Thread: Organic farm

yeah, for farming re the kings sufficiency deal.

But like nobody else been doing it for the last 100 years or so,

this might be of intrest

The Fairtrade Foundation | Fairtrade - Boonjira Tanruang, Green Net Co-operative, Thailand

Thailand’s organic rice farmers enjoy health benefits

Originally Posted by baldrick

this might be of intrest

The Fairtrade Foundation | Fairtrade - Boonjira Tanruang, Green Net Co-operative, Thailand

Thailand’s organic rice farmers enjoy health benefits

Good linkies, cheers. Green Net has a website: Green Net Organic FairTrade

thanks:
good thresd

i will bet the bugger uses poison just outside his farm's boundaries to keep the neighbours' chickens/ducks/kids off his veggie patch, or it would look like the usual thai desert!
i always wondered how the thais managed to produce any vegetables at all, using the "traditional" methods:
rape the land; add copious amounts of chemical fertilizers; do not even think about contour ploughing, crop-rotation etc, and then poison every fkkn insect that could possibly have aided pollination for miles around.
i had a neighbour who planted a rai or two of rice, ran out of money, used no chemicals (couldn't afford it) and got a far higher yeild per rai than many of the other idiots nearby did.
organics is the way to go.

Originally Posted by Nawty

yeah, for farming re the kings sufficiency deal.

But like nobody else been doing it for the last 100 years or so,

Curious Nawty, what is HM's Sufficiency deal? As to this organic business - I know quite a number of Thai farmers that practice this sort of horticulture/agriculture model. Have been for some time.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by Nawty

yeah, for farming re the kings sufficiency deal.

But like nobody else been doing it for the last 100 years or so,

Curious Nawty, what is HM's Sufficiency deal? As to this organic business - I know quite a number of Thai farmers that practice this sort of horticulture/agriculture model. Have been for some time.

i would also like to hear more about this sufficiency shit:
sufficiency economy buzzword has been bandied about for years, and i have still not managed to find out exactly what the "big guy" is on about, what it really means and how it is supposed to work..
does he practice it himself, or does he have sufficient?

Originally Posted by tsicar

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by Nawty

yeah, for farming re the kings sufficiency deal.

But like nobody else been doing it for the last 100 years or so,

Curious Nawty, what is HM's Sufficiency deal? As to this organic business - I know quite a number of Thai farmers that practice this sort of horticulture/agriculture model. Have been for some time.

i would also like to hear more about this sufficiency shit:
sufficiency economy buzzword has been bandied about for years, and i have still not managed to find out exactly what the "big guy" is on about, what it really means and how it is supposed to work..
does he practice it himself, or does he have sufficient?

I'm rather interested in the mechanics/politics of such a policy. With all due respect allotted to the Crown, for decades upon decades they have instilled hundreds of community projects of every description. Be it out of their own pocket or integrated institutionally underwritten government programs. Such principles that I could challenge are the overt consciousness of self-sufficiency. Most Thai communities are quite capable of being self-reliant without intervention. Instinctive within the extended familiar/social model of cummunity. What has broken down this pattern of sustainable living are the borrowed ideals of a Western mindless 'need', 'want', and unnecessary consuption - the cash and credit based existence. Very very destructive and contradictory to any such self-sufficient practice. As to this "organic" mentality....this has been practice for centuries worldwide, just as a matter of course, just as it has been practiced universally in Thailand forever. The Western practice of chemicals and toxic agents was/is an introduced one. The contemporary Western consciousness of what 'organic' might be is nothing but a fashionable trend - as if the West conjured up the ideal and practices and then extend it to their brothers and sisters universally. Such bollocks.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by tsicar

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by Nawty

yeah, for farming re the kings sufficiency deal.

But like nobody else been doing it for the last 100 years or so,

Curious Nawty, what is HM's Sufficiency deal? As to this organic business - I know quite a number of Thai farmers that practice this sort of horticulture/agriculture model. Have been for some time.

i would also like to hear more about this sufficiency shit:
sufficiency economy buzzword has been bandied about for years, and i have still not managed to find out exactly what the "big guy" is on about, what it really means and how it is supposed to work..
does he practice it himself, or does he have sufficient?

I'm rather interested in the mechanics/politics of such a policy. With all due respect allotted to the Crown, for decades upon decades they have instilled hundreds of community projects of every description. Be it out of their own pocket or integrated institutionally underwritten government programs. Such principles that I could challenge are the overt consciousness of self-sufficiency. Most Thai communities are quite capable of being self-reliant without intervention. Instinctive within the extended familiar/social model of cummunity. What has broken down this pattern of sustainable living are the borrowed ideals of a Western mindless 'need', 'want', and unnecessary consuption - the cash and credit based existence. Very very destructive and contradictory to any such self-sufficient practice. As to this "organic" mentality....this has been practice for centuries worldwide, just as a matter of course, just as it has been practiced universally in Thailand forever. The Western practice of chemicals and toxic agents was/is an introduced one. The contemporary Western consciousness of what 'organic' might be is nothing but a fashionable trend - as if the West conjured up the ideal and practices and then extend it to their brothers and sisters universally. Such bollocks.

i have to agree with you there, on a couple of points.
whoever gave these people herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, plastic bags and corrugated iron, deserves to be shot!
responsible use of the above could have improved their yeilds and their standard of living, but indiscriminate and use and ignorance haver screwed the entire place up.

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Originally Posted by tsicar

i had a neighbour who planted a rai or two of rice, ran out of money, used no chemicals (couldn't afford it) and got a far higher yeild per rai than many of the other idiots nearby did. organics is the way to go.

that may be Ok for the first year, but not later on

we grow our rice organically, but have to buy a lot of cowshit from our neighbour to make the land fertile

we also do not burn the land after the rice has been harvested. Our neighbours made fun of us because of this, but now they are noticing that our rice is fatter and better quality than theirs, so they are also not burning.

it is a pity maizefarmer never found his way over here.
he could have added some valuable input.
i have never been into the cropfarming thing, but have always been interested in organics and hydroponics(although it can be argued that hydroponics is somewhat less than organic)
i guess the key is : "sustainable use of the land"
easy to screw it up; get great yields for a season or two, and then you are stuck in the cycle where you HAVE to use the chemicals, or nothing will grow in the desert you created in the first place.

Elvis's sufficiency thingy is simply what people around the globe have practiced for centuries to different degrees.

But obviously the monkies in the villages have not had this knowledge fed to them for decades and when their beloved one comes up with the idea......bingo.....here is another brilliant Thai idea that only thailand could possibly think of doing.

Anyway....the sufficeincy thing is as I am sure you know, if you are the slightest bit interested in farming here, you will have heard and read about it.

Basically it was brought about when the country started to become to greedy, everyone wanted everything and borrowed money, from the government, cheap loand, credit cards etc etc were easy to get. Probably the huge runaway growth prior to 97/98 was the most influencing time for this and then it all tanked. People owed a fortune and could not pay it back.

Elvis was seen to be encouraging people to live within their means, produce their own food and stuff if they could not afford to buy it etc.

So the model farms came about where you could provide almost everything you needed to eat on small landholdings of under 10 rai. Small ponds for fish, pig pens, chickens, cow for milk, rice, vegies and some fruit trees that would produce what you needed rather than what took a long time to grow and produced little....like growing papaya etc.

On top of this was to grow a little extra to swap for the things within the community that you could not grow.....for example, an extra chicken or 2, so extra eggs and chicks and swap a dozen eggs for washing powder or a dead chook for a couple of litres of petrol etc etc.

Thats the broad jist of it as I understand it all.


My missus was dropped of at this farm today to do a 3 day course on it all re the EM system.

Still not sure if this place teaches how to make the EM or just how to use their commercialy made EM properly....either way shall learn a bit and then adapt to make our own hopefully.

Also might add that my reasoning for growing food this way is for my kids primarily, so we know what is going into our food.

Within Asia, especially here and China where a lot of food comes from in here, there is little regard for food safety as in the west.

After years of reading in Bkk of the crap injected into foods such as watermelon to make it red and pork to make it look better etc etc. I did not want my kids growing up and glowing in the dark.

My reasoning here is that within asia, the poor farmer HAS to sell his crop to make a living, so he may not give a shit if he overdoses it if poisons and shit, especially stuff that may be banned now in the west. He may not care, it is out his farm gate to the market and he knows not to eat it himself....but he has his money and can afford to buy a new buffalo now.

Originally Posted by Nawty

After years of reading in Bkk of the crap injected into foods such as watermelon to make it red and pork to make it look better etc etc. I did not want my kids growing up and glowing in the dark.

Parents have to think about this stuff, because if left to himself, my kid, at least, would be chuffed if he could find a way to make himself glow in the dark.

the chemical companies have little or no compunction in selling to ignorant farmers around the world

even when some chemicals are banned in the west, they will keep selling to other countries

DDT is a prime example

The chemicals often get misused by farmers who cannot read and just follow their neighbours example

nice pics

Exactly why I wish to at least try to do it properly.....proving very hard and frustrating but.

Even my Queen Bee ran away.....bitch.

No online access, but there is a booklet she has and is in Thai.

They run the course every month with foreign special course every 6 months.

Promising thing was to see 150+ thais doing the course and according to them, that is low, usually 300 to 400 do it each month.

[quote=Smithson;1160557][quote]

Originally Posted by tsicar

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Originally Posted by tsicar

i.

i guess the key is : "sustainable use of the land"
easy to screw it up; get great yields for a season or two, and then you are stuck in the cycle where you HAVE to use the chemicals, or nothing will grow in the desert you created in the first place.

Actually I think it's the opposite, the more you use organic methods the better the soil should get and the more you'll learn, so each year it gets better..

sorry, i MEANT they screw it up with the chemicals.

i don't know if it would be possible to rotate crops in paddies, as you suggested with legumes, eg soya, but this would give them an extra crop, plus put nitrogen back into the soil.
the soil in the paddies i have seen, planted and harvested year after year must be almost completely barren, so i suppose they HAVE to keep throwing in fertilizers, or nothing would grow at all.
same thing with the cassava.
the land is simply raped; planted and harvested in a never ending cycle, with nothing but chemicals to replace what was taken out.
very few in the area that i lived in even bothered with manure: the government was subsidising the chemical fertilizers.

^ Planting legumes would be an idea, one of the problems with paddy fields is they're hard clay, which doesn't make them suitable for many crops. It would be interesting to know about the nutrient content prior to the use of fertilizers. Maybe all the water flowing down into the paddies would also bring nutrients?

Another problem with the chems is the are only NPK, but the plants uses all sorts of minerals and micro nutrients, which generally aren't returned to the soil. I've read that fruit and vegies these days lacks minerals for this reason.

As I mentioned, the farm here has not used ANY chemicals for 20 years now and they grow a lot of rice. Their rice currently looked just as fit and healthy as any other rice plots if not moreso.

I do not see anything wrong with growing a bean crop on paddy in the off season, as long as you have the water to do it. Might do it myself on another 8 rai we have and see what it does.

Went down to pick up missus yesterday.....seems I am somewhat of a celebrity now amongst, I was asked to stand up for the crowd to say hello to and the missus was apparently picked out over the entire 3 days for attention because of me.

Anyway, she said the course was good, she met 2 new friends. Two sisters that were half thai/german and with farang/thai kids each. Very nice girls, but a somewhat unusual family situation amongst them all, made good listening all the way home.

Their Dad was apparently the first person to bring 'Bayer' chemicals into Thailand, so they knew a lot about chemicals and have thus chosen to never go near them again.

When I arrived at the farm, they were all singing and dancing in the hall prior to completion.

I had read the newsletter and saw many referances to Rev so and so and several other Japanese Rev's....did not know japs had Reverands. So seems a little religious stuff goes on.

I thought maybe they are recruitng for a Jonestown cult episode.....build up some high walls around the farm and have enough food to feed everyone.....then one day ....

Anyway, all seems ok and shall hopefully putting to use the new found skills. Apparently this stuff can be used for lotsa things, even brushing your teeth.

Makes plants grow bigger and stronger and healthier.

I rubbed some on my penis last night.