Not long ago, people in the remote hills bordering Thailand and Myanmar believed that growing plants to produce illicit drugs was the only way they could make a living.
In Myanmar’s Shan state, the Wa tribe was notorious for cultivating opium. Latex obtained from the pods of the brightly-coloured plant is processed into heroin. Other crops, like marijuana, were also grown and drug manufacturing plants thrived, and continue to thrive, along the extensive border and up into the northern hills.
“If there is anything better to do ...,” says Saiyarong, 63, an ethnic Wa and also chief of Muang Sat, a Myanmar town on the border, his voice trailing off. “No one wants to get involved with drugs.”
More than a decade ago the Thai-Myanmar Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods Development Project was launched. The Wa ethnic minority group in Ban Yongkha in Muang Sat, shifted from poppy farming to growing cash crops to create a sustainable economy.
The joint project has slowly spread, with hilltribe people being encouraged to refrain from growing poppies in order to address the drug trafficking problem at its root cause.
On the Thai side, the Mae Fah Luang Foundation Under Royal Patronage and the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) are playing a pivotal role in educating the Wa residents about farming and basic public healthcare to improve their standard of living and wean them off involvement in the drugs trade.
In 2004, the project hit a snag because of the political situation in Myanmar, forcing the Thai government to withdraw staff working on the project.
But after the situation eased in 2011, the Thai staff returned to Ban Yongkha to pick up where they had left off.
Pichit Yala, a field worker at the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, said the two countries have made substantial progress in encouraging the Wa to grow alternative crops such as rice, rubber, pumpkin, watermelon and coffee instead of poppy, with harvests ready in three years. Land was also allocated to grow one million rubber trees.
Mr Pichit said when he returned to the town three years ago, he found it an uphill battle to persuade the Wa people to give up poppy farming, which had been their way of life for generations.
At that time, permanent buildings were rare in Ban Yongkha as few Wa people had settled down there, he said.
“They were ready to migrate to new places. What these people left behind was vast areas of shifting cultivation because they had no knowledge about growing rice or other crops,” he said.
At the start of the programme the Wa were given instruction in public health as many suffered from scabies and malaria fatalities were high.
With cooperation from the two governments, the Wa today enjoy a higher living standard and more of them are building homes and settling down in Ban Yongkha.
Mr Pichit said the improvement is obvious in the number of permanent homes being built and expanding fruit and vegetable farms.
Agricultural yields are enough to feed about 2,000 villagers in 600 households. They have clean water for consumption and also electricity.
A local school was built to provide a bilingual programme in the Burmese and Chinese languages for the children. “We also teach them to grow vegetables. At a local school, students are delegated the responsibilities of growing, watering and harvesting vegetables in plots. When the children know how to grow crops, they will be encouraged to pass on this knowledge to their parents at home,” said Mr Pichit.
Myanmar has also dispatched medical staff to the local hospital in order to provide treatment for common illnesses among the villagers, Mr Pichit said.
Every two to three months, staff from the foundation visit the communities to review activities and progress of the Thai-Myanmar Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods Development Project, added Mr Pichit.
Mr Saiyarong said he and his fellow Wa were evacuated to Shan state in 1999 after his previous home close to the border with southern China was hit by a severe drought. Some of them died of malaria and crops wilted when the soil became parched, he said.
“We grew opium when we lived along the Chinese border because other plants could not endure the extreme weather. At that time, we didn’t know what choice he had to grow crops and we didn’t have much knowledge about agriculture,” said Mr Saiyarong.
He said after moving to Shan state, he found several other minority groups such as Akha, Lahu and Tai Yai were already living there. His group and other minorities decided to make the state their home after securing government permission.
Mr Saiyarong said at the beginning the Wa people faced numerous hardships, from the tough terrain to lack of knowledge of healthcare and job opportunities.
However, their quality of life turned around after the Thai-Myanmar project was introduced.
Aside from agriculture, villagers are also educated about local government systems
and land allocation. The education is to prevent conflict from landownership and prosperity distribution. Land was allocated for different purposes such as agriculture, economic expansion and forest conservation. A separate plot of land was set aside for communal use to instil a sense of sharing and social responsibility.
Nakoa, 33, a Lahu resident who married a Wa man, said the Thai government has helped boost the living conditions of the Wa communities in Ban Yongkha and the farming projects have also redeemed the ethnic villagers who for long have been regarded as drug producers and traders.
“It had been a popular view for a long time that the Wa people were behind drug trafficking networks. However, in Ban Yongkha, we sustain our lives by growing crops because we don’t want to move anywhere,” Ms Nakoa said.
Pol Col Zaw Lin Tun, head of the Project Management Department of Myanmar’s Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control, said villagers in Ban Yongkha did not produce illegal drugs. The village was used only as a route for trafficking.
With its success in Ban Yongkha, the project will form a model to develop 56 other villages of four minority groups — Akha communities in Tachilek province and Lahu, Tai Yai and Wa villages in Muang Sat province.
The project will help create sustainable development, centring on food security, public health and education in the ethnic groups’ communities in order to allow the locals to have the strength to stand on their own feet without relying on narcotics.
ONCB secretary-general Narong Ratananukun said the project in Ban Yongkha proved that the method of substituting crops for drugs was able to address the drug trafficking issue efficiently as Myanmar was the world’s second-largest opium producer, according to a project report.
More funds will be allocated for the project in Tachilek and Muang Sat. Thailand has agreed to provide knowhow about agriculture and husbandry while Myanmar will oversee public utilities including construction of schools, hospitals and roads, Mr Narong added.
