On 11 rai or 5.5 acres of agricultural land along the Pai river, we are doing permaculture design. This is Buti’s land and she is an akha hill tribe woman who has been farming all her life. She has extensive knowledge of the plants and animals here, and along with other family members, she shares her knowledge with the people that come here to learn sustainable agriculture. We started planting in May 03′, at the onset of the rainy season. Diversity is great, with exotic hardwood trees, incense trees, nuts etc..We have an abundance of bamboo dwelling and we are now growing sugar cane next to the river. This sugar cane is float harvested down the river to our store in Pai and is used to make sugar cane juice for sale; one cottage industry, amongst the possibility of many others such as t-shirt printing London. We will be building a bio-gas (methane) digester, also creating alcohol fuel for our motors from surplus fermentable harvests. In keeping with the Thailand forestry wishes,we are registering teak trees and plan to grow 400 per rye (2 meters apart) with selective harvesting. Sustainable agriculture and self-sufficiency is what we are working towards. Buti has been doing her own form of permaculture and we are learning from her traditional printed clothing methods. We are a multi-cultural, multi-national co-operative of people and animals.
Projects in the Works:
Sustainable wood lots
Key line water system. 6 ponds, aqua culture, each pond having it’s own ecosystem
Sustainable building methods/materials, primarily bamboo
Possible silk production from our organic mulberry trees
Solar greenhouse construction
Ethnobotanical garden
Ground water filtration
Installing ram pump system and setting up a hydro-generator