Fruit Production and Distribution: Risks of Beautification and ... - RCSD

Chingchai Methaphat 38spray for flower and another spray for protecting young fruit. His principle of fruitproduction is “keeping soil and tree alive.” That soil is a living thing means, “in thesoil there are variety of micro-organism (chulinsi) and other living things, especiallyearthworms which are very useful to the soil and trees.” He told me that he learnedfrom experts that earthworms produced some useful substances for the trees. Heregularly checked the density of earthworms in his orchard.Uncle Set received recognition as a role model for farmers in not only subdistrictlevel but also district, provincial and regional levels. He said that hesuccessfully helped himself and then wanted to help other people. He often acceptedinvitations to give speech to share his experience in several occasions. Manyagricultural experts and students also came to learn from him in his orchard.Many farmers did not rely on agricultural extension staff; instead, mostfarmers ignored the staff’s knowledge. Many farmers told me that the extension staffdid not have orchard so they did not really know how to produce fruits. “They knowonly theory,” Cham said. Some village leaders even said publicly that they did not seethe use of employing an agricultural extension staff at the Tambon AdministrativeOrganization (TAO). Some farmers shared with me their negative experience with theextension staff. For instance, Uncle Pan, who originally was from another area andworked in a bank, started his orchard with growing durian. His durian were verybeautiful and fruitful. But an agricultural extension staff gave him advice to fangkhem, implant chemicals into the trunks of the trees in order to prevent some diseases.After he followed the staff’s advice, the fruits turned yellow and dropped to theground. Not only did he lose all the beautiful fruits but also almost all his durian treesgradually died. He was very angry with the staff and went to scold him in his officefor no responsibility of his advice.Besides learning from their own experience, sharing with some friends andsome experts, many farmers learned a great deal from the media. There were sometelevision programs about agriculture in the early morning around 05:00 am, andfarmers told me that they often watched the program. Radio programs also playedsignificant roles; the radio stations often run advertisements of fertilizers andchemicals sponsored by agrochemical retailers and companies.