Having inherited the pink sandstone landscape and cultural prosperity of Tai Yuan’s ethic group or Northern Thai, Phayao province gets its income from agriculture. More than 50 percent of Phayao populations are farmers.
Farmers in Phayao province are the primary labor force in Thailand's food production. Farmers, on the other hand, are low-income, and some areas cannot grow vegetables all year. Crop spraying must therefore be used to achieve high yields. There was a shortage of vegetables consumed during COVID. School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Phayao has established the Phayao Organic Farming Network.
The goal of the initiative is to build a network of ifoam-compliant organic communities to boost the local economy utilizing organic knowledge from the University of Phayao. The team from the School of Agriculture will start by training farmers to produce agricultural goods that adhere to the requirements. Once farmers can create new firms like Social Enterprises and Startups, it trains them in the processing of organic crops for value addition by maintaining the quality standards of processed products and a strong and fair-trading system.
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After the farmers have learned from the process, the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Phayao has established the SDGsPGS Participatory Organic Standards Certification System for participants in consisting of 10 agricultural innovation communities, 20 community innovators, 5 districts 44 processing and marketing innovation communities, and 41 community innovators, 17 communities in 16 sub-districts covering all 9 districts. Successful project has been relied on collaboration among international organization and national organization such as IFOAM's The Global PGS, PMU-A under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Reseach, and Innovation of Thailand.
The project has helped number of people going hungry and suffering from food insecurity in Phayao and nearby area. Additionally, standard learning spaces have been established for all using a food bank in the household has facilitated environmental preservation and better health.