Established: year 2010
Legal status: informal farmer group
Organic farming: started in 2008 by the Earth Net Foundation
Located at Phrao district, Chiang Mai, around 115 km north east of Chiang Mai city. It takes around 1.5 hours to travel by car from Chiang Mai city.
Agriculture and Livelihoods
During rainy season (May – Nov), farmers grow sticky rice in lowland fields for home consumption and grow soy bean on the uplands to sell as seed. During dry season (Dec – Apr), they would grow soy bean on the lowland. In some part of the upland areas, perennial fruit orchards are maintained throughout the year, including mangoes, jackfruits, longan, etc.
Farmers’ main incomes are from sale of agricultural produce. All produces are sold to local traders. There is no local farmer organization around that areas, except the district farmer cooperative. No food processing facilities are available locally.
Another cash income is derived from cattle-raising. Farmers buy mature bulls and fatten them for a couple months and then re-sell them with a higher price. Some farmers may also raise the young bull. The animals are also used for transporting produce from farm to home.
Organic Agriculture
ENF started supporting the group in 2008 by providing technical advices on organic farm management and how to prepare for organic conversion. ENF also introduced red and purple rice varieties to the group so that they can cultivate these new varieties instead of just the sticky rice. The Green Net Cooperative (GNC) provides market supports to the group by helping to purchase all organic rice and soy bean. One technical staff was transferred from ENF to GNC in 2010 as part of Green Net restructuring.
In 2009, ENF helped to established internal control system (ICS) for organic certification and the first inspection by external inspector was done in March 2011 by Organic Agriculture Certification Thailand (ACT). The group has organic certificates for IFOAM Programme and EU Programme.
In 2012, GNC extended its fairtrade certification with FLO Cert to cover this group.
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