A New Model for Democratizing Agriculture in Thailand

Thamturakit is revolutionizing the way food is grown and consumed all across the country — and we should all be paying attention

The Pun Pun Center for Self-Reliance, an organic farm and teaching center located in the North of Thailand, was founded sixteen years ago as a way to transition to a more sustainable, self-reliant model of living and growing food. Since then, it has bred a nationwide movement towards a new, democratized financial model for Thailand’s agriculture system.

It started as Jo Jandai and Peggy Reents, the farm’s co-founders, began to see the cracks in the industrial agricultural system in Thailand: “In the conventional model, consumers are paying a lot for food, and farmers are paid very little — in the end, the middlemen are the ones who are profiting,” explains Reents. “So we set out to create a model where the farmers had more control — where they became their own middlemen.”

The traditional agricultural model in Thailand, favored by large conglomerates, gives farmers huge quotas they must meet by the end of a season in order to be paid a set rate. “It’s all contract farming,” says Reents. “The farmer is responsible for all the expenses, so when you really budget it out, the farmer barely makes…