In the village. Sometimes it's worth it to wake up at 5 AM.For four days we lived with families who have switched back to organic farming. It’s a small number—3,000 out of the 65 million people in the Northeast, most of whom are farmers. Like in the U.S., organic farming is a complex and advanced way of farming that relies on knowledge of making fertilizers, integrating crops, and responding to conditions. But there are a lot of contrasts. Farmers almost always say they switched for health reasons, often because using chemicals was making them sick. “Food is medicine,” said the herbal medicine doctor in the village. The second reason they tend to give is the environment. They noticed that there were no worms in the soil and the other effects chemical agriculture had on their land. Finally, many talk about self-sufficiency and the value in feeding your own family without relying on anyone else.
Still, it’s a hard transition. It takes about three years for the soil to be replenished and the yield to be comparable to the level of chemically driven agriculture. Although the rice they grew in that time was enough to sustain them, they still had debt from buying the fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Even without buying these costly inputs, most of them are still in debt.
Debt is an even bigger problem when it comes to contract farming. We visited a sugarcane and cassava plantation where we met with a few farmers who were experimenting with reducing chemical use in order to reduce the eternal debt to the companies they were bound to sell to. For each bundle of ten sugar canes, the farmers made 1 baht, about 4 cents.
In the past two years, all of the farmers have been affected by the huge variability of when the rains start—September last year, April this year. They attribute this to global warming, which the UN announced in a conference here was in large part the responsibility of agriculture’s methane production. The small Thai farmers with found this accusation hilarious. “You’re telling me my two water buffalo’s shit is causing global warming?” one reportedly said. Agriculture may be a big factor in global warming, but there’s a difference between large and small farms, chemical and non-chemical.
Another huge difference between Thailand and America is in the social role that organic food plays. Organic food is the same price as non-organic food. On Sunday morning, Kara, the other girl living with my family, and I, stumbled downstairs at 3 in the morning. Our host mom was gathering up bags to take to the Green Market, and her friend was dividing tubers into bags. I helped do three bags, and then the women rushed onto the truck. Kara and I watched the stars until 5 when we were picked up. The Green Market was not what I had suspected. There were about 30 tables in a concrete pavilion beyond a parking lot. By the time we arrived at 6, much of the food was sold, and my host mom had sold out entirely. It was exciting to see not only things that had been grown, like rice and herbs and garlic, but things that had been gathered: frogs, crabs, tubers, plant leaves. It turns out that the organic producers are actually raising their prices to compete with the normal prices. Our host families didn’t have to include the price of the fertilizers and pesticides in their prices and so by selling for the same amount they were just adding profit. They were also benefiting by selling directly to the consumer instead of going through multiple middlemen.
Although I didn’t get to try out my innovative sales pitch (“Dee mak!” “Very good”), we did get to talk to some green market organizers and consumers. The consumers were also there to get food that was good for their health (one had even heard about organic food on the temple radio). The producers were organizing the market in addition to farming, and they were working to build up the number of farmers involved and the amount of food they could sell. Consumer awareness was another thing holding them back, as was their hard-to-see location. We made some suggestions, including bringing musicians and artisans to make the market more of an event and gathering-place. It will be exciting to see this market build up. I think it is one of just three green markets in the whole country.
One of the best parts of our homestay was getting to go to the farms with our families. Kara and I walked out to the fields with our Meh around noon. She had bundled us up in long jackets and hats and the walk seemed to take forever (the villages are very dense and the fields spread out around them, a pretty ecological layout). Paw zoomed up on his motorcycle and we followed them around as they fed the cows, water buffalos, ducks and pigs. The 18 piglets were Paw’s pride and joy, and he spent a long time in the pen convincing the sow to lay still and nudging the runt into the pack of suckling piglets. We walked along the raised paths dividing the small rice fields, Meh stopping to hack at weeds or grab edible leaves and seeds. After that, there was little to do except sit on the platform and wait for lunch.
In the evenings, the family often ate or hung out with the neighbors (who were related), sitting and chatting (or in my case, listening) on their bamboo platform. The calm and the rhythm that I saw in my short and relatively superficial stay were alluring. I started to imagine myself digging through the paddy, eating, gossiping, sleeping. But a whole lifetime…
We also made a surprise visit to the fields our last night. Kara and I had just interviewed Paw (he and Meh sat across from us wearing their reading glasses), showing them pictures of home and drawing a US map with a big circle in the middle to show where most of our farms are. It was fun to connect with them in this way, and afterwards, when I heard something about herding the pigs, I jumped up, put on my headlamp and struck a pose. Slowly I understood that they had just meant for Paw and Meh to go. I stood in the door, refusing to understand, until they caved in. The four of us squeezed onto the motorcycle and rode out. I couldn’t take my eyes off the stars. When we got there I stuck my hand in the feed bucket and filled the ducks’ trough and squeezed into the piglet pen after Paw. It felt good to insist on being involved, and to act with my host family.
Our family also had some smaller members. Both were young and both were very naughty. One was a 4-year-old girl named Naan. The other was a puppy who I named Eloise. Eloise was a chewer and a jumper, naughtier than most puppies. What was disturbing, though, was how the family responded to her. Their reactions seemed disproportionately harsh, and in one day, I watched her get kicked, hit with sticks and other objects, including the back of a knife, and run over (accidentally) with a motorbike. It was hard to watch.
Naan was often sweet. Naan liked attention. Naan really liked sweets. Every time we passed a shop, she darted in to finger the sealed packages. We gave her some green nail polish, which she used to paint a lot of things, including her scratched up Shrek 2 DVD. We gave her a coloring book and some crayons. She rapidly filled all of the pages with similar monochromatic squiggles whose identity we could not understand in Thai. A couple of times, she squatted on the packed dirt floor and peed, garnering barely a glance from Paw and Meh, or grinned as she stood dripping and naked in the middle of the room after a shower. On our last night with them, we discovered that Naan was actually the granddaughter of Paw and Meh. Her mother was in Bangkok, rarely returning to the village, and her father was out of the picture. Suddenly things made a lot more sense (the half-hearted punishments, the Shrek DVD).
Urban migration is a powerful phenomenon in Thailand, as in many places in the world. Especially in the Northeast region, there is a whole generation that seems to be absent from the villages. You can make more money in the city, and the young people who leave send home some money and sometimes, children. In fact, a lot of the organic farmers we talked to didn’t have children at all. One student’s host sister told her that it was impossible to support a family and just be a farmer. I don’t know if that’s true, but the fate of many farms—of couples who were childless or just had children who weren’t interested in farming, was uncertain. Our Meh told us Naan would farm their land. She sounded certain, but I wondered if she had sounded certain about her daughter too, so many years ago.
Red Sticky Rice
Red Sticky Rice, cooked, and packed into the special baskets I love.
Meh overlooking the fields. You can see the slight curve of her sickle if you look closely. Thai farmers wear clothing that covers them almost entirely when they work outside.
Self-explanitory
A pretty intense kid at the temple school. Rural Thais, especially children, splash themselves with baby powder to stay cool.
Paw combing Naan's hair on the bamboo platform.
Kara, the CIEE student I stayed with, and Naan at her finest.
A table at the green market. The producers arrive now at 4 AM because consumers kept coming earlier and earlier to get the best selection.
In the village at our Roi-Et homestay the last night, all of the women seemed to weave. The stooped grandmother kept pointing to a book that showed patterns she had created. Our Meh, at her wood and bamboo loom.
The finished product. This cloth is silk.
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