The ALiSEA online thematic green talk in Laos was held on Friday 10/3/2023 on “Vegetables & Seeds: The Significance of Seeds could not be ignored” via Zoom and live streaming on Agroecology Learning Alliance in Laos Facebook page.
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- On Zoom meeting room
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- Live streaming on ALiSEA Laos Facebook page
In this event, the guests were Mr. Anouthikone Sipaseuth from the BanSuanAiOun organic farm (Luang Prabang province, Laos) and Ms. Jaruwan Supolrai & Mr. Boonmee Charikhruea from the Mekong Nomad Organic Farm (Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand). They shared their knowledge and experience with over 50 participants such as: who attended online through Zoom and ALiSEA Laos’s FB page live streaming. Here are some sharing between Laos and Thailand Farmers:
BanSuanAiAoun Organic is supplying vegetables to hotels and restaurants with over 80 varieties, producing seeds, integrate farming training. Mr. Anouthikone said that “I started produce organic seed since 2019 due to it’s very hard to find it in Laos just only imported from Thailand which are very expensive. So, I thought I would like to produce them by myself. Currently, I can produce 8 types of lettuce, beans seed and tomatoes seed.”
Top Anuthikone – BanSuanAiOun orgnic
Seeds that normally sell in the market are and cannot be propagated again. When farmers start a new season each time, we have to buy new ones all the time which costs a lot of money. In addition, Seeds that we produce ourselves will be strong, durable and yield better than the seeds from the market. I suggest the farmers to produce their own seeds to save capital, find good seed parents to plant so that they can produce good yields and be able to sell them in the future because in Laos there is hardly any group producing organic seed.
Hearing experience from Mekong Nomad Organic Farm’s activities are seed production, we do agricultural activity, organize outdoor learning camp, and organize training for people who interested in organic farming. We have a seed bank on our farm, we plan to collect seed every year with our network. Everyone collects whatever they are expertize and then harvests in the seed bank, so that we can get resistant seeds in that season. 70-80% sell online, we have face book page and use FB as a marketing we create an identity in online media. We write our own stories with beautiful pictures of vegetables and post them on FB as our selling point. First, for 1 or 2 years, we may not be able to sell because we work in marketing to let people know more about us. By the 3rd and 4th year, we can start to sell because they know our stories, they can find a lot of information on our page and we have an identity in online platform. This can be said that we are successful in online platform marketing.
Ms. Jaruwan Supolrai & Mr. Boonmee Charikhruea from the Mekong Nomad Organic Farm
The event provided many discussions and exchanges on the following topics: seed bank, seed collecting in Laos and Thailand, generate income between seeds and vegetables, vegetables consumption, seed marketing, seed collecting network in Mekong region, and it is an important step for cooperation regarding the collection and preservation of vegetable seeds.
The speaker from Thailand will link and keep sharing knowledge and connection with farmers from Thongmang organic cooperative…
Ms. Khammone – Head of Thongmang organic cooperative was asking the questions to speakers
For the result of this session, participants and speakers could create good networking among Laos and Thai seed collectors by sharing the contact of seed collector network from Savannakhet and Vientiane to Mr Anouthikone and now they become friend and network.
We could share relevance documents on seed regulation in Laos to participants, especially, sharing Lao version of seed regulation and certification to participant from ARMI organization.
The video can be viewed here: https://fb.watch/jaEhbM2EzI/