While others ask for financial support and special treatment from the government, Ban Toei village of tambon Krabueang Yai in Nakhon Ratchasima's Phimai district does the opposite.
The community has declined to receive any state aid or financial support over the past few years, saying it has enough funding via the government's myriad existing schemes such as the Village Fund and the Pracha Rat Fund for low-income earners.
Ban Toei villagers feel they earn enough to make a living and no longer need development projects or debt relief.
Ban Toei is one of the villages that applied the sufficiency economy philosophy of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej to development the community and tackle debts incurred mainly from buying raw farming materials and chemical fertiliser.
According to village chief Sombat Choteklang, 52, local people started applying self-sufficiency principles in 2011. They came together to grow chemical-free rice for the main and off-season crop, using compost or organic fertiliser while lessening their reliance on costly chemical fertiliser.
That same year, the community set up a sufficiency economy learning centre to which villagers have donated their time and labour.
Many villagers have also arranged their own households to better manage income and spending and ensure proper waste management.
Local people now have a glimpse of a better life, with combined debt down to 1 million baht.
"In 2009, the villagers from 150 families had a combined debt of about 4 million baht, which was caused largely by the purchase of chemical fertiliser," Mrs Sombat says. "Like most villages nationwide, this village had previously similar problems about high debts, the crop price fluctuation, period drought and infertile soil."
According to Mrs Sombat, villagers used to group together to make organic fertiliser with financial support from the SML (small, medium and large) Fund. She says the project failed because the villagers lacked experience and had poor management skills.
Started by the Thaksin Shinawatra government as part of a policy to empower villagers and eliminate poverty, the SML Fund allocated between 50,000 and 300,000 baht to communities according to their size but was scrapped by the military government in July 2014.
In 2009, the state-run Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives backed a 200,000-baht initiative to encourage communities to make organic fertiliser. The bank offered Ban Toei not only the money, but also advice on better management and accounting.
The village has shortly later on registered as the community business and requires all the villagers to participate in the business. Members who are not engaged in the operation are required to hold shares in this local enterprise.
According to Mrs Sombat, making their own fertiliser was a significant step in addressing villagers' debt. The village has its own fertiliser plant that makes 20 tonnes of organic fertiliser a year.
Some 80% of the plant's output is sold to farmers in the local community and the rest to nearby villages in Nakhon Ratchasima and others in Udon Thani and Roi Et.
Locally made organic fertiliser helps cut farmers' production costs, as the organic fertiliser is just 280 baht for 50 kilogrammes. Chemical fertiliser in the same amount costs 1,000 baht.
"Our organic fertiliser is widely accepted on quality and for its fair price," Mrs Sombat says. "The National Science and Technology Development Agency, the Land Department and the Agriculture Office have also conducted a field study on soil quality that uses our village's organic fertiliser.
"The organic fertiliser can help rehabilitate the quality of the soil. Most local sugar-cane and tapioca growers have turned to using our organic fertiliser instead of chemical fertiliser. Our farmland also has a better environment, as indicated by an increasing amount of fish and other animals. Villagers also have better health."
Moreover, the village has set up its own rice mill.
Mrs Sombat is hopeful that all farmland in the village will apply organic production within five years. Some 10% of the families in the village still baulk at using organic fertiliser and rely on chemical options.
Apart from local farmers, the village's community enterprise has seen demand from Laos.
"Last year, Laos wanted 4,000 tonnes a month, but we had to say no because our first focus right now is on our village and nearby ones," Mrs Sombat says.
The fertiliser production unit at Ban Toei village makes 20 tonnes of fertiliser a year.
Ban Toei chief Sombat Choteklang says villagers have solved their own problems.