THE SENSE OF THE ‘COMMON’
The lives and work of farmers and fishermen are not nearly as simple as many in the city are led to believe
any people probably think of farmers, orchard keepers and fishermen as “common people”, and they would most likely describe themselves as ordinary workers or labourers without any high ambitions, lacking the knowledge needed for other kinds of work.
They have to work constantly, they would explain, for the survival of themselves and their families.
But if we look more closely at them and at what they do, they are professionals. Their work requires deep knowledge and expertise, awareness of and respect for the laws and workings of nature, diligence, honesty and open-mindedness.
Farmers and orchard keepers often suffer from not being given reliable information, and therefore making decisions on the basis of rumours or misunderstandings. In some part of the country farmers who once grew kitchen garden-type crops like chillies and basil heard about the government’s rice subsidy scheme and switched from their original style of farming to rice cultivation.
When the scheme collapsed, rice prices returned to normal, and the problem was compounded by drought, with no water for the rice fields. With the original crops gone and the rice fields useless, the farmers were victims of ill luck over which they had no control.
Then there was the government campaign encouraging farmers, especially those in the Central Region, to grow teak. The public relations effort invited them to believe that there was a high demand for teak in Thailand, and that after planting the trees, in 10 years they would be able to sell the wood at a high price. What’s more, after the trees were planted they could be left to themselves, requiring no care.
Farmers who had previously grown coconuts or mangoes cut them down and replaced them with teak trees. Fertile land with plenty of water went to waste, and years passed during which the farmers got nothing from it at all as they awaited a future without knowing how big the trees would grow or what the selling price of the wood would be. These are a couple of the failures that the government brought down on the heads of farmers.
Most experienced and enlightened farmers prefer to grow a number of crops together. They will cultivate coconuts, mangoes, bananas, jackfruit, papayas, and local fruits like maphrang and lamut, as well as other, household garden-type plants like kaffir limes, chillies, limes, lemongrass, basil and aubergines. They will also find room for cha-om,
krathin and tamarind whose tender shoots are used in cooking.
Mango, maphrang and lamut trees, which bear fruit once a year, provide an annual income. The others can be sold daily.
Taking care of these crops is a daily operation that farmers perform automatically, like clockwork, from early morning until evening. They have to work hard, getting rid of grass and weeds, ensuring that enough water is getting to the crops, fertilising when necessary, pulling dead leaves from coconut trees and gathering them together. After working all morning, if there is free time in the afternoon the farmer will cut the coconut leaves into strands, tie them together, and sell them to broom factories. The leaves will be sent to market vendors, and any extra produce will be collected to sell at the market.
This daily lifestyle never stands still. Selling is easier these days because of the proliferation of informal afternoon markets that operate on different days on a rotary basis. Farmers can take their produce for sale at one or another of them on almost any day. Dealings are honest, produce is of good quality and prices are not high. In the evening when the market is getting ready to close, vendors give leftover produce to customers free of charge because they don’t want to take it home.
They will pick up some ready-made food such as curries or grilled chicken or catfish, dishes that take time and effort to prepare, to take home. The staple dish in each household will be nam phrik (a spicy dipping sauce), which they will make themselves and eat with fresh vegetables from the garden.
This is the farmer’s daily routine, one that ensures that his fields will be productive in both the short and the long term. It is a simple lifestyle with no luxuries and a diet that is basic and nutritious.
Now let’s look at the lifestyle of fishermen. Most live in seaside communities in different parts of the country. In every locale, the fishermen will know what kinds of fish and other seafood are in the waters and will have the nets and other equipment needed to catch them.
For example, if squid are abundant, the fishermen know that they are nocturnal, so they drag their nets at intervals during the night and return to shore in the morning.
If there are crabs, a different kind of net is used. These are set at night and then the fishermen return home, leaving them in place and coming back in the morning to bring them in. If the crabs are less numerous, they may leave them for two or three days before retrieving them, but during those days the fishermen will go out to sea for fish or shrimp. No time will be wasted.
Fishermen’s families are also constantly busy. During the season when the sea is quiet and tides are low, with the water only waist-deep and the beaches broad and sandy, boys and girls will go out with smaller nets, attach one end to a wooden pole and drag the net against the current to catch small fish for supper.
Children like to take little metal rakes to pull through the wet sand to dig out the hoy
talab (a kind of clam) that are buried just beneath the surface.
Most fishermen deal with middlemen who buy their catch for resale right at the place where they take the fish from their nets. When the catch is too small to sell, they will eat it themselves, prepared into simple dishes like
pla tom nam pla (stewed with fish sauce), or with a nam phrik. Like the farmers, they buy ready-made curries and other dishes at local informal markets.
Both farmers and fishermen lead rigorous lives that on the surface seem simple but in reality are deeply informed by complicated knowledge that allows them to live productively in harmony with nature.
Their skills and expertise are nowhere near as “common” as even they themselves might claim.