Back from the Herbal Fest

We've just returned from a week at the Herbal Festival, an event hosted by the Health Promotion Foundation in Bangkok. The festival was held in a big convention center called IMPACT and there were vendors from all over the country selling herbal products and food. We managed a booth that sold over 1,500 kg of rice and made delicious snacks unique to Surin. Our Kanom Nieun and Kao Thoo was made from local coconuts and Red Jasmine rice - the customers loved them and our vendors were busy the whole week.



The festival was also a good update on the preferences of Bangkok consumers. Though the festival was more likely to attract people concerned about their health, we found that our Red Jasmine and Whole Grain Jasmine rice sold really well. We had to ship a few sacks down from Surin halfway through the week just to keep up with part of the demand. It was also useful for a lot of our customers to see the Organic certified label on our packages, it assured them of our standards and high quality - the product spoke for itself, we mostly spoke with customers to introduce the Rice Fund Cooperative as well as any specific information about cooking or storing the rice. We also brought samples of the rice varieties we are currently preserving and expanding through SRI techniques - one customer chatted with Aen about the history of Basmati rice for almost an hour!!



Our booth was set with a few other NGOs that are close friends with SFS, including Bon Doi organic coffee from Chiang Mai (which provided us with plenty of fresh espresso throughout the day) and Ban Rai Din Dee Jai, an organic farm which makes natural soaps and creams.

Our friends from ISAC in Chiang Mai sold packages of organic rice, peanuts and bael, as well as various soy sauces. They also sold soy beans and kidney beans, which were packaged in brown paper bags with a brief message on both sides of the bag. In English, it reads:

You are a consumer who wants to buy organic food not only for health reasons but also to:
- protect the environment
- encourage local small scale farmer groups
- back up a society for self-reliance
- establish fair trade
Thank you for your support
Organic's warehouse
Institute for A Sustainable Agriculture Community (ISAC)
Supported by Oxfam GB

This direct, short message is profound because it explains to consumers the values behind the product they purchase and tells them that they are supporting local, green and fair trade by doing so. A package of Red Jasmine rice sold by Green Net did something similar, providing information in English about the health benefits of organic, whole grain rice and writing a short message about Fair Trade in Thai, on the back of the package.

Our brothers and sisters from the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) Isaan were also in attendance. Below, farmers from Kudchum, Yasothon show the seed varieties preserved by the network and hand mill Red Jasmine rice with people visiting the festival. Kalasin also had a number of local sticky rice varieties that were hand milled and sold in 2 kg bags.

Lastly, the festival was a time of reunions. SFS and Rice Fund was "reuinited" with it's rice bran press, which was ordered in July but has yet to be delivered. Following the festival, Rice Fund will recieve the press, and begin making it's own organic rice bran oil, which can be sold as a replacement to conventional cooking oils. More importantly, two of our vendors were reunited with family members who are working in Bangkok. Ae got to visit with her older sister, who helped sell snacks and Samrieng got to visit with her younger brother, who works as a driver for Coca Cola, but had the day off from work.