Farmers in land scheme also benefit from organic crops
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Growing organic rice not only means less cost through little or no use of fertiliser or toxic insecticide, it also means more arable land and greater market potential.
Chai and his wife Raruen Uamprasert, farmers in Phichit’s Pho Thalay district, said organic farming had cut their per-rai cost by around Bt5,000. The LCO scheme enabled them to farm three crops each year due to more fertile land and also brought locals closer, after they stopped fighting over meagre water, as they’d done in the past.
Yields per-rai prior to this scheme were around 400kg – now they reached 900kg, Chai said. Use of chemical fertiliser had dropped to 50kg per rai, and organic fertiliser saved money.
Another farmer and fruit grower, Somnuek Khongkha, said an LCO scheme began at his plantation in Nakhon Sawan’s Ta-khli district in 1975 and was completed in 1981. He said he earned around Bt140,000 each year from rice and Bt70,000 from fruit he grew through organic methods.
