A Market for Vendors and Producers

and ultimately economic development44 . The cooperative movement in Thailand is now facilitated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, and is widely practiced by millions of members across the country. Each of the cooperatives comprises a group of the same type of producers in the same area, such as the Lamlukka cooperative: a group of rice farmers in the Lamlukka district in the north of Bangkok, where a rice mill was constructed to support its members. Each cooperative specialises its service to serve a unique purpose, in accordance with the demands of its members. However, they still lack the power to channel their products directly to the consumer. In the context of Bangkok, most of the food that comes to the urban area passes through middleman traders and the wholesale market. The obsession with the cheapest price of products also has an effect on the production process; the rising amount of chemical fertiliser used to accelerate the amount of production per year, the exploitation of migrant labour45, and a large amount of energy consumption through the increase of food miles; the further away the food is produced, the lower the cost of production. This thesis investigates cooperative producers in the urban fringe as potential agents in the creation of a marketplace, facilitating distribution through both physical and online systems.

Fig. 28

A Market for Vendors and Producers

Almost 50% of the vegetable sold in wholesale markets come from more than 200 kilometres away from the market itself 46, as the cheaper land price in these areas lowers the cost of production. However, in the vicinity of the city of Bangkok, there are many producers and productive land which could be organised to connect the consumer to these local producers. It is important to suggest local producers as a main source of food provision in the city because

Fig. 28 Lamlukka Cooperatives Annual Meeting in the Rice Mill Source : http://www. sahakornthai.com/lamlukka/

44 Masahiro, Yamao, Cooperative Movement in Thailand: Towards the Establishment of Cooperatives Society Act in 1968 [南太平洋研究=South Pacific Study, Vol.13, No.2] p. 186 45 ‘Open to exploitation’: Migrant workers in Thai agricultural sector, 2020 <https://www.licas. news/2020/02/03/open-toexploitation-migrant-workersin-thai-agricultural-sector/> [accessed 27 May 2021] 46 Suteethorn, Kanokwalee, The Impacts of Food miles on The Pattern of Footprint of Bangkok’s Food supply, Environment & Landscape Architecture. ELA no.279 1107. Korea. (2011) p.4

47 Kazuaki Tsuchiyaa,∗ , Yuji Harab, Danai Thaitakoo, Linking food and land systems for sustainable peri-urban agriculturein Bangkok Metropolitan Region [Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 143, November 2015] p.197 48 Food Soverignty refers to the right for the people to determine and govern over the system of food production, in which orient toward local producers instead of relying on agricultural corporation and mega-food company, further reading: Pimbert, Michel. “Food Sovereignty and Autonomous Local Systems.” RCC Perspectives, no. 1, 2015, p. 38 JSTOR, <www. jstor.org/stable/26241305.> [Accessed 26 May 2021] 49 Nirathorn, Narumol, Report : How to manage “street vending” for the advantage of “city-dwellers” <http://www.knowledgefarm. in.th/report-thailand-streetvending/> [access 3 January 2021] Fig. 29, 30 their proximity helps reduce time and energy consumption in the distribution process. In suburban areas of Bangkok, wet markets play a huge role as a food hub for local producers. Around half of the producers in the peri-urban area deliver their products to the wet market,47 as this type of market can be closely embedded in the neighbourhood within walking distance. Inviting local producers within 50 kilometres into the market would cover a great variety of products, including vegetables, fruit, livestock, fisheries, seafood and a great many other variations of product. Different types of crop are produced in different areas: in the North and West of the city, a great number of vegetables and fruit are farmed, whereas in the Eastern part, the main products are rice, poultry and fisheries. In the Southern territory, where the land is adjacent to the Thai gulf, many prawn and fishery farms can be seen. Not all the producers belong to a cooperative, but many small-scale farmers do join cooperatives in order to buy cheaper materials. Each cooperative is organised based on the administrative district it operates in. Thus, a sub-district, or Tambon, might have 1-4 cooperatives depending on the type of products they sell; this is to facilitate the proximity of its members to the cooperative. While this project is focused on the urban area, it could have reach and spark discussion beyond the urban territories. As this project creates possibilities for urban and rural cooperatives to encounter each other, in this case, a cultural exchange between the local cooperative community and agricultural cooperatives in the surrounding area could take place. This gives the rural producer a channel through which to initiate a conversation with the urban consumer. It kick starts the first step toward food sovereignty48 when people acknowledge the root and route of the food they eat, moreover eating local produces reduce energy consumption in the transportation system. The consumer could reflect to the producers what type of food they want to eat and how it could be produced. On the other hand, the producers can gain concrete information on what the consumers need, rather than dwell on the demands of the market which is dominated by the food company. Apart from the two major actors of producer and consumer, there are further stakeholders that should be recognised and invited to create a discussion in the project, which is informal trader. There are more than 20,000 vendors operating in urban Bangkok, most of them selling cooked food for a living49, and often getting into conflict with the authorities for encroaching on the public walkways as they sell. In the eyes of the authorities, these street vendors are parasites on the public space. However, street vendors play a major role in providing affordable cooked food to people in the urban area, especially in an area where the high price of land means that affordable restaurants cannot succeed. These informal activities are convenient to customers, as they can strategically choose a location that is easily reachable to them. This project recognises street vendors as a vital part of the food system in the urban area. As such, they could be invited to sell cooked food in the market hall in

Sam Klong Luang CooperativeKoak Cooperative

Sai Noi Cooperative Bang Bua Tong Coop Pathumthani Cooperative Lam Lukka Cooperative Siri Ruam Sap

Tung Song Hong Community Meen Buri Cooperative Nong Jok Cooperative

Bang Pa In Coop. Pak Kred Coop. Bang Yai Coop.

Tawee Wattana Coop.

Nong Kham Coop. Nonthaburi Coop.

Taling Chan Coop. Lad Krabang Cooperative

Klong Jan Community

Bangkapi Coop. Rom Klao Community

Bang Kun Tian Cooperative

Sakla Cooperative Muang Paan Cooperative50 km

Bang Bo Cooperative Bang PakongBang Plee Cooperative Cooperative

Tung Song Hong Community

Klong Jan Community

Rom Klao Community Fig.29 (Above) The Map Show the Location of the Cooperative Offices in the vicinity of the city

Fig.30 (Below) The map show the type of Production in each area

0.16 sq.km.

0.8 sq.km. Rice Rice (8 sq.km.) Vegetables Fruits Flowers / Trees Fisheries Prawn Beef Pork/ Lamb Poultry

50 Harvey, David, Rebel Cities from the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (Verso, 2012), p. preface xvii 51 OTOP stands for One Tambon (sub-district) One Product, which is a government policy to support any group of people who want to start selling products based on their specialisation. The policy helps them access funding and start their business.

Fig. 31 Street Vendors in Downtown Bangkok photograph by Christopher PB Fig. 31

Fig. 32 complement to the raw food which is already established there. By inviting vendors into the market, they could start to take ownership of the market hall as their own infrastructure: they could store their belongings in the storage during the night or use the market hall itself to sell in the evening when the market is closed. In general, street vendors in Bangkok do not organise as a cooperative,. However, some may organise as a group in order to resist eviction by the authorities. One significant case of cooperative organising is the Moo Baan Nak Kila Community Service Cooperative, which is a group of street vendors who work together to resist eviction from their usual selling location. They also managed to rent a site on public land in the same area to construct the market called Moo Ban Nak Kila Market. Despite ongoing conflict with their landlord, the National Housing Authority, they still demonstrate the possibility for success for vendors to self-organise into a cooperative and claim their rights. The group still face a continuing harsh reaction from the authorities, which includes eviction and displacement from the current market they have fought for. The collective organisation in this case play a crucial role in this battleground, claiming their right to the space of the city50 . Another complementary actor in the project is the OTOP group51, initiated in 2000, which is a group of low-income people who have organised into a cooperative that produces a value-added product from agricultural materials. The project fosters communitylevel self-reliance and offers the opportunity for an additional income. Many groups consist of a small group of unemployed women with a certain skill of craftsmanship. Various groups form based on their expertise, local knowledge and skill which could turn raw materials into alternative processed products such as shampoo, soap, oil, cloth and so on. Many OTOP groups in urban Bangkok sell their products via online channels and occasionally join weekend markets, though, rarely, some will also have their own shop. The benefit of inviting these groups to the project is the potential transfer of knowledge, both from the farmers - as a producer of material they use - and from the buyers they wish to sell to.

These precarious labourers, namely street vendors, not only face the absence of their right to the city, but are also denied by the government the right to access welfare facilities. As their occupation is not considered legitimate, nor recognised by law, they cannot access social insurance or bank funding52. This is not only the case for informal vendors, but also relevant to most people in the food supply chain system who mainly operate as individuals. The development and expansion of Bangkok has been influenced by the private sector, while public institutions steer clear of procuring welfare facilities. This results in a privatisation of welfare services such as child and elderly welfare, healthcare and education that is highly costly even for the middle-classes. Cooperatives are now providing a certain amount of welfare services to their members, such as supporting child tuition fees, costs for delivering babies or arranging funerals for their members. However, the accessibility of other necessary welfare facilities such as elderly care, childcare, and vocational schools depends on government funding or private business CSR policy. To counter this, the proposal suggests connecting already established cooperative solidarity networks that are a part of the local agribusiness as well as serving their members a higher standard of welfare facilities. Childcare centres primarily operate under the Department of Social Development and Welfare, which is majorly focused on vulnerable groups such as orphans or young offenders, as well as constructing childcare centres in low-income communities. Elderly care is a recent issue to Thailand, due to a gradual increase of elderly people in the entire country: thus the problem of providing health care facilities to the elderly, especially in low-income communities. This infrastructure for low-income communities functions; however, it is divided rather than working in collaboration.

Fig. 32 Nakkeela Cooperative Meeting for English Study Source : Nakkeela Cooperative Facebook Page

52 Ms. Sarah Orleans Reed, Ms. Ana Carolina Ogando Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing – WIEGO [ Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), September 2017] p.46