Royal Address, Given at the Closing Ceremony of the Northern Agricultural Seminar, Northern Agricultural Office, Chiangmai, Thursday, February 26, 1981. Revised and translated by His Majesty the King.
Terraces of crops
Forest Village, Thung Gwian, Lampang.
... Therefore, a thought came to me that we have to create forest villages with "New Method" in parentheses. This ia an expression used in the same manner as the "Three Kinds of Forests" that has four uses. This is the "Forest Village (New Method)", it has a slightly different principle from the ordinary forest village, and that resides in the location of the village.
It will be established according to the report that was just read: wherever the slope is not to sleep, the land can be used for agriculture. Even rice can be grown with terracces done with the right technique; in that place, we should not grow trees. If we grow trees there, the people will have no land to make a living in a proper way. Furthermore, they will not be attached to the land or the trees. But if the land is reserved for them and if we strive to find water resources for them,
they will be satisfied. (I have noticed that using an adequate tecnology ofen means using unconventional tecnology that may not be in the textbooks, or if is in the textbooks, it is simply mentioned in passing in only one or two lines.) Anyway, there are methods to make the moderately sloping land suitable for cultivation or paddy-land. Or if it is not possible to make it a paddy-land, upland rice could be grown.
The villages that we assemble in the "Forest Village (New Method)" will still be under the responsibility of the Forestry Department. Let them work with good cheer because they know for sure that they can cultivate that land without fear that they will be evicted or be "trees-planted". I use the expression "tree-planted" in their land, the same problem that happened in many other places; that is, any area where trees have been planted is not considered farming land any more. The people are promised that it does not matter; farming land will be found elsewhere for them.
Finally, the people will end up setting down in a land where there is no water, where it is a desert because it is a place where trees have been planted but would not grow. Even upland rice will not grow there. So the people move out, and as there are not enough policemen and forest rangers, they will go into deep forests where they will cut down beautiful, valuable trees, cut them down by the thousants and cultivate the land.
We must go after them in the same manner as "putting a handful of crabs into a basket", constantly telling them, "You are committing a crime; you are not allowed to cut trees; you must be sent to jail." There is no more room in the prisons, or even if there still is, it is a waste of cooked rice because we have to take care to feed them, if not, a "committee for the welfare or prison denizens" or something in this vein from the United Nations will come to inspect the conditions or Thai penal facilities, and they will report that the conditions are disgusting.
We will end up in a difficult position; we have to find rice to feed those in prison. Instead of putting them in prison, we'd better have them produce rice; they would produce rice for their own subsistance. It could even be that the production would contribute toward rice exports; the national economy would improve.
It follows that wherever there is a piece of land flat enough, cultivation can be pursued, and trees won't have to be cut down elsewhere. This means that the land does not have to be "peeled". Usually, when a land is to be developed, the hills and other lands have to be "peeled" so that the place has to be thoroughly denuded. Even where there are some trees left, these trees have to be cut down for the planting of new trees or making other cultivations. This does not make sense. To sum it up, where a place ia already cleared, and where there are no more trees, let them cultivate for a living.
.... . Those who work in these centers, in this "Forest Village (New Method)" are notour employees; however, if they want to, we could employ them part-time, when they are free from their agricultural work, for the task of planting trees, on a daily basis, or according to what would be agreed on, but they are not to be regular workes. Thus, they will be fully-fledged ordinary citizens; anybody who come and bully them would be equivalent to bullying the farmers, the people, not a government unit. Usually in sensitive areas,
when terrorists come in and kill the workers, they say, "You work for the government; you work for the capitalists, so we have to kill you. If you don't work for the capitalists, we will not kill you." In the case of the "Forest Village (New Method)", the villagers are the farmers or the people; they are not the government workers. This solves many other problems; it gives them a spirit of attachment to the land, and they don't have to go elsewhere; they will guard their village and take care of the "Three kinds of trees" that we'll have to plant all around the area.
The system of the "Forest Village (New Method)" will be the same in any other villages. They could be cooperative villages, or villages in the projects of other ministries such as the Ministry of Interior or projects like the public cattle pastures which are common throughout the country; all these are not under the Forestry Department or the Ministry of Agriculture. The Department of Animal Husbandry or the Department of Administration of the Ministry of Interior or other departments should all use the system.
Royal Address, Given at the Closing Ceremony of the Northern Agricultural Seminar, Northern Agricultural Office, Chiangmai, Thursday, February 26, 1981, P. 41 - 51.
