Buckets of Rice Become a Group Saving Fund

Tung Luang is a peaceful Karen village in Mae Wang district, Chiang Mai province, the targeted village in the Livelihood Improvement and Value Empowerment Project.  The people here are still living a simple life and agriculture is their main source of income.  Rice is the primary crop that they grow for consumption, as well as for selling.  Based on their lifestyle and crops, one of the self-help group (SHG) members came up with an idea for a group saving activity.  Instead of putting money into their saving fund, they save rice.

The idea of saving rice came from Mrs. Srithong Jado, a chair person of the SHG of Tung Luang village.  The saving group consists of 24 members and has been operating for two years now.  Each member puts six rice buckets (20 rice cups per bucket) into the group each year, for a group total of 144 buckets each year.  These 144 buckets of rice will be sold, with six members being allowed to borrow from the money that is made each year.  The condition of the saving group is simple with no debt charged to the members; they just put six buckets in each year until all of the members get the money. 

Srithong explained the idea saying, “Since our main source of income is from agriculture and sometimes some villagers were shorten of fund for their farming and to borrow money among the villagers is hard because we also do not have much to lend to others.  However, to borrow from loan shark is also not a good idea because of high interest charge.  So I proposed the idea of changing crop into cash.” 

The six people who will receive money from the fund each year is based on genuine need.  All of the members meet together and select those who have the most urgent need.  After four years, every person in the group will have received funds. The members who have already taken a loan from the group still have to give six rice buckets each year for four years.   However, the group is planning to run this saving activity longer than four years and will expand to more members, possibly expanding to other communities, too.

Apart from this saving activity, the villagers are also concerned about environment preservation. Chemicals were once heavily used in the area and left behind poor soil conditions.  Improving the environment was one of the objectives of the Heifer project. This objective drew a positive response from the villagers, influencing them to preserve the environment by reducing chemical usage in farming and also avoiding deforestation. 

“I want everyone in our community to help each other to preserve the environment and do organic farming,” Srithong said. 

In terms of agricultural inputs from the project, Srithong received one buffalo, 25 bamboo saplings and a kitchen garden from the project.  Now, her family has expanded the idea of a kitchen garden from a small-scale garden in the back yard to a vegetable farm and rice field of about five acres.  She used compost, buffalo and pig manure for her farm.  Now, her family of eight has enough vegetables to consume all year round without buying any, and sometimes she has enough for selling. 

“As the group chair person, I want to set myself as an example for others,” Srithong said.  Her eldest daughter of two children is in her second year of studies at the Agriculture College. She hopes that her daughter will continue the idea of sustainable agriculture and will be the community’s agriculture supporter in the future.