Wang Hin in Non Daeng district of Nakhon Ratchasima has changed drastically over the past three years as a result of its energetic, well-educated mayor applying sufficiency economy practices to community development.
The subdistrict covers 13 villages, 4,500 people and 29,000 rai that previously faced periodic drought or flooding. In 2015, for instance, most of its crops were inundated and ruined.
Now Wang Hin is lauded as a role model for community development and efficient management of government funding, including the Village Fund and the Pracha Rat Fund for low-income earners.
The area was selected for a visit by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during a mobile cabinet meeting held recently in Nakhon Ratchasima.
Wang Hin municipality's mayor, Yosatorn Buranabanyat, has led local farmers over the last three years to restructure rice farming and livestock rearing methods.
As part of the restructuring efforts, they agreed to set aside some rice paddy to grow napier grass for cattle feed. They also changed the way they raise livestock, raising cattle more in stables than with free-range farming, with better animal sanitation and reproduction.
Farmers can take a monthly training course on animal sanitation practices and are encouraged to act as volunteers to care for cattle health in their villages.
"My father, who was a retired kamnan [tambon chief], asked me to go back home to aid community development, and we agreed that the late King's sufficiency economy philosophy should be applied to restructuring farming," said Mr Yosatorn, 36, who has a master's degree in science management from Khon Kaen University.
He said most villagers faced cyclical poverty and relied only on rice as their staple crop and source of income. The monoculture led to serious hardship during droughts and floods.
As part of the efforts to ease farmers' plight, Mr Yosatorn and local farmers have not only applied sufficiency economy practices but also jointly established learning centres on sufficiency economy, community rice mills, demonstration farms for organic rice and vegetables, and other basic infrastructure.
The Wang Hin community has come together to develop 480 rai of unused public land to build a community reservoir, grow vegetables and napier grass, and raise frogs and fish around the reservoir, using funds allocated by the local administration, the Pracha Rat Fund for low-income earners, the Village Fund and the 9101 scheme to support the sufficiency economic projects.
The community has also initiated a solar cell project to generate electricity for farmers to fuel water pumps that help save them money.
Mr Yosatorn said that over the last three years his tambon has received a total of 20 million baht in funding, all of which went to uplift people's employment, develop basic facilities in the community and set up savings cooperatives and garbage management.
"What is best about the villagers here is their unity," he said. "There are mutual agreements to labour for the development of key basic infrastructure, which allows more of the budget to be allocated towards hiring contractors. The road or other basic infrastructure are considered the community's best assets. Once local people labour to construct basic roads themselves, they can later use the state budget to buy more construction materials and make roads of better quality. Our concrete roads are thicker than roads in any other communities in the country, as our community has built the roads by themselves."
According to Mr Yosatorn, if other communities apply Wang Hin's methods to their own communities, they cannot only prevent budget wastage but also have higher-quality roads.
"Most importantly, people in the communities have built for themselves a better quality of life," he said. "Villagers are bartering their products with one another."
Wang Hin's villagers earn an average income of 47,000 baht per person per year, higher than the 38,000 baht per capita per year outlined as Basic Minimum Needs by the Interior Ministry.
According to Mr Yosatorn, his community is also in the process of developing community-based tourism, aiming to capitalise on Wang Hin's diverse ecosystems and abundant natural resources.
"We are developing homestays, tourism routes and bike lanes around the reservoir in the community," he said. "The visitors can hunt for mushrooms in the forest or collect vegetables to cook and eat."
According to Mr Yosatorn, Wang Hin has also done well in creating savings, as the community's savings cooperatives have signed up 1,239 members with capital of up to 10.02 million baht.
Wang Hin's savings cooperatives are robust enough to be developed into a community financial institution in the future, once a bill on community financial institutions comes into force.
Prime Minister's Office assistant minister Kobsak Phutrakul said recently that a bill on community financial institutions, aimed at pushing each of the 7,000 tambons across the country to have their own community bank, is set to go before the cabinet in the next few months.
Community financial institutions have yet to be regulated and are at risk of being sued by debtors for embezzlement if they seize collateral pledged by debtors who fail to service debt, as these community banks are not registered as juristic entities.
Under the bill, the Finance Ministry will regulate and outline criteria for community financial institutions to operate under, such as setting appropriate levels of liquidity requirements, fixing interest rates for borrowers (probably with a ceiling of 3% per month) and prohibiting them from providing cross-provincial services.
Lawmakers have said the criteria will not be so stringent as to prevent these community financial institutions from maintaining their unique services.
Some community banks, unlike conventional financial institutions, use ethical principles when scrutinising loan applications.
The bill has been drafted based on discussions with representatives of the National Village and Urban Community Fund Office, while state-owned financial institutions will provide assistance by installing IT systems for financial services and auditing risk and management to protect the interests of community members.
Natee Khlibtong, secretary-general of the National Village and Urban Community Fund Office, said earlier Village Funds were keen on transforming from being revolving door lenders to financial institutions for community development.
The funds, into which the government has poured 160 billion baht in seed money, use a self-governing concept under which members must ensure that borrowers repay debt to sustain capital. Only 10% of 79,000 Village Funds have failed to maintain their revolving loans or have given loans to relatives without asking them to pay back the amount due.
Mr Kobsak said community financial institutions can help those living in towns reduce financial costs.
Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak has said that if a community has good leadership or agents of change, these actors will help strengthen the community.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha famously talked to a frog on his recent visit to Wang Hin. Chanat Katanyu