เกี่ยวกับเรา

Joko Community Learning Center is a non-governmental organization operating in Tambon Muang Jung, 15 km from Nan city, Nan province, Thailand.

Joko Community Learning Center is concerned with contemporary problems in Thai rural communities conceptually divided into three major categories:

1. agricultural biodiversity, its loss and conservation;
2. natural farming and agriculture, its propagation;
3. sustainable community development.

Joko Community Learning Center is an organization working under the local plant genetic resources group of Hug Muang Nan Foundation. Together with partner organizations in Pacific Asia, Joko has been implementing the Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation project (CBDC) since 1996.

Establishment of Joko Learning Center was preceded by the 10 year activity of Local Plant Conservation and Utilization club (LPCU). It comprised of agricultural academicians, developers and farmer leaders as well as members of Hug Muang Nan Foundation, who once joined their hands together to help reversing genetic erosion and to revitalize the diversity of crop varieties within farmers’ fields and agro-ecosystems.

Joko was officially founded by Samruay Phadphon in 2003 to serve as a coordinating unit for a multitude of farmer field schools initiated under the LPCU program. Initially, the main objectives of Joko were seed and natural biodiversity conservation, but during the course of past years its activities expanded towards sustainable community development and natural agriculture.

Currently, Joko is run by 8 staff members and several individual farmers. Its activities try to meet the following objectives, in accordance to the CDBC targets:

• To conserve and increase plant genetic diversity at local community level.
• To empower and build capacity of farmers by strengthening their technical knowledge and skills on Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) conservation, development and utilization using participatory learning processes.
• To strengthen the links with formal and informal organizations to collectively address both technical and policy issues related to PGR.
• To achieve food security and biodiversity through ecologically balanced agricultural systems and sustainable food production.
• To achieve gender balance in PGR conservation and development.

Joko believes that reversing the current trend towards chemical agriculture, that is, to return to natural organic farming methods and plants, is the key to improve the life quality of Thai farmers. Adapting natural farming methods along with development and conservation of traditional rice varieties can ensure food security for the poorest. Furthermore, maintenance of genetic plant diversity combined with intensive and sensible small scale field management guarantee sustainability, reduce farmer dependence and prevent uncontrolled expansion of farm lands, precluding devastation of natural environments.

Amongst major activities are:

• Seed Saving and Development Program (focusing on sticky (glutinous) rice and local vegetables),
• Mutual Farming System (combining swine production, paddy rice fields and vegetable gardens, utilizing Indigenous Microorganisms).