Kallaya Suntornvongsagul

Environmental Research Institute of Chulalongkorn University, 10330. aurorasunt@yahoo.com, kallaya.s@chula.ac.th

Keywords: Smallholder Farming, Environmental values, Value Added, Vetiver Grass, and Mango

Mango smallholder farming in Thailand are significantly vulnerable climate variability especially shifts of severe temperatures and precipitation patterns which resulted in the scarcity of ecological production, but some environmental capacity factors as insulators for climate impact disadvantages. Mango with vetiver grass hedges cultivation by Thai farmers is to reclaim the degraded soil ecosystems of agricultural land. Their practice alleviates the climate change impacts on soil water lost and maintain quality of mango. The observation site was in the irrigated alluvial plain of Ban Thathong Sub-district, Suphan Buri province in Thailand. It significantly improved clay-soil water use efficiency of which purposely sustaining economic plant growth of mango trees. Advanced benefits of vetiver grass co-cultivation in the mango orchards included (1) adding monetary values to biomass waste as large-scale bio-products, (2) earning financing opportunity of soil health nursing by the vetiver root-soil water functions, and (3) creating new business marketing of premium mango cushioned by bioproducts circular. These benefits reflected information of localized mango orchard management which followed the philosophy of sufficiency economy (PSE) to add more plant species, water, and soil relationship. The new monetary aspects to a new product brand, balancing social needs on the natural resource conditions covering uses, maintenance and climate intervention are significant results found on the land. Functions of vetiver grass to the mango smallholder farming provided new monetary values specially based on the climate variability and local natural ecosystems regeneration. It earned marketing benefits from the ecological production of interrelationship between the grass and economic mangos’ life cycle. Considering monetary value added of zero biomass wastes, the vetiver leaves, pruning three times per year, were simply altered as bioproducts branded as FlexNumNim for cushions, preventing damages of goods, and fruits, as well as twisted as yarns to promote new opportunity of local handicrafts. It is research bioproduct pioneers for the new market of vetiver grass’s multibenefits under the brand FlexFreeForm reflecting soil environmental health sustaining by the root system of vetiver, together with the good agricultural practice (GAP). Local farmers recognized definitely higher yields and better quality of mango production, but found lower operating costs than plots without the vetiver grass hedges. These advantages of vetiver grass functions provided them new financing opportunity reaching to no marketing intermediary as a community aim. The results of community enterprise’s workshop in 2022 revealed that it economically enhanced local multiples benefits including mango yield productivity improving, higher economic gains, better social network and human well-being, heathier environment especially soil ecological health, faster soil restoration, longer soil water detention, and more effective buffering environmental pollution. The added values and easy uses of grass benefits started from local needs, natural resource availability, and their interventions regarding the sustainable management with the PSE and the GAP.