SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

218
The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy
International Conference
Map of Northeastern Thailand (Khorat Plateau)
Map showing Ban Nông Tün, Tambon Khwao, Muang District, Mahasar
akham Province, 1963
Ban Nông Tün, the village in Tambon Khwao, M?ang District, Mahasa
rakham province we chose to live and carry out research in, is located in the center
of the Isan heartland. We have had the opportunity to carry out restudies in the
village in 1980-83 and again in 2005 and have visited the village many times in
between and since. Our most recent visit was on December 25 th , 2007. 4
A Small Rural World in the early 1960s
In the early 1960s Ban Nông Tün was a rather remote, quiet rural community
whose economy was nearly self-sufficient.
Main street of Bãn Nông Tün, 1963 (photo by Charles Keyes)
The primary social unit of the village was a household which usually consisted
of a husband and wife and their unmarried children, but which, following local
custom, could also include a son-in-law since men settled after marriage with their
wives. Like all rural communities in Northeastern Thailand at the time, Ban Nông
Tün was a village of children and young people.Families lived in houses built of loc
ally-available materials, with the exception in many houses that used corrugatediron
roofing.
In our first household census, we found that there were 119 households with a
total of 700 people, or an average of 5.9 people per household. Like rural people
throughout the Northeast at this time, Ban Nông Tün villagers had experienced a
significant increase in birth rates over the previous decades. For the decade prior to
1920 the rate of population growth for the whole of northeastern Thailand was
approximately 2.0% per annum; it rose to 2.7% per year for the period of the 1920s
and increased again to 3.3% for the decade between 1930 and the 1940s, the rate
declined to 2.9% and then rose again to 3.1% in the 1950s and 3.4% in the 1960s. 5
Villagers lived a life defined primarily by relations between kinsmen for
producing the basic necessities of life and between fellow villagers for addressing
moral and religious concerns. In 1963-64, villagers in Ban Nông Tün were engaged
in producing primarily for their own consumption. Rice was cultivated using labor
intensive methods. Plowing and harrowing of fields was done using water buffaloes.
4
We have been assisted in our research after our initial study by several colleagues – Suriya
Smutkupt, Paitoon Mikusol, and Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan – and want to acknowledge their
significant contributions to our research. Most of all we want to thank people of Ban Nông Tün for t
heir tolerance of two farang who in January 1963 decided to make themselves part of their lives. We
are especially grateful to the late Ngao Khamwicha (1935-1991), his wife, Nuan, and his daughter,
Watsana, and their families, who have welcomed us into their homes in the village.
5
Population figures used for calculating these percentages have been taken, in part, from
Lefferts (1974:62)