The day was part Youth Food Movement, part Slow Food Taste Education, and part public, environmental health discussion - all intended to further engage the Green Market with the public. This included a street demonstration organized by youth groups from Yasothon, Mahasarakam and Kalasin provinces (photo above); a local food tasting competition and presentation featuring 4 local youth groups; drama performances from Mahasarakam and Yasothon youth groups, and several discussion forums on local food, climate change and healthy consumption. Like our market here in Surin, the farmers' group in Kudchum district, Yasothon province is working to create new connections between rural and urban communities. By focusing on issues like health and climate change, farmers hope their market will have greater appeal to urban consumers. But the concept of Slow Food may also be something consumers can catch on to as well, as many Thai people still buy fresh vegetables from local markets and prepare foods at home. Though local markets may seem wholesome and a better option that superstores like Big C or Tesco, these markets have become subject to the market-control mechanisms of large-scale producers and corporations.
The Green Market provides a stark contrast to the cities' main market, which is just a few blocks down the street and filled with produced delivered from far away provinces or imported from China or Laos; with crowded pathways between vendors' crammed stalls and fish being butchered as motorcycles squeeze through, spitting exhaust fumes from their tailpipes. In addition to being clean and accessible, the Green Market's vegetables cost the same as the conventional produce at the main market, but are sold directly by the farmers themselves, and consumers comfortably walk between stalls to talk with vendors. By providing safe, healthy and organic vegetables every Saturday in the city's downtown, farmers are actively creating a small-scale, local food system.
The market is only 7 months old, opened with the support of ciee students in the spring of 2007. Engaging such new spaces with the public also takes the support of local politicians and public health officials. The mayor was invited to provide opening remarks, in which he spoke about the importance of safe, local vegetables for the health of urban people. Afterward, he toured the market with Man Samsee and Bunsong Matkhao, leaders in the Kudchum farmers' organizations. Below, the mayor has a taste of a brown rice drink, a sweet, healthy food made from organic rice bran.
The day's events had a very solid turn-out from farmers' groups around the province, but consumers were lacking by the afternoon's forums. The challenge for food and agriculture activists in Thailand is to make concepts like local, fair, slow and organic appealing to consumers, who tend to focus mostly on the price of food, especially in this economic climate. This gives an unfortunate advantage to agri-business corporations, who are able to provide food cheaply and in large quantities (but at what cost to small-scale producers and the environment?). Providing small Green Markets like those throughout the AAN is an important first step - the next one is to provide information for consumers that will enable them to make educated decisions about where and what to buy. Groups and networks can then form to support the work of NGOs and small-scale farmers groups. During the youth demonstration, we invited the local CP animal feed shop (photo below) to the Green Market, but we never saw anyone from the shop stop by.
The beautiful posters below were put together by Biothai, the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation and Slow Food Thailand. These are great tools for engaging with folks who came to the market simply to buy some vegetables. They provided recipes for local dishes, information about local plants and their health benefits, and the story of the Kudchum farmers' group to organize campaign information.
Slow Food Thailand is a new effort organized by a coalition between the AAN, Biothai, and the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation. Like other convivia around the world, Slow Food Thailand works for the defense of biodiversity, taste education and creating connections between producers and consumers. In the photo below, a local dish called nam thok was presented in the taste education/competition event, which is made by using the juices of the grilled chicken and covering and mixing them with fresh scallions, shallots, mint, cilantro, basil, chilies and ground, roasted rice grains. Really delicious! The dish is usually eaten with sticky rice, common in the Isaan region.
There are currently ideas to begin a "three seasons" campaign in the northeastern region, which will focus on the foods available during the wet, cold and dry seasons. Their website will be officially released later this month.
Vendors also brought seeds (coriander, cilantro, scallions) and seedlings (scallions) to be planted by "co-producers" (consumers). This is yet another way to create real relationships through sustainable consumption, as those who buy the seeds (saved by the farmers themselves) can ask about preparation, planting and care - possibly even exchanging their produce with the vendor who sold them the seeds in the first place. Like the tomato and lettuce seeds planted by P' Then Jaengsanam in Roi Et, exchanging and saving seeds is both a symbol of Slow Food's defense of biodiverty and helps build the basis for Slow Food's international and local movement. Food is meant to be shared and enjoyed, and this past Saturday's event in Yasothon was a solid start to building another local food community in Isaan.
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