Without palm (sugar) trees, I don't know what I'd do...

The Sathingphra Peninsula lies between Songkhla Lake and the Gulf of Thailand in southern Thailand.

Most people make their living from rice farming, fishing and palm sugar production. Rice farming has been in decline for many years now because of declining yields, high labour costs and competition for land. Over-fishing has also taken its toll.

Palm sugar is now the main source of cash income for many older, landless and tenant farmers in the area - the palm trees are rented from local landlords. The palm sugar trees are planted on the narrow dykes running between the rice fields.

Palm sugar cakes.

From April until August, men climb as many as sixty of the ten metre high palm trees twice a day, to collect sap from the palm sugar flower at the top of the tree. Their day begins at 4am and may not finish until late in the evening. Each tree must be tapped every day or it will stop producing.

"Palm climbers like us are not allowed to get sick. No matter how sick we are, we have to climb because if we don't climb for just one day the palm will stop producing sap and the tree will be useless."

The sap is heated by women over a wood-fired stove until it turns into a syrup known locally as honey. The honey is then turned into vinegar, alcohol or palm sugar cake which is sold in markets as far away as northern Malaysia and the Thai capital Bangkok.

The work is hard and the hours long.

Livelihoods threatened

Most young people choose to work in the factories or on construction sites in nearby Had Yai, but older men and women have no choice but to continue in a profession handed down for generations. Their livelihoods have been threatened by the increased cost of firewood and the uncertain price for sugar cake in local markets. Timber prices have increased dramatically because of the over-cutting of native forests and because of competition for scrap timber from the pulp and paper industry.

The price of sugar cake drops dramatically during April and May when palm sugar trees produce sap. Those farmers who can afford to do so, keep the honey until the price rises later in the year. Most cannot.

Many of the palm sugar trees are disappearing as shrimp farms multiply along Thailand's southern coast; others are being cut for timber because of shortages following the selective ban on logging.

Unlike rice and rubber, palm sugar producers receive little or no government support such as guaranteed prices or agricultural extension services.

Palm sugar trees bordering paddy fields, Sathingphra Peninsula. Photo : Chris Adams, CAA

The Project:
Community Aid Abroad has been supporting this project since 1991. The project aims to introduce better stoves to heat sap and to improve the downstream processing and marketing of palm sugar products, drawing on capital provided by the community itself.

In 1991 the project developed a new stove which is more fuel-efficient, more durable and which produces a cleaner product (because of reduced ash contamination and stable temperatures) in less time.

Project achievements

• Five hundred stoves have been built since 1991 and twenty people trained in constructing the new stoves.
• Women's labour has been reduced by up to four hours per day and the number of related respiratory complaints has also decreased.
• Six savings and loan groups have been established to mobilise community capital.
• The project has assisted with seed grants and training in administration and bookkeeping for the predominantly female executive members.
• Six hundred households have saved $131,000 over the last three years. (One group lost several thousand dollars to bandits who attacked their regular monthly meeting last year. To their credit, most of the money has already been replaced).
• Profits are split between a community enterprise fund, a welfare fund, an environment fund and dividends to the members. One group has bought land and established a storage and market place for palm sugar. Others have set up a consumer cooperative and a collective to buy firewood.

The project is also working with young women from the villages who commute each day to work in the factories around Had Yai. Together with a Bangkok-based non-government organisation called Friends of Women, they have provided training on workers' rights and exposure tours to other labour groups. In this way, the project creatively bridges the rural urban divide.

Future developments

"What (palm sugar trees) we plant now are for the next generation. Although I know that climbing palms is hard work, I think it can be some source of security for my children."

In future, the project will concentrate less on palm sugar production and more on community-based enterprises and networking between villages, particularly amongst women (who have proved yet again to be the mainstays of community-based development.)

Aware funds will be used to support training in administration and small business management, the development of alternative markets for palm sugar products, research on alternative agriculture and support to set up women's groups and to run training courses.