The Pid Thong Lang Phra Foundation, an offshoot of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, recently held an eight-day trip for a group of farmers from the southern Yala province, bringing them to Khon Kaen province in the Northeast, where they saw the methods and benefits of King Rama IX's sufficiency economy philosophy first hand.
Established in 2009 with the purpose of encouraging the study and application of King Bhumibol's teachings in improving the quality of life for Thai people, the Pid Thong Lang Phra Foundation has so far operated in over 15 rural areas spread across a dozen provinces to great success. The foundation's pilot programme, which took place in Nan province in 2010, resulted in a 23% increase, on average, in the annual income of over 1,700 households in the area by introducing them to alternative farming practices like building irrigation dams, underground wells and terracing.
During the trip, the foundation also hosted a lecture by renowned activist monk Phra Maha Suphap, the head abbot of a rural temple in Kalasin province, who has long been preaching the benefits of the sufficiency economy model to the locals of his province. The monk also received the "Khon Kon Khon Award" in 2014, given by the famous Thai TV show which highlights the efforts of various people across Thailand for their contributions to society.
Life had the opportunity to attend the famous monk's lecture, which focused on what Phra Maha Suphap describes as the "three core tenets" of King Rama IX's 23 Working Principles (as described by Privy Council member Dr Kasem Watanachai), including: Working based on information, internal drive and incremental growth.
"One of the biggest problems facing Thailand today is that most of us are too used to making decisions based on emotions, beliefs or superstition as opposed to facts," said the Buddhist monk to the attending representatives.
"Many rural communities -- and city-dwellers alike -- lack belief in their own capabilities, instead relying on external factors such as the government or deities to help them succeed. As such, they give up on self-reliance or improvement without ever really trying to find out how."
This reliance on external intervention can also cause individuals' internal drive to erode over time, said the monk, putting people in a cycle of self-doubt that stymies sustainable growth.
"By informing these people of their own ability to make a difference, we can inspire them towards self-improvement, which will in turn lead towards growth. That is the objective of the Pid Thong Lang Phra Foundation."
After the lecture, the attending representatives were taken on a tour of several local farms in the area, all of which have benefited from the foundation's efforts in various ways, from alternative farming methods to the construction of an irrigation canal for use in farming.
"Our job at the Pid Thong Lang Phra Foundation isn't to help the rural farmers by doing all their work for them," said Nattapol Jirasakulthai, the foundation officer in charge of overseeing the region's projects.
"In order to properly foster sustainable growth, we must inspire the locals to do things for themselves as a community, so that they can realise their own capabilities and rely on each other instead of outside influence. Our hope is that by letting them do things for themselves, they'll develop a sense of ownership over the projects and carry on with them even after we've moved on."
The 2km-long irrigation canal, which passes through about three or four communities (out of 10 in the area), is connected to an underground water pump, which automatically sends water down the canal to be stored in wells dug on the individual pieces of farmland. Farmers can control how much water they want to store by opening built-in flood doors near their own farms. It was built over a couple of months by the locals (with help from students and staff from the provincial Khon Kaen University) in accordance with the foundation's philosophy of intercommunity collaboration.
Boonyuen, whose family has been farming on the area of land where the canal is located for over 50 years, said that the canal's construction has made the jobs of farmers in the area that much easier, allowing them to harvest more crops and compete with larger farms in higher-cost markets.
"Having a reliable and controllable source of water has helped us get rid of many common but costly problems like drought or flooding. The foundation has truly given the farmers in the area more hope for the future," the farmer told Life.
Another notable effort of the foundation in Khon Kaen involves introducing local farmers to mixed farming methods, to help the predominantly rice-exclusive farmers of the area generate alternative sources of income, especially when the global market prices on rice continue to remain at sub-optimal levels.
"Generally speaking, a single paddy of rice will take approximately nine months of farming, while offering less than 5,000 baht of profit for the farmers," explained Nattapol. "The problem with many of the locals here is that they cling very closely to what they've always done, as they aren't aware of any alternatives. By introducing them to other potential avenues of income, they can supplement their revenue from rice farming with other things in the meantime."
In Khon Kaen, this involves the introduction of alternative crops such as sweetcorn or potatoes, as well as other mixed forms of farming like keeping livestock (pigs, fish, shrimp, etc) or even herb farming. Entering its second year of operations in Khon Kaen, Nattapol says that the area still has a long way to go before it can match the success of Nan, though the foundations have been laid.
"As it currently is, the programme in Khon Kaen hasn't exactly developed to a point where we can say that the income of the locals has increased by any significant margin, as a lot of the locals in the area are still in considerable debt," he said.
"Instead, we want these communities to be able to stand on their own two feet without having to ask others for help, pooling and sharing their resources so they can all live sufficiently. For example, they can help decrease each other's spending by sharing their surplus rice or vegetables with each other, or a corn farmer can share his corn husks with others to be used as fertiliser or animal feed. Once they've actually broken even and taken care of old debts, then we can look to the future for expansion."
Phra Maha Suphap speaking to the farmers.
