Developing “Community Product” for Sustainability Transition: Some Observations from Lan Tak Fah–Khlong Yong Community Agro-tourism Research in Nakhon Pathom

Abstract

This paper analyzes the transformation of rice agricultural area in Lan Tak Fah–Khlong Yong communities. The transformation of rice field area around Nakhon Chai Si river basin into peri-urban settings shares similarities with other rural agricultural areas that have been both physically and socially affected by urban sprawl. The transformation brought the farming communities into 4Ds situations of Disaster and risk, Disruption and fluctuation, Devaluation of agriculture and De-agrarianization. Although the big flood disaster in Thailand in 2011 brought a huge impact on agriculture here, it also served as a turning point for several farming families to shift from chemical-dependent rice farming to a more sustainable agriculture. This includes the revival of local rice species. As a result, Lan Tak Fah–Khlong Yong communities become the study sites of several groups from educational and research institutions. In addition, as the area is close to Bangkok and to other famous tourism sites, a group of local people become interested in developing “community product” to mobilize collective effort to expand sustainable agricultural areas and becoming the source of safe food for the urban people. The implication of this “product” is not limited to agricultural produce or goods like in the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) merchandise, but it incorporates community-based agro-tourism as an end product as well. The development of this “agro-tourism as a product” is a part of the research project which has been designed to transform the thinking about “community”, about new relations of production, about reviving the past as valuable collective memory, about the significance of the area and surrounding nature, about the participation of different groups that value spirituality of the land and water ways, etc. The development of this “product” thus becomes a small movement against the devaluation of agriculture and de-agrarianization. Like other counter movement, it is very difficult and demanding. In addition, an intermediary is needed to recruit participation and collaboration and to tighten up community relations through common vision of sustainability, and this vision cannot merely be just a community vision but one that covers a much larger scale.