[Note: Yes, I am aware that the title of this blog is grammatically incorrect. This is an intentional spoof on the lyrics of the song “Ridin’ Dirty” by Chamillionaire, a song that was itself spoofed by “Weird Al” Yankovic in his top ten hit “White & Nerdy.” The reasons for this title should be obvious within the post.]

This afternoon the four Westerners here at Legacy had an opportunity to visit a sustainable farm nearby (about five miles away or so) and we all chose to visit the small multipurpose demonstration plot near Mae Rim. The village road that winds its way from the road that meets the 107 at the Friday Market south to the demonstration farm could have used a lot more maintenance given its profusion of potholes. Nonetheless, it was an immensely pleasant experience to walk around the small farm and talk about its operations, which took a bit more than two hours.

Despite the small size of the farm (about three hand a half rai, about an acre and a half, as about 2.529285264 rai, approximately, are in an acre [1]), there were a large number of plant and animal species that were present within the farm, ranging from native nitrogen-fixing plants to teak, lemongrass, cassava, chili peppers, job’s tears, mulberry, pigeon peas, and many, many others. There were various species of fish, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and a guinea fowl, and the owner talked about his love of pigs because of their love of eating just about any old junk. We were all very polite and avoided causing offense with our rather harsh views against having anything to do with pigs.

The birds were particularly entertaining. The large male turkey (one of whose eyes appeared to be blind) as well as the (single male) guinea fowl were rather loud and harsh in defending their territory. The geese acted as the “parents” of the ducks and the ducks and chickens, while we were there, roamed over the property of three different people landowners, getting chased off one of them rather abruptly by the neighbor’s pet dog. They even responded to my call of “Goose,” given I shouted with a rather deep voice. It was rather pleasing to establish my place on top of the poultry chain of dominance, my love of eating poultry being very well established.

There were a few fairly intriguing but very Thai elements to this farm and its operations, even though the owner was an American gentleman. For one, he happens to be one of those anti-corporate types (rather hippy, almost) whose politics are fairly left-wing and communitarian (he was even growing a non-cannibus form of hemp as a nitrogen fixer to help recover the land) with a great deal of hostility to the corporate farming that is practiced here. He was very much a sustainable agriculture guy. Fortunately, it has been my experience that such people are often very generous when it comes to helping out others in the same sort of situation who are starting out, as a way to build a community of organic and sustainable farms in the area, so we ended up with a lot of cuttings and seeds to plant at the teacher’s garden and at the farm.

Nonetheless, the business world always intrudes. This fellow, who has apparently spent a great deal of his life in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, had married a Chinese woman and has a daughter, both of whom appear fairly Chinese in their interest of making as much money as possible, something the gentleman (I think his name was Jeff) can do much easier through his writing than through his rather small farm operation. It is a nice farm for demonstration, warts and all, as it shows how a moderately busy person can keep a fairly small but reasonable tract of land going in an organic and sustainable fashion with fairly minimal labor (only one full-time employee). Hopefully we can do as well in our operations, even though it looks like a lot of work is required at the outset.

One lesson I saw rather clearly was that to do sustainable agriculture it appears as if a large amount of complementary plants are necessary. One needs to plant some types of plants for nutrients as well as to serve as a natural mulch, and at other times certain plants are often very easily and successfully paired (such as taro and cassava plants, or chili peppers and banana trees, to name a few examples). Knowing the water or shade or sun tolerances of plants is important, being able to keep grass and weeds down using natural suppressants is important (and there are some nice covering plants), and there are often work cycles that allow rice to even be sustainable as long as the right nitrogen-fixing plants are planted in a the fallow part of the planing cycle as well. It was a pleasant experience overall, topped off with some good conversation over some of his own jackfruit and pineapple, which were both very tasty. Overall, it was a very pleasant experience.

[1] http://www.convertunits.com/from/rai/to/acre