THE NATURAL WAY
Patthawi organic orchard group in Chanthaburi made a choice some 15 years ago to embrace farming without pesticides — and the community has reaped the benefits
Ratthai Pongsak climbed an organic mon thong durian tree in his orchard in Chanthaburi. He tapped some thorny fruits with a knife handle to check for a ripe one. When he found it, he cut its stem and slowly handed the fruit to his assistant who just reached out his hands while standing on the ground.
The staff put the durian on a rice sack and used the knife to cut the husk, revealing the yellowish flesh inside.
“Wow,” my friends and I cried enthusiastically at the same time when we saw the beautiful light yellow durian.
Ratthai handed the fruit to us saying: “We love to let you all taste our organic fruits because I’d like you to experience how succulent the fruits are.”
I am not a big fan of durian. But when I took a little portion of it, I reached out for more. The durian had a tight texture and light fragrance. The taste was nutty, creamy and rich. I couldn’t help but think of ice cream, had it been cold.
Ratthai is the president of the Learning Centre of Patthawi Community Economy, also known as the Patthawi organic orchard group, in Makham district, about 20km from the city of Chanthaburi. He founded the group in 2002 to promote organic farming to orchard farmers.
Ratthai turned his back on the usage of any chemicals almost 20 years ago when he was sick. His blood was contaminated by toxins because he grew fruit trees using pesticides, the same way his parents did. He wanted to find a way to improve his health. He stopped using chemicals and learned by trial and error over many years before joining a course at the Mab Ueang Agri-Nature Foundation, held by Wiwat Salayakamthorn, better known as Achan Yak, in Chon Buri.
Equipped with organic farming knowledge, he reached out to other farmers and successfully convinced some of them to kickstart the group of organic orchards. Today the group has 17 members with accumulated farmland of up to 700 rai of organic orchards in tambon Patthawi in Makham district.
“We work well together because we share the same interest in health concerns. We know that organic farming is the answer,” he said.
The organic produce of the group is certified by two standards: the Organic Agriculture Certification Thailand (ACT) and PGS, or Participatory Guarantee Systems, which is the standard for small-scale organic farms. It focuses mainly on quality assurance, and is based on a foundation of trust, social network and knowledge exchange among organic farmers.
The Patthawi farmer group also has three lab facilities. First is a lab for researching fruit tree diseases. The second facility is for identifying fruit sweetness levels, which is known as the Brix scale. The group found that the sweetness of its mangosteen, for example, is in the range of 17-24 Brix value, which is on the same par as pineapples, papaya and figs.
“We can’t just say our fruits are sweet. We have to have scientific proof for our visitors,” he said.
The last facility, which will be set up this year, is to have lab tools for testing chemical contamination to ensure product quality and safety for consumers, he said.
Ratthai launched the orchard tour in 2012. Nine farmers out of 17 opened their orchards for visitors to pluck ripe fruits from the trees. It is a popular service among orchards in Rayong, Chanthaburi and Trat. The Patthawi organic orchard group does not charge
visitors an entrance fee. They only charge for a service of saleng (a motor tricycle ride), which is priced at 50 baht per passenger for an orchard tour. During the tour, visitors will have a chance to taste rambutan, longkong, mangosteen and durian.
The group grows not only mon thong durian trees, but also phuang manee, chanee, kan yao, nok yib, nok krajib, kob chai nam, kob suwan and sob mangkorn.
“We can’t promise what types of durian each group of visitors will have a chance to eat, it depends on the ripe time of durians. But I can guarantee that we have ripe durian for visitors every day until the end of June,” he said.
When we visited the rambutan plantation, he plucked green rambutans for us to taste. To my surprise, the taste was not totally sour, but sweet and a little sour.
“We use the flesh of the green rambutan for cooking tom yam. The dish is very delicious,” he said.
The longkong fruits from the orchard were also sweet. I could finish a kilogramme easily. Unfortunately during this visit, we did not have a chance to taste mangosteens, the queen of fruits, because the fruits were not yet ripe.
“The yield of mangosteen was only 20% this year due to the rain during December. In fact, all produce was down about 50% when compared to last year because of the uncertain weather,” he said.
The fruit prices are higher than those of last year. Ratthai sells a kilogramme of organic mon thong durian at 140 baht. A kilogramme of longkong is 70 baht and it’s 200 baht per kilogramme for mangosteen.
For those who want to visit Patthawi organic orchard group, they must have an advance booking.
“We are farmers so we spend most of our time in the orchards. If visitors show up without notice, they will not find anyone to tour them around. The farm tour is still new to us and we also limit the number of visitors to about 100 per day,” he said.
From the organic orchard, we dropped by newly-opened Bo Ploy Lek Petch, an old gem mine. Today, it is open as a learning centre for visitors to experience gem panning.
Sarawut Tuengtrakool, 35, the owner of the mine, told me that he wanted visitors to learn the traditional way of finding gems. He opened his backyard, part of his organic orchard, as a learning centre. His family has run a gem mining business in tambon Bang Kra Cha since his grandfather’s generation. The gem panning reminded him of the good old days.
“Visitors can try their luck to find a gemstone with us. If they find a gemstone, they can take it back home as a souvenir,” he said.
The centre has a couple of wells available for visitors to climb down about 5m to scoop out soil into a bucket. The next process is to take the bucket to a dirt pond where staff will help remove clay from the bucket into a woven bamboo tray for panning. Some visitors are lucky enough to find one or two little pieces of gemstone while others leave with just the experience.
“Sieving gemstones is a popular activity for family visitors,” he said.
The last stop we made was at Khanom Plaek (“weird snacks”) market of the Nong Bua community, which is also known as Nong Bua Walking Street.
The idea to promote the community as a tourist attraction was initiated by Ratanathorn Kaonongbua, 60, in 2016. As president of Khanom Plaek Community Enterprise, he wanted to highlight the weird names of some snacks and the old ambience of the community located on the bank of Nong Bueng Canal.
“When we opened the walking street two years ago, we used social media to promote our market. It became a sudden hit from the first year,” he said, adding that people liked the old ambience of wooden shophouses lining along the walking street along with the local food and snacks.
Started at 15 stalls, the market has about 130 stalls today. Many dessert shops offer a small portion of snacks for visitors to try. If you take those samples one after another from the beginning of the walking street to the other side, you will be easily full before reaching the local recommended restaurant Khrua Bua Khao. Its mouth-watering dishes include chicken soup with papaya, yam phrik-on kung yang (sour and spicy grilled shrimp), muk tom nam aoy (boiled squid in sugar cane soup) and khao khluk phrik kluea (rice mixed with seafood sauce, which is called phrik kluea in Chanthaburi, and topped with parboiled shrimps, squid, fish and boiled egg).
Spending a couple of days in Chanthaburi seems too short when many activity choices await you. When the organic mangosteen is ripe, I think I will come back once more.