Local, Organic, Mae Ta

Ahh! Mae Ta, a very peaceful, quiet, sabai village in Northern Thailand. Charlotte, Cassie, and I were placed with Pa Pat, the leader of the organic sustainable agriculture movement in Thailand. We arrived in the evening to a house bustling with people. The house is raised up so that there is a completely an open-air, dirt floor space underneath the rest of the house structure. That’s where people spend most of their time, where visitors come, where the kitchen, dining table, two other bedrooms, and the walkway to get to the office is. It took a while to figure out who was who. We didn’t actually know who lived in our house for a little while, and it took about an hour to figure out who our host-father was… whoops. We had a pa, maa, Pi Pui, our older sister, and Dilip a volunteer from Putan learning about sustainable, organic agriculture. Pi Pui, a 32 year old farmer, is also the head of a seed saving and selling business (with the industrial seed production, much of the variety of seeds and consequently the plants and vegetables they grow has been lost) a part of Greennet (an organization for organic farming). She spoke English, so my roommates and I hardly had any translation issues, which was good, because at the start of this excursion course we’d only been in the country about 6 weeks. There’s only so much Thai you can learn in six weeks. But talking with Pa and Maa was still a struggle and allowed us to really practice our mad Thai skills we’ve been honing. 

Charlotte and I having a fun time in the mosquito net! Hahaha

 Our first big part of the trip was to visit a “conventional” farm, which means that chemical inputs are used and monocropping is present. The farm we were on had a host of pigs and a few rai of corn (2.5 rai = 1 acre). It turns out, the woman who farms this land works pig manure into the soil before planting. Then she sprays fertilizer once during a growing season, but no more. She doesn’t worry about pesticide or herbicide, knowing that the corn will soon shade-out all the smaller, slower growing plants beneath. She’s also slowly letting the field be converted into a Teak forest. However, because of the one-time fertilizer application, she is considered conventional not organic. She buys her seed and fertilizer from a middleman working with a corporate company, once crops come up she sells back to the middleman but struggles to make a profit and usually just ends up in debt. Lands are degraded from monocropping and chemical inputs, decreasing soil quality and consequently producing worse harvests with each passing year. Then farmers buy more seed and in many cases except hers more fertilizer to make higher harvest profits, but it seldom works out. Each year she and many other farmers accumulate more and more debt, never being able to end the cycle.

Cricket, gutted and fried.

We took a hike to a watershed one morning. It was interesting to look at the students versus our four local guides. We were in hiking pants and shoes with day packs, water bottles, sun hats (adventure hats), copious amounts of bug spray and of course the most fashionable item we owned: gaiters. Our guides however, were in a t-shirt with highwater pants, and cheap plastic-y slip-on shoes, with a bag for food slung over one shoulder and a machete secured at the hip. It was adventure time.

Cheem-ing it (trying it)

Still not so sure about it...

So we start up through the community agroforest. And for those of you who have no idea what that is, it’s a forest, with agricultural products available throughout. Upon entering the forest only a few meters, the temperature was noticeably cooler (and much more comfortable). The first half of the hike was pleasant, up and down slopes through bamboo and deciduous. The second half was just as gorgeous and included some stream crossings, and a lot of leeches. I mean a TON of leeches. We all acquired short sticks so that when we stopped every few minutes to de-leach the outside of our gaiters we could use the stick to fling them off. Pi Tik was wonderfully squeamish around leaches and it was hilarious to watch. Finally we got to the source of the stream. It poured out of some rocks on the side of a slope. More interesting, I thought at least, were the pure white clay sediments I found there. Because the forest is a watershed forest, the villagers don’t cut down any of the trees and consequently no agriculture is done in the area, therefore no chemicals are going into the stream. The water was tested years back and was found to be cleaner than city water. 

 That comes to absolutely no surprise to me, and I hope it doesn’t to you either. Human interaction with the Earth has been a historically destructive relationship. The advent of agriculture was a huge turning point in human history. It allowed for large numbers of people to congregate in a single area. Populations rise as a result in part of food security, so technologies advance to meet to need for higher food production. Humans use biofuels and natural resources, they synthesize chemicals not normally found on this earth and package them in ways that won’t degrade for thousands of years to come. They exploit available lands and ecosystems, while becoming consumerist and glutinous over their product use. This all adds up to create unnaturally large populations of humans, consuming more product that available and demanding more from the land than it can give. Consequently the waste outputs skyrocket and industrialized agriculture booms with the idea of “the green revolution” [which is an agriculture platform pushing high-yield varieties sold exclusively from large corporations like Monsanto, monoculture, and intense use of chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide]. Somehow this doesn’t sound very “green” to me.

Charlotte lookin fly like a G6, picking amaranth.

Another day we got to spend the day on the farm. Our family says be downstairs at 8, so Charlotte, Cassie, and I are dressed and ready to work in the garden (and by garden, I mean the ENTIRE backyard, maybe a rai or two). After sitting around half an hour, we’re led out to pick some eggplant. They came in all shapes and sizes, I couldn’t wait to try them. After maybe half an hour we were back under the house because breakfast was ready. Finally by 10 we’re out in the field picking amaranth. In its young stages, it’s a tasty plant used in many curry dishes. However once it becomes too big it becomes tough and develops thorns. After scavenging all the fallow beds of some leftover amaranth, we deweeded another two rows of beds. By then it was about 11:30 so we took a break for lunch. As we were helping make lunch (som tam! -> grated green papaya, peanuts, crab or other meat but sometimes it’s vegetarian, peppers (of course) and some other stuff I have written down somewhere…) it started to rain. So after lunch, our family says “non lap, nan lap, sabai. Lao goh bai ti sala gap naksuksah = take a nap, shower, be relaxed. Then later go to the sala with the other students”. We felt really unproductive on the farm, but it had been a hot day and we were kind of excited to have the afternoon off.

Som Tam!

We heard a lot of cool things from the people we talked to in Mae Ta. Pa Pat gave us a lecture on the decreasing value of an education. He said ‘so many people are getting degrees these days, it’s just the “thing to do”. But with such a huge influx qualified grads, those with these lofty degrees are now out of work. The job market is only so big and those with college debt are finding it difficult to pay it off. Sometimes people think less of jobs as farmers, but they have all the food they need and a source of income. If it rains for 10 days, you get 10 days off to do as you please, while your crops are out growing. It’s a very happy life.’ And think about it, if all the farmers went on strike and didn’t make harvests next year, how much food out of your diet would you lose? Probably all your meat, nearly all your winter food source, pretty much any processed product containing corn, corn flour, or corn syrup (and those are the obvious names that corn by-products go under). If farmers refused to plant, seed prices would go way up for home gardeners. How many seeds do you have saved, ready to plant for next year? Farmers are a crucial part of the way of life for most humans living in America. We also talked to some young farmers who had gone to the city and received educations and some got jobs in their fields, only to decide that they didn’t want that type of life. They liked feeling connected to their communities and being able to set their own schedules. One said they couldn’t imagine a life in which they weren’t a part of their community. The mindset is just so different from what I’ve experienced in America, and yet I completely love it.

Pi Pui, Me, Cassie; Maa, Charlotte - holding some produce we're to sell at the market the next morning.

Eventually Mae Ta came to an end. We said goodbye to the giant blue mosquito net, saw the farm and the family for one last time, and set out at the wonderful hour of four in the morning. We spent the day comparing food prices at an organic market that all of our host families sell their produce at, as well as at the Tesco Lotus supermarket around the corner. We drove back up north again and to Chiang Dao, for our mid-course seminar.

Do you know what milestone came the next day?