Residents of Ban Pong village in Chiang Mai's Sansai district have won a community land title -- a new land allocation concept for landless villagers.
Over three decades ago, 69 families living on 300 rai of land in the village sold their land to investors.
Mr Prayong
The families had been living there for generations but the property boom made the higher prices too much of a temptation to resist.
The villagers moved out, paving the way for land developers to develop real estate projects.
When the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997 the land development project in Ban Pong Village went bankrupt. The 300 rai subsequently turned into arid land.
The 69 families returned in 2002 but the landowner sued them for encroachment in a legal battle that lasted over a decade until the government stepped in.
In 2016 the Land Bank Administration Institute (LBAI) gave support to the families by approving 57 million baht to buy back the 300 rai of land.
Initially, each family got around 3 rai on which to live and make a living from.
Each family owed about a million baht to the LBAI and was given 30 years to settle the debt.
Direk Kong-ngern, the 58-year-old village head, said residents decided to wage a legal battle against the landowner because the 1954 Land Act provides grounds for reclaiming idle land.
Under Article 6, the Department of Lands can exercise its authority to reclaim such land.
"Unfortunately, the department chief failed to do his job properly, leaving it to local people to take responsibility for getting their land back," Mr Direk said at a forum last week.
The families have since set up a farm to grow climbing wattle, a vegetable many Thai people enjoy as a side dish, to help repay their debts.
"Villagers have to bring two kilogrammes a month to the community cooperative for selling. The money goes into a collective fund to pay off the debt," Mr Direk said, adding they have earned about 200,000 baht in the past three years.
Jitti Mongkolnchaiarunya, dean of the Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies at Thammasat University, said the problem of landless villagers is not limited to farmers.
"The landless problem has now expanded to the middle class in urban areas too, after land prices in major cities spiked in line with the development of mass-transit systems," he said.
Land shortages among the middle class in urban areas will worsen because the government does not have any policy to give Thai people access to reasonably priced land, he added.
Mr Jitti said the government's policy of supporting special economic zones will also exacerbate the situation.
For example, one community in Thambon Yothaka of Chachoengsao's Bang Nam Prieo district is fighting to keep their farming status for land owned by the Treasury Department.
The department decided not to renew land leases for 800 people who had been living and harvesting 4,000 rai for generations. In justifying the move, it said it needed to keep the land for special economic zone projects.
Mr Jitti said the land allocation policy for poor people leaves much to be desired.
The previous government's policy treated the land allocated to the poor, such as Sor Por Kor, as an "individual" land right, meaning locals could use it as an asset to be exchanged for money.
But the current military regime and former Abhisit government attempted to change the policy by introducing a "community title deed". The current government proposed the idea of the new "total land management".
Both policies allow a "strong community" to manage the land and make a living from it, on condition they don't sell the land. "The government hopes it can keep the land safe from being sold to outsiders," said Mr Jitti, adding the LBAI is a mechanism to help communities resolve their landless issues.
The LBAI said it plans to propose a "50-50" land ownership scheme between it and local people, meaning the institute will cover half of their debt, said Mr Jitti, a member of the LBAI board.
Prayong Doklamayai, director of the Northern Development Foundation, said the community land title is means of seizing idle land from investors.
Despite the success story that is Ban Pong village, the ratio of land ownership in Thailand is heavily skewed in favour of the elite.
"About 80% of private land in the country belongs to 20% of the population," Mr Prayong said at the forum.
In Thailand, which as a population of more than 66 million, 837 people control over 1,000 rai of land each.
"The government has centralised its authority in terms of land management without truly engaging local communities -- those who would be directly impacted -- and getting them to participate," said Mr Prayong, who is championing the community land deed concept.