Thailand: City farming is our future!
Small spaces for growing vegetables are on the rise around Bangkok as more city dwellers realise that this modest activity helps to add money to their wallets and reduces their daily expenses.
By Veena Thoopkrajae
Thai PBS World
Oct 1, 2023
Excerpt:
City farming has become a global trend, according to Ply Pirom, Sustainable Consumption and Production Project Manager at WWF Thailand, which has long campaigned for urban farming. “Urban people know how to eat but don’t know where the food comes from. They also eat only a few types of vegetables and consume the same thing almost every day. That’s not sustainable at all.”
The Sustainable Agricultural Foundation (Thailand) indicates that 70% of the food supply in big cities comes from elsewhere and cities can generally produce only 30% of the food needed. Urban farming has, therefore, become a new trend worldwide, including in Bangkok.
The annual “Suan Phak Khon Muang” (urban vegetable farms) event held recently by the Foundation, brought many urban farmers together to share their experience of turning small spaces in their homes and communities into miniature vegetable farms.
Aunty Tim, a leader of a small community on the outskirts of Bangkok, said: “We can thank Covid for leading us to grow vegetables. Some people in our community lost their jobs and had nothing to eat. We went to the market but there was nothing for us to buy. We were so frustrated. So we started to grow vegetables in a small space in our community and share our produce with our neighbours.
