages, while others struggled to find income to support their families.
Poonsup was then chief of village health volunteers. She had an idea to form a housewives' club to produce dok mai chan, the artificial flowers used in cremation rites. The club started with 22 members among housewives and the elderly. They learned to make flowers from scratch.
"I got the idea after attending the funeral of a relative. I found that the cost of flowers for the funeral was very high. It made me think that making dok mai chan could help us earn extra income," she said.
The group produced dok mai chan from the dried leaves of toddy palm trees, a free material easy to find in the village. The business went well and caught the attraction of local authorities. They asked Poonsup to teach housewives from other villages and help them form groups to make dok mai chan.
Without intending to, Poonsup earned respect from a wider group of people in the area. The network gave her an opportunity to learn the problems facing other communities, prompting her to initiate the idea for Ban Tha Hin -- to have a master plan for developing the community based on a traditional way of living.
"The community development will be sustainable if it is done by people, not from top-down policy," she said. Poonsup had co-operation among villagers in finding the strengths and weaknesses of Ban Tha Hin, a community comprised of nine moo baan (sub-villages) and about 1,000 families. Academics were invited to analyse the data. Within a year the master plan was completed.
Identifying the three elements of node-na-le, she says: "We have toddy palm trees [tan tanode], rice paddies [na] and the Songkhla lake [le], so our master plan is to develop Ban Tha Hin as the learning centre of node-na-le."
The green way
In past generations, people in Ban Tha Hin commuted by boat. They paddled across Songkhla lake to sell produce like palm sugar and rice at the Pak Phayun market in nearby Phatthalung.
About 30 years ago, when roads became the main mode of transportation, canals became shallow while some were closed. The middlemen regulated the price of farm produce, and they were too low to keep people working on their own farms.
Farmers also changed the way they grow rice, heavily using chemical fertiliser to produce more rice.
"When I was young, my parents used bat guano and dried cow dung as fertilisers. At high tide, fish swam to our rice paddies. I saw fish spawn among fine-leaved plants. After hatching, small fish swam back to Songkhla lake. But after we used chemical fertilisers, the soil became hard and compact. I found no spawn or little fish in our paddies," said Poonsup.
The chemical compounds from rice fields of Poonsup and other farmers polluted Songkhla lake. Day by day, the amount of fish was reduced. Some species disappeared, while villagers got sick.
Poonsup stopped using chemical fertilisers. People thought she was nuts when she announced her intention to grow chemical-free rice.
"I didn't care about what other people said about me -- I only wanted my family to eat good quality rice and be healthy. I had to make my land fertile again with an organic farming method. This would also increase the fish in the lake," she said.
She also changed rice species from typical jasmine rice to local crops such as khao sang yod, or red-brown rice, today the most famous varietal from the southern province of Phatthalung. But more than a decade ago, red rice was not popular. People believed that red rice was not for the civilised, its hard texture not as tasty as polished white rice.
But the big flood in the south in 2005 changed that perception. Jasmine rice crops in Ban Tha Hin were submerged in the flood just before harvest time. Only red-rice crops on the farm of Poonsup survived as they were taller than water-level. Her neighbours started to ask her for khao sang yod rice seeds.
Poonsup took this chance to promote an organic way of farming to other farmers and taught them how to make bio-fertilisers, made of toddy palm fruits, fish heads or animal dung. Today, more than 200 farmers grow rice organically, covering a total area of 1,250 rai in the community.
For fishermen on Songkhla lake, Poonsup worked with village heads living around the lake in Songkhla and Phatthalung to form a fisherman volunteer club. They announced rules to preserve fish and did not allowing destructive fishing gear such as fine meshes to catch small fish, shocking fish with electricity and chemical poison.
They also planted mangrove trees, dug up shallow canals, released several species of fish, crab and shrimp into the lake, and dumped tires along the shore for fish habitats.
Fish gradually returned, including mullet, giant snakehead and spotted scat, or pla khitang, a popular fish sold for at least 300 baht per kilogramme.
The small housewives' group for producing dok mai chan 18 years ago has expanded to various groups with a total membership of almost 400. The different groups are fishermen, farmers planting toddy palm trees, a rice farmers, housewives who produce processed goods and a homestay service group.
Tourism for sustainability
Since the district grows a lot of toddy palm, the people have learnt to produce toddy-palm soap by using the yellow pulp inside the fruit. Poonsup came up with the idea after seeing how locals in Ban Khiriwong, in Nakhon Si Thammarat, produced soap from mangosteen.
A research team from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Prince of Songkla University was invited to examine the yellow toddy-palm soap. The lab-test results were impressive.
"The soap has high beta-carotene, which can help reduce skin damage due to strong UV-ray exposure. Our soap is also certified by the Food and Drug Administration of the Public Health Ministry and was selected as one of the top 10 Otop products of Songkhla," she said.
For the sap of toddy palm, the sweet liquid has been processed to produce ground organic palm sugar. The price per kilogramme is 300 baht, which Poonsup said is much better than producing traditional palm sugar in a metal tin box, priced at 300 baht for 10kg. The group can produce about 500kg of ground palm sugar a month and distribute it to health food outlets in Bangkok.
The strong co-operation among the people of Ban Tha Hin has opened them up to another opportunity. Funded by the Thailand Research Fund, a team of academic researchers at Prince of Songkla University conducted a feasibility study to promote the village as a destination for community-based tourism.
"I agreed with the researchers, because I knew there are groups of tourists who want to visit rural areas to see the local way of life," said Poonsup.
She founded the tourism club to offer local experiences to tourists. They have welcomed not only Thai, but foreign tourists. Those who visit the village can learn how to produce soap from the yellow pulp of toddy-palm fruits, harvest or plant rice, fish in Songkhla lake and spend the night in a village homestay.
"Sustainable tourism can help preserve our natural resources and way of life. We want other people to know more about node-na-le," she said.
At present, Poonsup works in many local groups. She is the president of the Federation of Community Organisations of Tambon Tha Hin, the chief of village health volunteers, the president of the Node-Na-Le Learning Centre, the vice-president of the Cultural Council of Songkhla Province and the Secretary of the Council of Songkhla Lake Basin. She likes working with people, but doesn't want to be a politician.
"I like community service," she said. "I'm very happy to do things that can benefit others. I don't mind if they know it -- as long as I can help, I will."
1998: Initiated by Poonsup Srichu, the housewives' club for making dok mai chan was founded with 22 members.
2001: The master plan for developing the Tha Hin community was drafted by locals and highlighted the community livelihood of node-na-le, referring to way of life related to toddy palm trees, rice paddies and Songkhla lake.
2002: The master plan was submitted to the Tambon Administration Organisation of Tha Hin to announce its policy for community development.
2005: People started to plant local rice species with organic-farming techniques. They also joined hands to release fish, prawns and crabs to Songkhla lake. The fishermen's club was founded to oversee illegal fishing activities in the lake.
2010: Research teams from Thaksin University and Prince of Songkla University confirmed the health benefits of toddy-palm herbal soap, while Rajamangala University of Technology, Srivijaya, helped redesign the packaging.
2013: Poonsup was awarded the Outstanding Mother for Environmental Conservation from the Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies at Mahidol University, as she played an important role in conserving the environment and was a role model to the community.
2014: A housewives' group for food processing introduced ground toddy palm sugar in sealed packages. The organic ground palm sugar, toddy-palm soap and organic rice are certified as the Otop (One Tambon, One Product) of Songkhla.
Present: Ban Tha Hin is listed as one of the model communities of the Science and Technology Ministry because the villagers can use the innovations to improve their quality of life.
The yellow pulp is used for making snacks and soaps. KARNJANA KARNJANATAWE
Villagers produce ground organic palm sugar. KARNJANA KARNJANATAWE
Locals weave dried leaves of toddy palm trees to produce baskets, hats and containers. KARNJANA KARNJANATAWE
Men fish in Songkhla lake at the break of dawn. KARNJANA KARNJANATAWE
