SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy
International Conference
203
“Eating long (shelf) life food, shortens the consumer’s life.
Eating short (shelf) life food, lengthens the consumer’s life.”
In conclusion, food security means not only having sufficient food for family
members to consume throughout the year, but it also requires that foods which are
local, fresh, harvested according to the season, varied and uncontaminated with
chemical.
Apart from food security, the local welfare system was also found to be a
critical issue that contributed to Survival. For city people, having welfare care when
one is in old age could simply mean holding enough money to maintain quality of
life. But for Inpaeng members, welfare could refer to both money and the abundance
of their forest-like fields. They believe that the forest supports infinite benefits, so a
family owning a forest is the best way to establish life welfare when getting old. The
benefit gained by having a forest in one’s backyard is not limited to the owner’s
sake. An Inpaeng member, whose field is a study site for new members, said that her
greatest satisfaction is that she can share her products from the forest with her
siblings, relatives and friends. The area acts like a free supermarket where everyone
can come to pick food they want. When questioned whether it would take two
decades in order to gain some benefits from the forest, it may not be worth investing
in this activity, MrKamduang, one of the Esann scholars, said “Either you do it or
not, the clock is always ticking. Twenty years will come to you.”
A new way to celebrate a baby being born has been established among Inpaeng
members. The parents would carefully select and plant several kinds of trees they
considered which as the birthday gift to the new born. A baby boy of an Inpaeng
staff, Mr K, was born during the study. Mr K collected 2,000 seedlings of various
trees that could be used as food, building material and shade and planted those
seedlings on his farm land to celebrate. He believes that this is the best investment
for his son. The trees will grow as the boy grows up. This forest-like field area will
supply plenty of food for the young boy. After twenty or thirty years, this boy will
turn into a man and may want to get married; he can cut some hard wood trees in his
field to build a new house for his future family. Then, if he keeps adding trees to the
forest the benefits from selling products to others will be his best welfare when he is
old and retired.
Finally, the ability to produce household items was included in the “Survival”
domain of social capital. An unpublished Inpaeng study found that one third of
money spent by Inpaeng households concerns the costs of food and household
groceries. Knowing that most raw materials for producing household groceries could
be planted in the area, the Inpaeng network encouraged their members to plant
several species of trees to produce juices and wine (e.g. local berry: “Kor” Thai: ค้อ,
“Ngaew” Thai: แงว), snack (e.g. sticky rice, bananas), body care products (e.g.
tamarinds for body lotions, “Anchan”Thai: อัญชัน for hair shampoo). Several training
courses on making household products were held in the Inpaengcentre. More than
sixty items of food, medicine and household items including body soap, hair