SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

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The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy
International Conference
“…the Inpaeng elderly would like them (the community ecologists) to
understand soil, sky, Mother Nature and seasons. They want their offspring to
realise the power and the value of farmers. Self-reliant farmers are much
better than unskilled labours in big cities.”
Inpaeng’s community ecologists were trained in many courses to develop their
self-reliance competencies such as building the earth house, Phuphan’s biodiversity,
hill tribes’ local wisdom of forest management, Thai traditional medicine, herbal
medicine, organic agriculture, team management, network management or even
website programming.
These training courses were generated or sponsored by Inpaeng administrators
who encouraged the youngster to set their own program of self-reliance agriculture.
The elders expected that those youngsters can skip through the pitfalls of failed
agricultural patterns and learn from the experience of former generations.
The initial outcome of this program is that the community ecologists hold their
own projects that they can make a living of it. Then, the long-term objectives are to
practice the self-reliant agriculture, to keep the Phuphan Mountain range forest from
depletion, and finally to cool down the globe.
Environment seems to be the key outcome of all Inpaeng activities. Inpaeng
people know how to live with the forest. The most challenging mission of the
network is to balance the two extreme attitudes about the forest. First group:
considering the forest as an unlimited resource to exploit without concerning the
effect of depletion. Another group thinks of the forest as strictly untouchable arenas
conserved for the sake of the environment. This study found that Inpaeng concept
did not fit in either two extremes. The issue that concerns the Inpaeng is the
“interaction” between people and the forest. They wanted to use the forest without
depleting it. In Inpaeng perspectives, the forests help people to gain the self-reliance
competency. At the same time, the self-reliance lifestyle directly and indirectly
generates less environment impact compare to the industrialized lifestyle.
In conclusion, this component of the research found that Thai social capital has
three components Survival, Sufficiency, and Sustainability (3Ss). These attributes
were the combination of local wisdom and modern management. Promoting Thai
social capital, or 3Ss, did not mean require that people live in the ancient way of life.
It may seem that the “good old days” in Thai rural area was the ideal community to
live in. However, according to the situations mentioned earlier in this chapter and in
chapter 1, it is impossible to live “back to the past”. Rather, the concept of Thai
social capital encouraged people to live “back to the roots”. To go “back to the
roots”, people needed to analyse their lifestyle, their environment, their networks
and others. In short, people needed to gain a deep understanding on their
culture(Seri Phongpit et al. no publishing year), knowing the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats and to utilize all forms of capital they had in order to
“stand by their own roots” or to manage their own lifestyles wisely and realistically.