Biodynamic Farming (BD) at Khon Kaen

Here’s a picture taken during the biodynamic course :

The course was held by Sir Hans van Florenstein Mulder who has been involved in Biodynamic agriculture since 1972. He was born in Netherland but he spent almost all his youth in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New Zealand where he has helped established educational project. He also served for many years as General Secretary of the NZ Anthroposophical Society until 2006.

Now he is travelling the world to promote biodynamic farming.

Biodynamic is a type of organic farming that includes an understanding of « dynamic forces » in nature such as : the rythm of the sun. By working creatively with these energies, farmers are able to significantly improve the health of their farms and the quality of food. It recognizes farms as a self-regulating, biodiverse ecosystems.

The course first started with an introduction of chemical farming and monoculture impacts : degradation of the soil, deterioration in the health and quality of crops and livestock. This awareness led to the emergence of various trends such as biodynamic farming.

We learned how to prepare a cow horn manure which is known as the preparation 500 prescribed by the philidopher Rudolf Steiner. Preparation 500 is made by filling a cow’s horn with cow manure, and burying it in the soil during the dry season in the best location as possible. If we use bull horns, we have to put in bull manure. The manure must come from a lactating female cow or bull which will bring in the calcium processes to the preparation. To ensure the good quality of manure, the cow should be fed with organic fodder. Then the horns should be buried in a hole about 40 cm deep and covered with soil that has been enriched with good quality compost. Be careful not to allow weeds to grow, otherwise the weed roots will grow into the preparation and also avoid tree roots. The horns should be buried open end down so that they will not become water logged if the hole is over watered. The hole must be kept cool by mulching with paddy straw for example. After 4 months, cow horns should have turned into dark humus and should be sweet smelling. Horns are now ready. It is used in small quantities at the rate of 25 g in 13 litres of water per acre (2,5 rai). In a bucket, the mix preparation is stirred for one hour making a vortex in one direction and then reversing the direction and making a vortex in the other direction. Preparation 500 is sprayed at the descending phase of the moon and four times a year : October and November and then February and March.

The second day, we learned how to make BD compost. In BD farmind plants are maintained in the soil by addition of compost (animal manures combined with plant material : fodder and straw). The organic materials OM are conberted into a stable humus through a fermentation process. Composting the OM will avoid the nutrients (NPK) losses from oxidation or leaching. In BD, making quality compost is very important as a way to maintain humus in the soil. The best way to learn manking compost is ti do it. Be careful on the aeration of the OM. Without air, the heap will not heat up and it will become anaerobic and smelly.

We started by building a tunnel out of dry matter that will allow air to flow through it easily. Then we put some straw that formed the perimeter of the bed and sprinkle water over the straw. We sprinkled cow manures onto straw and then add a green layer (fresh grass) for nitrogen. Finaly sprinkle a fine dusting of hydrated lime. Another layer of straw and sprinckle it with fresh grass. Again, sprinkle a fine dustung of hydrated lime. Another smattering of manure and then more greens. We can also use kitchen scraps. Repeat operation several times to get layers and layers of straw-grass-manure.

"Using a stick, make five spaced holes (about 30 cm apart), along the top of the heap. One portion of each preparation (5 ml) in turn should then be mixed into a small piece of moist (clay) soil or compost, kneaded into a ball and dropped into one of the holes. Once the preparations have been inserted, the holes should be filled with compost material or pushed together to ensure that the preparation comes into full contact with the soil and does not hang in an air pocket." (source : www.biodynamic.org.uk)

Fair Trade and Alter-Eco

One of the great things about interning with CAEF for the summer is getting to see how a Fair Trade business model works from the ground-up. Alter Eco, a France-baded Fair Trade company, made it's annual visit to the Surin Cooperative recently. Being a native French speaker, Liliane must have been a big help with communication during the recent visit from Alter Eco!

I have spent one day with Cécile and Carmen who came from France to audit Rice Fund Cooperative. They are both working for Alter-Eco, Cecile is the sales Manager of North France and Carmen is one of her staff.

The Organic Rice Fund Surin Agriculture : ORFSC was founded in 1992 and became FLO-Certified in 2003. In 2000, Rice Fund and Alter-Eco have begun to work together and over the past few years, Cécile told me that it is one of the best fair trade cooperative project.

Surin province is situated in the North-east of Thaïland, a region caled Issan. The saline soil of this area provides the best condition for growing aromatic Jasmin rice : Hom mali rice. That is why, Surin province was assigned to conduct the pilot projet in 1999 of producing organic Hom mali rice known domestically and also worldwilde. Rice Fund has been working for many years with small-scale farmers to create a sustainable, fair and local food system. Together, they promote sustainable livelihoods and green community (food security and environmental conservation). For 13 years it has been certified organic by ACT (a thaï Label). CAEF provides training modules for organic farming to help farmers growing their rice organicly and the Rice Fund Coop. provides a structure for joining forces and exporting rice to Europe and the United States.

Rice Fund carries out its own packaging. Rice goes to a quality control system before being packed by labors.

After examined one by one the whole packaging process, we went to Donlengthai village where we interviewed P’ Pakpum. Then, we went to an other village : Tabthai and learnt how to grow rice. We all enjoyed planting rice with the local farmers.



The activity of Alter Eco has always rested on two foundations :

· knowledge and control channels on one hand

· distribution, and the attractiveness of the offer in the other.

Since 1998, we use and enrich our own audit methodologies and control pathways that allow us to complement the Max Havelaar label, to have a perfect knowledge of channels and local issues. Within our team, Audit & Sourcing plays a key role alongside the Sales Department amd the Financial Department. We continuously measure the positive impact of our work on the producers in the South, and also to continuously improve our effectiveness in this respect.

By being continuously directly involved in auditing our producer, we can directly see any irregularities or issues and raise them directly with the producers as well as bring such issues to the attention of WFTO.

These unique methodologies are specific to Alter-Eco. We’re recognized for our commitment from upstream to downstream sectors. This is possible due to the unique knowledge of local issues and sectors that Alter Eco has. Consequently, Alter-Eco has been chosen by FLO-Cert to sit on its Certification Committee that meets to decide on labeling and non-labeling of producer organizations. » (source : www.altereco.com)

Introducing Liliane Phantharangsi, our Summer Intern!

The Community for Agroecology Foundation (CAEF) is happy to welcome our new summer intern, Liliane. Here is her first blog post:


Hi everyone,

First of all, let me introduce myself. I’m Liliane, a french student who work with CAEF (formerly SFS) as an intern. I arrived in Surin the 1st July 2011 and I will stay three months. I’m studying agronomy for sustainable development so that’s why I’m here in Surin. To understand the challenges of sustainable agriculture in developing countries such as Thailand I will observe all along my stay how CAEF makes things change and helps strengthened "Green Community." I have known and contacted this organization thanks to this blog. So here I am, in Surin : the city of elephants.

My first month will consist in observation all the activities that have been set up by CAEF. Thus, I will update this blog as often as possible. I want to apologize for my bad English.

The first thing I saw when I have started working here is the Saturday Green Market. One of farmers’ initiatives was to sell their food excess (vegetables, fruits …) so they though of an alternative way to sell it. With the help of CAEF, they built the Green Market in 2003. It has given the opportunity to farmers to sell their fresh organic products and to meet directly the consumers. Now we count more than 80 farmers that sell every Saturday in the Green Market. In addition to that, the mobile green market in Prasat district has developed. Once, I went to sell traditional homemade cake in front of Prasat Hospital with a farmer, she said to me that "it is a good way to earn money quickly." During one morning, she can get around 1500 THB ($50).

CAEF has also an other alternative market : the Kao Hom grocery. It promotes organic products. Every Thursday, Farmers come to deliver their fresh products and within two hours, consumers have bought almost everything.

The alternative market is a platform that build intimate relationship between farmers and consumers.

However there are still some challenges to overcome. For example, farmers are biased by the non-organic products that are invaded the Green Market. In fact, the current place of the Green Market is next to the traditional Saturday market so consumers can be confused. CAEF is now negotiating with the local authorities to find the best solution for stopping this conflict between the Green Market and the traditional market.


I have also been in the countryside for one week. P’Samrat who has kindly opened is house for me is the chief of farmers’ groups in Donlengthai village. Since ten years now, the farmer group use organic practices with the help of CAEF. They banned chemical pesticides and has been using organic fertilizers (chicken manure). For the first time of my life, I had replanting the rice, it was a hard work because the weather was really hot. But this is the daily condition of farmers here, in Surin. Even if they are poor and they work hard, I found that people were really nice to me and I can feel their happiness every day. They cooked me some delicious dishes that we shared with all the family and the neighbors.

The night before I left, with P’Samrat we talked about the agriculture future in the village. He told me that, nowadays our children don’t want to be farmers anymore, they studied in University downtown Surin or in big cities (Mahasarakham, Bangkok) and left the countryside. He is still wondering who will take care of his rice crops. He was smiling and told me "I will plant rice until my last breath."

Organic Pigs

From the Alternative Agriculture Network - Esan (AAN) blog:

P’ Kanya Onsri smiles whenever she talks about her organic pig project in Surin. As one of the first organic farmers in her village, she has always been willing to try out new techniques in order to make her farming practices more sustainable. Since 2006, Kanya has pioneered a organic pig raising producers’ group in Tamor subdistrict, Surin province. With support from Surin Farmers Support and the AAN, the program has expanded to more than 70 families and provides 2 whole pigs at the Surin Green Market every Saturday.

The pork is now so popular that consumers now put in orders before the weekend and pick up their labeled packages at the Green Market.

The project wasn’t initially focused on being a money-maker for villagers in Tabthai, who have historically earned lower incomes than larger landowners in nearby villages. The goal was to produce more organic compost from the high-nitrogen pig manure. The pigs are raised in 3 meter by 2 meter, 60 cm deep pens and are filled with shallow layer of rice husks and biojuice (made from plant materials fermented in molasses) before pigs are raised.

Organic pork is an essential part of the Surin Green Market’s success. When Thais go to the market, they’ll often come up with their menu based on what foods are fresh or in season, and while the AAN’s Green Markets have always sold seasonal fruits and vegetables, meats are still limited. Consumers are often frustrated by having to go to the conventional market to get their meats, and often criticize Green Markets for not having enough protein. By bringing 2 whole pigs to the Surin Green Market every Saturday, loyal consumers are satisfied and new consumers have increased, simply by word of mouth. This is also what we hope to accomplish in Yasothon.

Certain things stand out when it comes to the quality and flavor of the organic pork in Surin. Consumers say that when they buy conventional pork from the market, which is often raised in large, closed-system commercial farms and treated with antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals, the meat will lose it’s freshness quickly and the fats coagulate after a few days in the fridge. With the Surin Green Market’s organic pork, this is not the case. The pork stays a nice pink-red color and consumers say that the dishes they make using the various cuts are naturally flavorful, requiring less seasoning.

Consumer demand has helped make the project a commercial success. Though the first group of farmers to raise organic pigs may have focused more on producing manure for their compost, the income from raising organic pigs has been an important incentive for new producers. Because investment costs are low and the opportunity to sell directly to consumers, farmers usually earn about 2,000 baht per pig. Most conventional producers barely break even, after buying expensive antibiotics, feed and selling to middlemen.

The success of the organic pig project has inspired organic farmers in Kudchum, Yasothon to start raising pigs themselves. We now have a group of about 10 farmers who are ready to begin raising the pigs organically and selling their pork at the Yasothon Green Market. Farmers will need to set aside a small piece of land to plant green vegetables to feed their pigs throughout the year, as well as make fermented feed supplements from paddy fish, snails and local herbs. These supplements will help keep the pigs healthy and happy.

The Yasothon Green Market group will also need to plan out a schedule for breeding and slaughtering, with someone in the group responsible for raising a breeding male and several people responsible for breeding females. Villagers in Kudchum have little experience with slaughtering and butchering pigs, but they are committed to learning more – slaughtering may also be a new job for young people in the community without any work (youth in Surin have learned about the entire process and now earn money helping with birthing and slaughtering pigs).

The project in Surin took about 4 years to successfully develop. The principle of not focusing on making money, but raising safe, healthy, organic pigs and making compost has always been at the project’s core. Now that the market has grown, however, the group is thinking more about new ways to manage the market – developing new pork products, and more direct sales (a membership or CSA structure).

Following the seminar last month, Kanya explained about the success of the Surin Green Market, “I have to say, this project really comes from what I learned in the U.S. with MOFGA [Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association], from the Slow Food conference in Italy and from my study trip to South Korea.” As a farmer who works with Surin Farmers Support (SFS) and the Alternative Agriculture Network – Esan (AAN) – Kanya has taken the opportunity to learn about the global sustainable agriculture movement. By exchanging with students and farmers in the U.S. with ENGAGE – a student network that works in solidarity with local social and environmental movements), Kanya saw the importance of making use of all available, compostable materials. By attending Terra Madre in Italy, she got to see how much value could be added to organic fruits and vegetables by making organic foods and food products. And finally, by exchanging with the Korean Women’s League (KWL), Kanya understood how essential it is to sell a diversity of products at the Surin Green Market.

Next week the Yasothon Green Market group will meet to plan out the production process and exchange about useful techniques for successful organic pig raising. The Surin group helped to develop Thailand’s organic standard for pigs with IFOAM, so the farmers in Kudchum will have to follow their example. One of the major challenges for the Surin group, now that their pork is commercially successful, are farmers who seek to quickly fatten their pigs using feed. Our committee will follow up with members to make sure organic practices are being followed. We’ll continue to provide updates throughout the process here on the blog, and expect to have organic pork at the Yasothon Green Market by August.

Local Fair Trade

Rice Fund Surin members agree that organic agriculture is a solution for small-scale rice farmers in the province. And the organic food market that has developed is a result of a strong people’s movement for sustainable livelihoods and safe, healthy food. Yet, given how farming is inherently risky, the transition to organic farming is difficult for many farmers. The expansion of the organic market has taken a long time in Surin, but for many, the movement seems stagnant – organic farmers keep farming organically, and conventional farmers keep using chemicals.

The Rice Fund Surin meeting on Jan 14 sought to look further into the possibilities for local fair trade to help revive interest in organic farming among villagers and further develop urban consumer awareness about food systems. Fair Trade has always been an important part of Rice Fund’s ideology (the mill is Fair Trade certified and farmers’ groups have independently managed fair trade premiums for yeas), but is often overlooked by producers and consumers on the local level. “Domestic Fair Trade” is a small movement in the U.S., and is organized by a network of organizations and producers cooperatives, including Equal Exchange.

There are many similarities between Domestic Fair Trade and what Rice Fund Surin would like to do on the provincial level. With the small-scale farmers’ quality of life at it’s base, local fair trade focuses on 4 main points:

- A fair price between producers and consumers

- Environmentally-friendly business (processing, packaging, market management)

- Safe, health-oriented food

- Group-based process of production and marketing

P’ Kanya, a community leader and organic pig farmer in Tabthai village pointed out how focused farmers and consumers continue to be on price. With prices at a record high in 2007 and government income support this season, many farmers don’t see a reason to farm organically. Conventional producers simply wait in the middle for good prices.

This year, however, with the implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), most conventional farmers will be unprepared for price fluctuations and insecure markets for their rice. Cooperatives like Rice Fund equip their members with information about what policy changes imply for farmers, which in turn helps them make smart decisions about how to organize their farm plans each season. Many Rice Fund members agree that themselves and fellow members of the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) are well prepared for AFTA – they mill and sell rice independently in alternative market approaches. Planting indigenous rice varieties, while they are well suited to the local ecology, are also beginning to earn good prices at AAN Green Markets and other market channels – here farmers can set their own price, based on the needs of themselves and consumers.

For farmers who may transition towards organic farming, but through contracts with larger mills or rice corporations, their market is growing, but possibly insecure – if organic rice is not viewed as profitable, then farmers can easily be cut off or put back into conventional production systems. Further, rice corporations are increasingly purchasing large tracts of land and growing themselves – one company in Surin has bought a large piece of land in the northern part of the province and is growing “Kao Hom Nin” an improved rice variety which combines characteristics from a black Chinese rice with Thai Jasmine (this variety is not a hybrid, but it’s short growing season allows it to be grown during the off-season). These processes may be viewed simply as economies of scale, but farmers continue take on considerable risk and the organic standard may also be compromised.

Farmers in Surin understand that consumers abroad are concerned about health, food safety and the environment when they purchase food, but most local consumers are not yet taking much interest. More work is also needed to develop farmers’ way of thinking about organic farming and fair trade. In turn, Rice Fund Surin, Surin Farmers Support and the Alternative Agriculture Network will work together to develop a consumer campaign on fair trade concepts. This campaign will also be a way to work together with state organizations and provide clarity for outside groups and organizations about what fair trade really means.

As P’ Ubon concluded the meeting, we can think of fair trade as supporting a fair economy, fair environment, fair health and fair society – these issues are all here, but few people understand. It is up to our farmers’ movement to transform a consumer trend into proof that fair trade is better for society, especially those who grow food.