Community leaders in Kanchanaburi province have come up with a way to get members of agricultural cooperatives to spend most of their income within their own communities.
"We now give them coupons, not cash, as an annual dividend,"said Raem Chianga, leader of a savings cooperative in the sub-district of Nongsaraiy, in Phanom Thuan district.
He said each member saved an average of Bt4 a day and that the cooperative's combined savings had risen to Bt7 million after six years in operation. It now has 3,600 members.
He said that previously when members were paid their dividends in cash, they spent much of the money outside their communities. However, recently the local cooperatives have started to pay dividends partly in coupons which can be used to buy goods from cooperatives'stores.
"We plan to fully offer them coupons soon," he said.
The cooperatives also produce drinking water, fertiliser, textiles and other hand-made products.
Nongsaraiy subdistrict works closely with the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, said Raem and Ennoo Suesuwan, an executive vice president of the bank.
Ennoo said the BAAC had selected Nongsaraiy as a model for implementing the sufficiency-economy philosophy of His Majesty the King.
The bank works with 3,000 communities nationwide, promoting the sufficiency economy and strengthening local communities.
Ecological farming is the main activity, shifting away from single-crops farming, he said, adding that 300 communities had been quite successful in practising the new agricultural method.
The BAAC is expected to choose at least one community as a model in each of the country's 75 provinces, he said.
The bank has recently been honoured for its efforts in implementing the sufficiency-economy model since the 1997 financial crisis
Meanwhile, Luck Wajananawat, president of the BAAC, said the bank plans to increase its "green" credit to 25 per cent of its lending portfolio in the next five years.
Outstanding loans currently total about Bt635 billion and the bank has around 6 million farming families as clients.
Green credit will, for example, support people in the planting of more trees on their farmland and in the use of alternative energy, he said.