Socially-aware organics firm provides sustainable future for northern hilltribe farming community
Play
FIRMS wishing to engage in socially responsible business can learn a lot from an organic company that learned its lessons on the ground and lifted a community of hilltribe farmers in the North to its feet.
FIRMS wishing to engage in socially responsible business can learn a lot from an organic company that learned its lessons on the ground and lifted a community of hilltribe farmers in the North to its feet.
The key to success is knowing what truly needs to be done on the ground, said Zachary Gomes, chief operating officer of Hill Tribe Organics, a social enterprise in Chiang Rai.
He said last week that one of the things that the organic company realised when it was on the ground at the start is that hilltribe farmers in the North have plenty of land that is unproductive.
“They have a lot of land that is not as productive as it should be, but you can put livestock on the land and turn it into valuable land.
“But then they still do not have equipment, education or much to offer in terms of the marketplace, so we have to provide that for them also,” he said.
“The key to setting it all up is how to enable them to do it without it becoming a risky investment for them.
“So we set up this company to avoid investment on their part while enabling them to gain access to the market more directly so that they can have a better income,” he said.
It took time to gain the hilltribe farmers’ trust but once they realised that the company was there to raise chickens with them while taking all the risk, the barriers started to come down.
“You have to ingratiate yourself with the community because you do not want to start a social enterprise that says ‘you just want to help people’ when you do not know much about them,” he said.
“Poverty is a problem, but when you get into the inside of the community, you might see that maybe there is a bigger problem that you need to address first,” he added.
Pornsun Chutep, assistant managing director of Premier Products, a subsidiary of Premier Group of Companies, said that at the start, the company was only providing donations to the Kok Kee Lek community in Prachin Buri.
However, it soon realised that it was only turning them into a community of beggars, so it decided to change its approach.
“The community is next to our factory and we are using their resources, so we were trying to give something back through donations but that is not sustainable.
“So we decided to get inside and talk to the community for years before we came up with what was truly needed to be done to lift them out of poverty,” he said.
The community found out that there is a way for it to save costs and earn money by producing its own water, since there is a natural source of water nearby and the company has the know-how – it makes water containers and purifiers.
They decided to provide the community with the infrastructure and invited them to invest in the project.
“We want them to invest at least 50 per cent because the community will have to be the one that carries the project once the infrastructure is laid down,” he said.
Sanchai Tandavanitj, director of Enlive Foundation in Krabi, said the foundation was concentrating too much on the preservation of natural resources, but then realised that getting “the resource users” to stand on its side was much more effective.
“If we provide the locals, who are the resource users, with more than just donations and regulations, such as education, they will understand and they will automatically help you to protect their own natural resources such as by not using fishing gear that can harm the reefs or the fingerlings,” he said.
