Northern Thai Homegardens: Towards a Comprehensive Analysis of Rural Household Production Systems

Abstract

Homegardens are a very old form of plant cultivation in Thailand, whose origins have been suggested to be thousands of years old based on evidence at the Spirit Cave archaeological site. However, the ethnography of Thai agriculture emphasizes rice production and virtually ignores the multi-functional homegarden that provides diverse products and ecological services that touch nearly every aspect of daily life of rural households. This study in a lowland Northern Thai, Khon Muang, community in rural Chiang Mai Province, found homegardens to be a rather stable form of traditional homestead cultivation that provided food, income, medicinal plants, and other benefits such as a social space, ritual products and aesthetic qualities. In contrast, there was rapid environmental change on steep once-forested hillsides resulting from a mono-crop scheme promoted by a multinational company. Any attempt to develop homegardens for commercial production must avoid reductionist tendencies that promote a few cash crops at the expense of the intangible qualities that may be difficult to quantify but are vital for the quality of rural life. Keeping these points in mind, homegardens can continue to serve households’ diverse needs in the future just as they have durably done in the past.