Local Ethnic Minority Networks for Sustainable Resource Management: The Pang Ma Pha Hilltribe Network Organization in Northern Thailand

Abstract

‘Networks’ and ‘networking’, as Haverkort notes, is ‘nothing new under the sun’, and networking between farmers is ‘as old as farming itself’. However, in recent years new forms of farmer networks are arising partly due to new political space in some countries, such as Thailand, and partly due to government bureaucracies that have largely failed to deliver adequate services. In Northern Thailand, for example, ethnic communities came under increasing pressure through new government legislation banning traditional forms of agricultural production in the name of conservation. Here, traditional forms of practices, information exchange and cooperation are revived and linked with new forms and opportunities. They grew out of the need to fight for the protection of farmers’ land, for conflict resolution over resource use among themselves or vis-à-vis other, often powerful and well-connected interest groups, for civil rights (e.g. citizenship), for protecting their community from drug trafficking and abuses, and for getting access to relevant information, new technologies, or development funds.

The most essential ingredient for the promotion of low-external-input and sustainable agriculture is the existence of strong, farmer-based networks in the rural communities.’

(Haverkort 1993)