A garden of edible vegetables in the middle of Thong Lor? Since last week, a new patch of green amid urban high rises has raised many eyebrows — its name is Root Garden, and it is located at the beginning of Thong Lor Soi 3, next to the Pridi Banomyong Institute.
Root Garden on Thong Lor is a project by a civic movement to showcase creative land use in a dense urban area.
The roughly 1,000m² garden is planted with various edible crops familiar to most kitchens — Chinese cabbage, mushrooms and corn. There are also chicken coops, and goats wander about. Visitors are welcome.
Root Garden is a project run by Plick Feun Puen Din Thai (Land Reform in Thailand), an NGO that promotes four land-related laws that create opportunities for poor and small-scale land owners and farmers — the Progressive Land Tax Bill, the National Land Bank Bill, the Community Land Title Bill and the Justice Fund Bill.
The idea of Root Garden, which showcases efficient land use, was conceived by 29-year-old Eakdanai Wongwattana.
"Most land is possessed by a small group of wealthy people. Plenty of land plots were left unused, while many people don't own any at all," said Eakdanai. "However, land is not just property — it's essential to life, and affects food and security."
In order to push these bills into the parliamentary process, members of the NGO believe that social support, especially from Bangkokians, is important. Thailand's constitution allows 10,000 people to sign a petition pushing for a law that concerns the public good. Plick Feun Puen Din Thai's movement, however, aims for 1 million signatures.
The movement has been supported by various like-minded organisations such as Oxfam, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and the Jayavana Foundation.
"We want to communicate with city people that there is an easy way to make the use of land by transforming a seemingly useless area into a garden," said Warut Boontarig, 25 the garden's manager and a graduate of the Faculty of Law, Thammasat University.
While the team was searching for land it could use to launch the project, it spotted an abandoned, weed-filled area in Thong Lor. Luckily, the land belonged to the Jayavana Foundation, which does charity work for children and the rural poor. The foundation was willing to help, and granted the team a one-year contract.
Root Garden encourages people to get their hands dirty by doing tasks such as watering plants or feeding animals. The idea is to demonstrate that a city farm is feasible, and that visitors could potentially create their own.
"Even though land in Bangkok is not ideal for agriculture, there are techniques that can make it possible," Warut said.
The farm's produce seems to be thriving, and is available for sale to visitors. Income from those sales will be used to manage the garden, while the rest will be used to fund the campaign to push the bills.
"We hope that the garden will foster community spirit and link those who share an interest into a network in which they can share thoughts or trade tips — not only those about gardening, but also about land use," Warut said.
"It would also be nice to ask community members to take turns looking after the garden in shifts."
It has been more than a week since the garden opened. Already it has drawn the attention of many.
"I live in the neighbourhood and I just passed by. I'm so happy that there is a green space where I can bring my kid. It's going to be very interesting for him to see plants growing. And I'm thinking of bringing some veggies home," Julie Dodet, a visitor to the garden, said. After spending a lot of time in the garden, Warut said, seeing people relaxing in the space is what he enjoys the most.
Some information still needs to be added so that visitors can develop a better understanding of the project. The first steps have only just been taken and the future is unforeseen.
The group, however, still has high hopes that the Sun will shine upon their project.
