Farmer Samoa Ruamsap displays his rice as if it is a gold medal from the Beijing Olympic Games. He's no world-class athlete, but his yield does seem to be giving food for thought to his rice-growing neighbours. And while technological advances and specialised training are the prime forces behind the success of athletes, he and a growing number of farmers from Pathum Thani's tambon Bo Ngern have adopted the reverse philosophy, allowing nature's forces alone to provide the winning strategy.
So, it was no surprise that on Aug 12, Mother's Day, he and his colleagues opted for a special harvesting ceremony to pay homage to Mother Earth.
"Just look at our rice, it\'s stronger, drier and ready for harvesting much earlier than that of our chemically-grown competitors," boasted Mr Samoa, who has been admitted to hospital several times for excessive exposure to chemicals.
"More importantly, since we shifted to a more organic approach, we've seen our health improve and our bank accounts grow, and we owe it all to Mother Earth," he said.
Employing organic fertilizers may be the key to their success, but the catalyst was a small group of researchers from the Department of Health and the Healthy Public Policy Foundation for introducing these farmers to a tool few Thais have ever heard of - health impact assessment (HIA).
Recognizing a dramatic rise in the use of chemicals to increase crop yields, public health researchers feared that the nation's farmers were also putting themselves at greater risk. So, last year they decided to go to Pathum Thani province, the centre of the country's rice bowl, to find out how they were faring, health-wise.
They used a variety of investigative techniques, but the one that was most revealing was a tool called "body mapping". An outline of a person was drawn up on the floor and farmers took turns writing down symptoms adjacent to the part of the body where they experienced problems.
It turned out that many of the symptoms were known to be associated with excessive exposure to chemicals they were using.
"It was fairly straightforward to link their health problems to the chemicals. Now, the real challenge was what we should do about it," said health researcher Duangjai Rungrojcharoenkit. "Everyone relies on chemicals to ensure a good harvest. What we now needed to do was to prove to them there were alternatives to chemical use," she said.
A workshop tour was organized to Suphan Buri, where for the past two decades an increasing number of farmers have enjoyed success through the use of natural fertilizers and soil management techniques in their rice fields.
"We need to spend a little more time preparing the soil, and our shoots may not be as green, but the rice we have at the end is more valuable, and the money we invest in producing it is a lot less," said Sompit Imerb, another farmer from Bo Ngern. Since that trip, Mr Samoa, Ms Sompit and a few others have switched to organic fertilizers.
The money they saved in the first year alone enabled Sompit's family to purchase a small plot of their own.
But still, many farmers in Bo Ngern remain skeptical. "I understand and believe in everything they are doing, but what if something goes wrong and I have a bad harvest," says farmer Thongluan Sombatolarn.
"By using chemicals, I know I may not make so much money, but at least I will have something. However, after I pay back my loan next year, I may switch to the organic method on some of my 50-rai plot," he added.
It seems odd that improved agricultural practices are the result of efforts by public health officials, but according to Ms Duangjai, that's what HIA is all about.
"This is not just a tool to understand health problems, but a way of thinking that enables us to improve our overall quality of life," says Ms Duangjai.
She points out that the main emphasis of their HIA programme is to get all agencies, such as the Agriculture Ministry, to employ HIA in the development and evaluation of all policies and programmes.
The Bo Ngern experience will hopefully convince more farmers to give up their reliance on chemical use and switch to organic farming.
Source: Nantiya Tangwisuiji, Food for thought Column, Bangkok
Posted: 16/09/08
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