Can Self Sufficiency Find a Home in Koh Phangan?
While we have a long road ahead, we’re optimistic about the sustainable future of our beautiful home.
Bovy, Founder of Ocean Experience
The face of “normal” comes into question following any major economic recession or setback. Following the COVID pandemic, we’re particularly curious about the intersection of the “new normal” and sustainability. From where we sit in Koh Phangan, we’ve seen acts of donation and kindness towards those less privileged, and the question now comes down to: Is there longevity to these efforts long after the crisis fades?
As an eco-conscious, sustainability-forward business, this question gives us plenty to think about. We are most passionate about things — materially, economically and organizationally, that last. Our interest in regenerative solutions to our world’s most pressing problems is also inspired by Albert Einstein’s wisdom:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”
Systematically and institutionally, there’s no shortage of problems to transform with new thinking. In this period of crisis, we’ve had the opportunity to dig back into our philosophical roots to rediscover a timeless theory that will be the subject of our exploration today. We can argue that it’s more relevant now than ever (or maybe since the 1997 economic crisis). History repeats itself until we choose to disrupt the outdated solutions with a moral revolution of our deepest held belief systems. A revolution that will hopefully see sustainable decision making built into business, ecological, cultural and social environments.
Before we dive headfirst into theory, let’s take a step back and capture the current moment of our beautiful home, Koh Phangan.
The New Normal on Koh Phangan
The pulse of the island is beating again, after nearly two months of lockdown and economic collapse. With tourism stopped dead in its tracks, the island’s most hardworking laborers, the Burmese, were among the hardest hit community of Koh Phangan’s 30,000 residents. With widespread and devastating effects, the lockdown put roughly 4000 people out of jobs, food and supplies, creating a massive need to respond with emergency measures.
And respond, they did.
In a show of emergency mastery, Koh Phangan’s expat community came together immediately, pooling expertise, resources and skills to donate food and volunteer time, with Koh Phangan’s RISE UP raising money through online donation-based classes providing direct relief to the most marginalized members. For just $2, 8 families can eat across 3 days. The community has literally risen to the occasion with a full heart inspired by the place and people that make this island the home it is.
Another project that has found its footing is Phangan Community Garden.
Harnessing the power of community and love for the Earth with Phangan Garden Community
The Phangan Community Garden is on our radar as one project finding its footing. Originally an emergency response to the food crisis, this initiative is now evolving its longevity by providing food stability and social engagement with the unemployed and less financially fortunate. Only in the beginning stages, there is much work to have the kind of sustainable impact for an economically and socially healthy future. Currently, this Thai-foreigner joint project has achieved a few important milestones, having cleared the land, near close to building the kitchen and shala, completed all the garden beds, planted the fruit shrubs and trees, installed the irrigation and drainage, and in the process of planting produce and compost heaps.
Despite everyone’s best efforts to bring fast and furious solutions, the sustainability question still lingers. When all is said and done, this crisis has exposed the island’s greatest weakness now and for pandemics to come — that tourism is not sustainable. Even as borders open up and travel bans lift, the face of tourism is forever different. Whether we’re ready to admit this hard truth to ourselves or not, we must readily accept the red flags of an unstable economy reliant on an industry so fragile during an economic crisis, compounded by the untapped potential of locally empowered food production. Let’s not forget that 94% of the island is uninhabited jungle, lending itself to interesting possibilities for a more sustainable (and sufficient) future.
To come back to the original question, what is the long game here? Can our generous efforts as businesses and individuals create sustainable outcomes if harnessed with the right knowledge? After all, knowledge is the ultimate power.
Introducing the Self Sufficiency Theory
King Rama IX leading the charge
A little known fact that’s worth defining up front is the origin of “sustainability.”
Long before this word entered the hype of the United Nations and our global lexicon, Thailand’s King Bhumibol had already charted the path with his Self Sufficiency Theory in the 1950s. Only thirty years later did the rest of the world catch on.
Formulated under the global radar, King Rama IX’s motives were pure and beyond the scope of his “role” from the start. Sharing principles of permaculture, whole-systems thinking, and sustainability, this theory emerged from a clear understanding of Thailand’s most pressing problem — an economy reliant on outside capital and markets over empowered systems of local production and growth. The country has always been primed for agriculture, and recognizing the strengths of its domestic economy enabled King Rama IX to draw universal conclusions for the foundational basis of his theory — parts application of knowledge for self-immunity, and parts virtues for a moral revision. He laid out a compelling foundation for the whole of the country, with the intention to inspire holistic and moderation-based thinking to all industries and sectors of the economy.
For the purpose of application, we look to The New Theory, which brings self sufficiency into the context of agriculture. From this angle, King Rama IX specifically wished to empower farmers to be self sufficient and resilient in the face of economic hardship, natural disasters (case in point: Thailand’s recent drought), and other unfavorable unexpected conditions like our current COVID situation.
Let’s break this down further. The framework was designed to be simple, sensible and applicable to as many as possible. Inspired by Buddhism’s principle of the Middle Way, the core philosophy stems from spirituality by design, dialing into the key pillars of moderation, reasonableness and risk management — moderation to balance production and consumption, reasonableness to consider all production outcomes in business decisions, and risk management to establish mechanisms in response to man made or natural crises.
To be clear here — King Rama IX was not anti-capitalist or pro-socialist in his ideology, just simply in favor of creating systems for the stability of his people and the country’s agro-economy through food stability. “Luxury indulgence” was not banned or looked down upon so long as it was applied in moderation. The framework was simple — first, consider producing food for the survival of you and your family. Second, consider how to sell the surplus for income.
The Formula
“…I ask all of you to aim for moderation and peace, and work to achieve this goal. We do not have to be extremely prosperous…If we can maintain this moderation, then we can be excellent…”
Captured on the beautifully fertile land of Pun Pun Project
Full self sufficiency was never the end game. King Rama IX was realistic in his approach. His desired formula favored self immunity in the face of inevitable market fluctuations and natural disasters, over the idealistic notions of a one size fits all utopia. Within his formula for an integrated and sustainable agricultural model, optimization of farmland was king — down to the key considerations of water resource development and conservation, soil rehabilitation, and self reliant community development.
He broke it down into three distinct phases.
Phase 1: Farmland Division
This first step focuses on optimizing land use big and small (though 5 rai is the minimum required for true self sufficiency) as laid out by the formula: 30-30-30-10 allocated to different functions for the welfare of its inhabitants across rainy and dry seasons. The first 30% was intended for ponds to store rainwater, grow crops and raise aquatic animals and plants. The second 30% was designed to cultivate rice for consumption year round. The third 30% was sectioned to grow fruits, perennial trees, veggies, field crops, and herbs for daily usage (with the surplus considered for sale and profit). The remaining 10% was set aside for all other utilities like housing and animal husbandry.
Phase 2: Community Development
This second phase looks at the power of cooperation and community. King Rama IX understood the power of numbers and the simple laws of nature — the health of communities is directly correlated to the health of its individuals, in other words, an eco-centric way of life over an egocentric approach. In pursuit of creating regenerative farmer coops, he recommended cooperation around the following: production, marketing, resource sharing, sufficient living and working conditions, strong community development and educational structures.
Phase 3: Loan and Credit Outreach
This final phase envisions a sustainable network in which farmers, banks and the private sector cooperate mutually and beneficially. A win-win situation can flourish granted private companies support farmers through investments and systems of development. On the one hand, private companies can buy rice at low cost, while farmers can sell their goods at a competitive price, and afford consumers products at wholesale prices by being set up as a cooperative in the first place.
The Legacy of King Rama IX
King Rama IX made his country (and the world) proud
The legacy King Rama IX left was quite remarkable, considering the usual roles and responsibilities of a King. He didn’t simply inspire, but rather created a powerful, actionable movement around self sufficiency. His work inspired 4000 royal projects and a group of more than 20 academics with a mission to spread “the King’s principles.” The Institute of Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (ISEP) was established to bring educational structure to these very teachings.
Upon receiving the Human Development Lifetime Achievement Award by the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan in 2006, King Rama IX’s efforts rippled far and wide. Assistant Professor of ISEP commented, "Earlier, I had thought that every King had worked the way he did. I later realised that he was not obliged to work that hard, but he did so because he cared for his people. And His Majesty the King continues his royal father's work." (Source)
From 2009 to 2015, the theory was carried over to eight rural districts across five provinces, resulting in a major uptick in living standards, access to clean water and increased annual revenue from farming for 7990 families. For a sense of scale, total revenue climbed from 109 million to 1.04 billion baht. (Source)
The Pioneers of Northern Thailand
A few pioneers have already charted the New Theory in Northern Thailand, sensibly so, given the arability and ecological conditions this geography provides.
“Life is Easy” spread far and wide, thanks to Jon Jondai
The obvious example brings to mind Jon Jondai, most well-known for having founded the Pun Pun Project, a small organic farm and learning center focused on seed saving, natural living and appropriate technology. His life story has captured the minds of 9.7 million views through his famous TED talk, and the simple message that in the end, life is easy. Humans somehow devise ways to make it more complex than needed, becoming perpetual slaves to time and money. After attempting to lead a “normal” life based on competition and material wealth, he ditched his plan to pioneer his own path to “normal.” He returned to his roots as a farmer in the North of Thailand. Like the ultimate lifehacker, he has managed to live up to the New Theory’s first two phases — self-reliantly producing food for his immediate family and secondly, selling surplus for income. With a variety of 30 vegetables, he can persist on 2 months of work out of the year, 15 minutes a day to feed all six members of his family.
Having considered the whole health of a human, he also spreads the message that food, housing, clothing, and medicine must be cheap and easy for everyone. A “normal civilization” depends on the self-reliance and cooperation required for these four ingredients to flourish sustainably. With all this in mind, his application of sufficiency has enabled him to scale. Running now for 17 years, Pun Pun has evolved into a small farm of 10 acres run independently by a community passionate about self-reliance, mutual cooperation and learning by doing. It’s fair to say that sufficiency drives the heart and soul of their work. (Source)
In other recent news in Chiang Mai, a Thai citizen decided to put theory into practice in light of the COVID crisis. He opened his property to 9 families, along with a main water supply source for Phase 1 to begin. In exchange for free farmland, these families were asked to bear the fruits of an optimally divided farmland. It takes a village to manifest these principles, which is exactly what King Rama IX would have envisioned.
Looking to the Sustainable Future of Koh Phangan
Thinking globally can give us food for thought locally.
Living out the sustainable legacy of King Rama IX
As we ground back into the land, resources and social capital of Koh Phangan, we begin to see a promising picture emerge — organizations grappling with important sustainability questions and their unique set of challenges to realize the New Theory in practice.
According to John Fitton of EcoThailand Foundation (the instrumental NGO that brought this project into being), there’s a few key challenges to address for the long term sustainable health of this project — knowledge in land optimization (more so on the foreigner side than the Thai side, who are generally more versed in the New Theory), long term financing to pay for all the baseline supplies (tools, seeds, utilities, and purchases), and the overall turnover rate of its core members.
“As a generalization, Thais often don’t plan long term, and equally, the foreigners are often short term visitors of a few months...so how this all goes over a year or two from now? We have some plans to transition to a farming co-operative, either non profit or profit making — an alternative would be a southern Thai teaching facility or a long term option of a fruit and forest public facility. We are currently developing all of those long term planning elements.”
While we have a long road ahead of us, we are optimistic about our sustainable future here on the beautiful island of Koh Phangan. Our hope is to share the knowledge that we’ve been so fortunate to inherit from King Rama IX, spread its applications through projects near and far, and continuously shine a light on the talented minds and dedicated hearts of those already hard at work on our land.
Let’s rise together.
Namaste.
