KHAOKHO TALAYPU
Home of Nature and the Beauty of Life
Khaokho Talaypu is a step in the journey of life, but a trace upon the land. It is an attempt to create, to develop the environment, society, andself. Deteriorated land has been revived, restored to lush green growth,creating a pure and beautiful environment sheltering all forms of life andfitting to be called home of nature.
Khaokho Talaypu engages in creative activities pervaded with an atmosphere of loving care and concern; it is a shared dream of living a life of value.
All of this together creates thebeauty of life.
It is on the main road of Khaokho District, the Campson-Sadao Phong Road. Its area is 200 rais and includes both hilly and level land watered by two streams. Nearly 3,000 feet
above sea level, it is cool the year round; the average temperature is 17oC. Nearby there are communities of both lowland and highland Thais
The forest is fundamental to an environment that is good in accordance with the laws of nature. Earth, water, and sky give birth to all life. Plants and animals are a reflection of the great workings of nature. Human beings are merely tenants living in nature, not its lords. Living close to nature fosters not only health of the body but also development of the mind.
Because over seventy percent of its area is forest and another fifteen percent is water, Khaokho Talaypu is suited to relaxation, to study of ecology, plants, mushrooms, birds, spiders, and insects, including butterflies and moths, dragonflies, and lightning bugs, and for other creative activities. The forest of Khaokho Talaypu also provides benefits in the form of food, medicine, and useful and decorative objects
Agriculture is of life and death importance to human life. Properly conducted, agriculture of quality leads to a life of quality and a good environment.
Agriculture at Khaokho Talaypu is conducted according to the principle that nature is the teacher. We depend on the land to produce food, cultivating it with respect and trying to learn about nature so that our agricultural practices harmonize with nature.
We keep ever in mind the geographical realities of Thailand. This country is endowed with a great diversity of life forms and gives abundant yields of vegetables, fruit, medicinal herbs, and other plants. This is reason that agriculture is one of the nation's strengths and cannot be neglected. Thailand is a rice basket of the world. Khaokho Talaypu therefore does not plant a lot of any one kind of plant; instead, we grow a wide variety of plants.
Our agriculture must be sustainable and enable us to be self-reliant.
Our practice of agriculture with nature as our teacher is based on five "nos" and three "musts:"
The Five Nos
No chemicals used in any stage of production
No monocropping
No burning or exposure of the soil
No plant or animal may be regarded as an enemy
No plowing or turning of the soil is our goal
Three Musts
Variety must be as close as possible to that of nature
The soil must be covered
Odoriferous plants must be intercropped
Herb and Native Vegetable Garden
The Talaypu Herb and Native Vegetable Garden is an important source of food and medicine and also a botanical garden in which native plants are preserved for study by both the Khaokho Talaypu folk and others who are interested.
Broad wet rice fields and upland rice fields at the base of the hills
The wet rice fields, in which rice is grown naturally, serve as a source of food, as a range for raising buffaloes and ducks, and as a way of preserving and carrying on the way of life of the traditional Thai rice farmer, which nowadays is becoming harder and harder to find. Likewise, the upland rice fields display the traditional wisdom of the upland Thai farmer, whose labors, together with the rainfall, cloaks hill slopes with the verdant green of rice and a host of other edible plants so as to be the rural equivalent of the city dweller's supermarket.
Rice Mill
This is a small-scale rice mill producing fresh nutritious brown rice in
quantities sufficient to fill the rice pot of the Khaokho Talaypu kitchen
and to provide a delectable gift guests can purchase to take home to delight family and friends.
Khaokho Talaypu aims to be self-reliant and to avoid being swept into the
current of consumer society where production is primarily for the market.
Instead, the emphasis is on creating and producing quality products from
vegetables, fruit, and herbs for our own use and then when there is a
surplus making sales. Our aim is to be reliant on ourselves, able in
business, outstanding for society, and our principles are:
1. We obtain our income from a wide variety of goods and services, not just one.
2. We grow a wide variety of plants. We do not grow too much of any one kind, for if we did,
we would become dominated by and dependent upon conventional markets.
Our production and marketing must preserve our freedom and independence.
3. In investing in production, we emphasize appropriate scale, native
production techniques, and traditional Thai wisdom as much as possible. We
continually study modern production methods, use appropriate technology, and
give more importance to the value of people than to technology.
4. For raw materials, we prefer what we have at hand or can make or acquire
in our local community and avoid as much as possible materials or equipment from outside.
5. We conduct business creatively for mutual benefit. Our aim is not the
maximization of profit but rather good health, happiness, friendship, loving
care and concern. We hold doing business merely a way to make a living and not the aim of life.
6. No activity involved in production may damage the environment; on the
contrary, all activities must be in harmony with nature and contribute to
maintaining nature. We are ever mindful for the value of Thai resources and
of Thai wisdom, and these two we bring together in creating useful products beneficial to life.
