Last days at the Love Park

6:30 - A busy market, but where's the love?

After an almost three-month long "showdown" with the local municipality, Feb. 14 marked the Green Market's last Saturday at the Love Park in downtown Surin. The park has been our location for over 6 years - a place where we built strong relationships with urban consumers and the province public health office. But things with the municipality have remained somewhat contentious, and with the the arrival of the new governor, it was decided that the Green Market should be moved out of the public park and grass be re-planted.

The local municipality held that grass in the park was destroyed by the market and that as a public park, the space should not be used by a private organization. It should be pointed out that the Green Market is held only once a week and that growing grass here requires excessive amounts of water (given the condition of other public spaces, the municipality probably fails to do a lot of watering). Having created this much public value, the local government's denial of the Green Market seems irresponsible and counter-productive. Hundreds of consumers depend on the Green Market for safe, fresh organic foods. We believe this ordeal is largely about the municipality asserting it's power in the face of a small NGO working to create a sustainable alternative for consumers and producers. Nevertheless, SFS worked together with the public parks office to find a new space for the market, which turned out to be the area in front of the public parks office itself! Kind of a "polite" slap in the face to the municipality. More on this new space in our next post - Feb. 21 was our first day and we kicked it off with an AAN-wide rice seed festival and public seminar.

The Feb. 14 events included a public forum and street demonstration. The forum brought together consumers, producers, local bureaucrats and NGOs to talk about the market's history and current situation.

P Eyat kicked things off with some strong, direct words for the municipality, "this government still fails to address it's trash problem, while not supporting this market - other groups have come here to observe the Green Market because they realize that they need markets like this in their own cities." He later continued, "this municipality is failing to do it's job!" A long-time Green Market consumer and municipality board member also disagreed with his government's approach and decision-making, showing that not all bureaucrats were in agreement regarding removing the market from the park. Consumers also demanded permanency in the market's future location - something we at SFS feel unsure about as well. The forum sent a clear message to the public and the municipality that the Green Market is here to stay. We are committed to creating a local food system!

Farmer-NGO-Public Heath - puanmit: "Friends Alliance"

Following the forum, we hit the streets to distribute fliers and to get the message out that we would be switching locations. The Kids Love Nature group from Tabthai village prepared hand-painted banners and walked at the front of our parade. More than 100 people, including farmers and consumers, joined in for the hour long walk around the city.