Thailand: Rubbish Dump Turned Lush Urban Farm
The focus was on enabling vulnerable communities to produce their own nourishing food.
By Supawut Boonmahathanakorn
Good Men Project
International Institute for Environment and Development
January 4, 2021 (Must See. Mike)
Excerpt:
That’s when the idea of an urban farm for the poor began to take shape. In the past few years, community networks in cities around Thailand have been finding innovative ways to grow vegetables on leftover bits of land, either inside their communities and on vacant land borrowed from neighbours or the local government.
These community gardens have improved nutrition, lowered food expenses and built greater self-sufficiency among some of the country’s most vulnerable people. Since COVID-19, community gardens have become even more of a lifeline for the poor, and have been sprouting up across the country.
Our first step was finding a site for our urban farm; we didn’t have to look far. Earlier, in searching for alternative land for housing, the Mae Kha communities had identified a 4,800 m2 plot of vacant land right next to the canal. The government-owned land had been a garbage dump for years.
So Jaibaan Studio worked with the communities to draft a proposal to the municipality and began talking with other communities and civic groups to build support for the project and strengthen our negotiations to use the land.
The mayor was reluctant at first, but we found keen supporters in the governor of Chiang Mai province. Nobody promised any financial support, but the provincial governor gave us preliminary permission to use the land, and the municipality loaned some big diggers to prepare the site.
