Coop leads to a variety of benefits for villagers

Attracted by the "Model Community for Sufficiency Economy", residents of Nakhon Ratchasima's Krabuengyai and Samrit villages volunteered to take part in a savings cooperative that requires a deposit of just one baht per day.

Established in 2006, the cooper¬ative had 688 members with com¬bined savings of Bt270,682 as of June 5.

Villagers agreed that 30 per cent of the funds would be used to devel¬op community enterprises, including a garbage bank, new cleaning mate¬rials, a community shop selling con¬sumer goods, brown rice and processed rice, traditional sweet products and organic fertiliser.

They also agreed to allocate 50 per cent of the money to providing com¬munity welfare, with the remainder earmarked for supporting business links with other communities.

The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) has played a key role in providing knowledge and financial support. Business management is the second principle under its "Model Community for Sufficiency Economy", which focuses on com¬munity selfreliance.

To date, each business enterprise in the villages has had good results, with  stakeholders starting to realise income and benefitsharing. In addi¬tion, they are able to repay debt to the BAAC and reduce their borrowings from the bank.

Mheun Tissarak, leader of the organic fertiliser manufacturing group, said its initial capital was Bt500,000, of which 50 per cent came from the government's Small, Medium and Large Loan programme and the remainder being mobilised from 95 farmers. Farmers each had to purchase stakes at Bt100 per share, but not exceeding Bt10,000.

Mheun said the capital had been invested in purchasing machinery and setting up a production plant. The price of the group's organic fer¬tiliser is quoted at Bt260 for a 50kilogram bag for members and Bt290 for nonmembers. This is consider¬ably cheaper than chemical fertiliser, which costs Bt1,300 per 50kg.

The group has sold Bt100,000 of its fertiliser, but still has a stock¬pile.

"We are proud to help our mem¬bers reduce their productionfer¬tiliser costs to Bt500,000 this year, and our products also generate income and shareholder benefits for the group," Mheun said.

The group's 95 members have a combined rice plantation area of 5,000 rai and purchase fertiliser nor¬mally costing Bt3 million per year.

The group also employs villagers to work in the plant, paying a daily wage of Bt140.

Mheun and the group members also expand the business by selling member farmers' jasmine rice and rice seedlings.

Meanwhile, Aree Petchtae, head of the villages' Tree Bank project, said the bank was working with more than 20 plant breeds and a total of more than 1,000 trees averaging three months' old. These trees were pur¬chased mainly from villagers, with a limit of 100 trees per person.

The bank has a variety of trees, including herb bushes, decorative trees and timberbearing trees. These are sold to the general public, with the bank charging villagers 15 per cent of the proceeds for taking care of the trees in its nursery.

The goal is that the bank will not only generate income for the villagers, but also become a knowledge centre and concentrate more on purchasing larger trees.

Villagers from Baan Khla village, meanwhile, concentrate on growing organic fruit and vegetables. The vil¬lage is developing a plantation area in order to become a promoted foodsafety centre under the BAAC proj¬ect.

The produce is not only consumed by the families who grow it, but excess output is also sold to middlemen. Farmers in this way earn extra income of between Bt50 and Bt200 per day. The fruit and vegetable group cur¬rently has 43 members.

Once accredited as a foodsafety centre, produce will be supplied to hospitals, schools, hotels and restau¬rants. This will also directly create valueadded income for farmers.

To strengthen their bargaining power, villagers also combine their production for direct sale to traders, who offer to pick it up at the farm.