บทความวิจัย "ความั่นคงทางอาหาร บ้านป่าคา อ.เมือง จ.น่าน"

Food security of rural communities : Wisdom in the management of food resources of Ban Pa Kha community, Nan Province.

Name of the author: Ms.Piyanart Imdee 

Abstract.

This article aims to present the Food Security of rural communities in dimension of food accessibility of Ban Pa Kha community, to reflect thinking and how to manage food on the basis of local wisdom and sufficiency economy concept.

BanPa Khais atraditionalindigenouscommunityin theNan Province located on a hill. Most of the geographic condition arelow hills. Thecommunitieshaverestrictions onlandand water resources because ofsmallhillsandplains.However, even with the limitedecothat resembles ahill. But the mostpeoplearetrying tomeet theirbasic needsin termsof thecreationfood security.Ban Pa Kha communitycanaccesslocalresources, whether directly orindirectly. Waydirectis someone whohastheir ownland can be accessed directly by the source because ofthe wisdomand knowledge ofagricultural productionand the knowledgeinherited fromtheir fathersandfamilylaboravailabletoproduce foodfor household consumption. As a result,familyeasyaccess to food.Forindirectaccess to food; They have knowledge, skills, ability to find food in their native. Know how to store and find resources in the natural food sources. They can devise tools to make a living

Ban PaKha isan example ofthewisdomin the management offood resources. But there are concerns that the current the community starts moving towards to modernity. Parents are trying to support their children to higher education levels. New generations are going on working outside the community and are keeping behind the elderly and gathering of the natural resources . Succession of the local wisdom and traditional ways of living tends to the disappear. Hence, all the local wisdom should be the integrated in order to enhance the succession of the self-supporting production with a self- sufficient basic for this community

Keywords:Food Security, Food Accessibility, Local Wisdom,Community Development.

Introduction

The term “food security” was used to describe whether a country had access to enough food to meet dietary energy requirements. National food security was used by some to mean self-sufficiency, Such as Thailand; The country's food production.Could be called a kitchen in the world. Therefore, it should make clear that they mean that all people have access to sufficient food to meet the energy and nutrients.The question was raised. Rural areas, where food production will have enough food or not.

BanPa Khais atraditionalindigenouscommunityin theNan Province located on a hill. Most of the geographic condition arelow hills. Thecommunitieshaverestrictions onlandand water resources because ofsmallhillsandplains.However, even with the limitedecothat resembles ahill. Here is the agricultural community. Agriculture is the main occupation of local people. In the past,they producedfoodforsubsistenceand forhousehold consumption.Later, thevillagerswere interested in chemical crop andproduce food to sell even more. Becauseofgovernmentagencypromotion.Afterward, in fact, they got a lot of opportunities to learn aboutsufficienteconomy.Especially for chemical-freeagriculture .As a resultto the most of all farmers in this community modified concept, the way of production to self-reliance in agricultureand cancel using chemical

Of the above, Will see that communities have limited space conditions to food production and the most people are as moderate, the second is a poor position. Therefore, it is interesting to study the food security in the community in term of food accessibility, To reflect thinking and how to manage food on the basis of local wisdom and sufficiency economy concept

Objectives

To study the food security in the community in term of food availability, food management, and food affordability.

Research Methodology

This study was a qualitative survey research utilized households as analysis units. The sample group for the study comprised 23 households. The data collection was done through the field survey, the observation (both participative and non-participative type), the questionnaires group and individual interviews, and analyzing the data included the checklist of the household food resources, and the resource mapping.

Results

The study found that Ban Pa Kha has various natural resources since the past and they are still exist today although they are much decrease in quantity as a result of change in ecology, including forests, plants, wild animal, water resource and land. The situation is in line with the information from the Department of Forest, which states that in the year, 2000, about 90 million Rai of forest area was destroyed resulting in the decreased forest area at only 81.09 million Rai from the former number of 171 million Rai. The decreased quality of forests results in substantially changes in climate and landscape. Numerous agricultural use caused deteriorated grounds and diminished food productivity and make the ground absorb less water. Although, Ban Pa Khaface the situation of decrease in natural food resources, villager can still manage the food and natural resource for their benefit especially make it their food

The study revealed that the Ban Pa-kha community possessed the diversity of the food resource that were categorized into 6 types i.e. the resources around houses, paddy, field, garden, water resource, forest and commercial area. The products were human–made and natural-made. The latter was accounted as the common food that all the community members had right to use. This reflected the ownership right on natural food resources of the people in the community. It was also one on the factors enabling food availability of everyone in the community. However, the food resources tended to steadily decrease because of many factors including deforestation for expanding the agricultural land and residential area, use of the insecticide, food gathering method; such as burning the for animals hunting, and gathering wind plants to sell, the uncertain weather, rain-shortage, and shallow water resources. Therefore, the community should take care, maintain, conserve and renew the exiting natural resources. In addition, collecting of the natural products from the resources should be a sufficient-basis controlled by laws and regulations. Likewise, dissemination of knowledge and information about the right ways to gather wild plants and other natural resources without destroying nature should be made should be made. The traditional agriculture with the use of natural fertilizers rather than chemicals should be promoted in order to prevent the food shortage condition in the future

Because of the natural food available for collection in community to decrease. Later on there has been a gradual change in the way of life and adjust the production mode i.e. the subsistence farming parallel with the commercial farming. However, people placed emphasis firstly on producing food to eat, then on selling the excess of the food. The subsistence farming that was done in parallel with gathering nature resources was considered the major way to obtain food, which was followed by utilization of subsistence farming together with purchasing food from the commercial sources. The household agriculture was the main source to produce the staple food significant for daily consumption. The land, labor local wisdom, knowledge, and skills that the household belonged enabled them the easy access to food. Moreover, they were self-sufficient in food because ofthe sufficient food availability and the food stability. Those help providing fresh and clean food and saving costs of food for them too. The means to manage the food resources and to produce the self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and health concerns. By the way, the was a group of the poor families that was unable to become self-supporting in the rice since they didn’t have their own agricultural land. Furthermore, most of the people in this group were elderly with bad health and were left behind alone by the young generations. Consequently, they could not produce rice for their own. The solution to these problems were that they bartered their labor for rice, bought the lower-price rice from neighbors, asked from relatives, and asked from temple respectively. These showed the existence of the patronage system and the kinship society in this community

The study revealed that mostpeoplearetrying tomeet theirbasic needsin termsof thecreationfood security. It is evident from Their knowledge and skills with the ability the attitude and the proper management of food resources. Render canaccesslocalresources, whether directly orindirectly. Waydirectis someone whohastheir ownland can be accessed directly by the source because ofthe wisdomand knowledge ofagricultural productionand the knowledgeinherited fromtheir fathersandfamilylaboravailabletoproduce foodfor household consumption. As a result,familyeasyaccess to food.Forindirectaccess to food; They have knowledge, skills, ability to find food in their native. Know how to store and find resources in the natural food sources. They can devise tools to make a living.

Though right on the food sources of the everyone in the community found to be equal, the pool families still were the group that hardy accessed to them when compared to the others. As a result, they had insufficient food to consume. For the middle class and poor people, who has land to make aliving, the key way to access common food or natural source of food is to have skill and capability to find food, to know a mean to collect food from natural resource e.g. collecting mushroom, sweet leaf, or ability to invent tools to make a living e.g. fish trap, tool for ant eggs collecting, making mortar of wood, copping blog, or making container for glutinous rice of bamboo joints. Those are examples of management of food resource to make good benefits. To enhance this people group the food availability, the critical conditions should be established. They compost of the good quality farm land, possessing healthy labor forces, having wisdom, capabilities and skills for producing food and gathering the nature resources, having the ability to invent simple tools for earning their leaving, maintaining the kinship society and the patronage system, and proving welfare for the community

Conclusion

The study results can conclude that the possession of species diversity could be an index of the community food security only at some level because the food security didn’t account only in term of quantity of food. The significant factors affecting the food security required a good and qualified food resources management system. The management had to the be a food-reliance basic, adequate food availability and should stimulate the ecological balance. However, human development was needed prior to the emergence of food security for this community. The management capability of the people, as the natural resources owners, should be development

Ban PaKha isan example ofthewisdomin the management offood resources. But there are concerns that the current the community starts moving towards to modernity. Parents are trying to support their children to higher education levels. New generations are going on working outside the community and are keeping behind the elderly and gathering of the natural resources . Succession of the local wisdom and traditional ways of living tends to the disappear. Hence, all the local wisdom should be the integrated in order to enhance the succession of the self-supporting production with a self- sufficient basic for this community