Why a Local Food Networks

We started the Pai Seedlings Foundation Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project a little more than a year ago. The intention was to develop a creative response to the limitations COVID was forcing on our environmental education activities: because we couldn’t do workshops at the farm anymore (due to lack of travellers and restrictions on gathering), we decided to focus our attention on the local population of Pai and on our fundamental needs.

What could we do together to create resilient support networks?

From the first day of our dedication to building self-reliant lifestyles – 10 years ago -, we have always believed in Local Food Networks to be the seed of freedom and wellbeing: eating is our most natural need, a daily pleasure and a staple of culture radiance – France and Thailand both have amazing cuisine and a sacred relationship to food!-. Growing organic, nourishing, and healthy food is not only a powerful tool to reclaim our independence from the agro-industry, but it is also a grounding spiritual practice, and the most nourishing of habits: we are what we eat! Our physical and mental health depends on our food diet, so our direct connection to nature and natural cycles! At Pai Seedlings Foundation we are now also exploring that it is a crucial tool in developing communities.

How does the CSA work?

Our CSA experience is based on the assumption that it takes about 4 committed families to support the transition of 1 local farmer to organic regenerative practices. 4 families donating a little more than 100€ a month to provide security and training to 1 local gardener, thus allowing him freedom from a market owned by chemical companies and big players. And in return, we co-own the production and share it 5 ways in the form of organic fresh veggies delivery. Simple math, simple organization.

1 year down the road we are producing enough to eat, on average, 1 fully organic and homegrown meal per day. We could probably eat more from the farm, but the limiting factor has been cooking time…

This is precisely what has inspired the recent development of the project: with 3 new donating members we are now able to employ 2 cooks twice a week to prepare food for all of us:

• We are more efficient in harvesting only what we need to cook and thus reduce waste to zero;
• We are benefitting from the creative cooking skills of our local cooks: pi Oh and pi Tarn;
• We are creating more jobs while making our lives easier!

The lessons learned on the way

The lesson in this is that we are growing a model, based not on monetary exchange and cheap food, but on support network and abundance. By growing an ecosystem in which we all rely on each other, we make our lives interdependent and resilient. The core ingredient in this is COMMITMENT: it is through the commitment of our members that we can guarantee our gardener’s and cook’s jobs and pay, thus creating an incentive to focus on quality rather than quantity.

This is also based on a shared understanding that regeneration takes time but comes with multiple collateral benefits such as soil fertility and biodiversity, economic opportunities, and community wellbeing. We all believe in these values and are co-creating a lifestyle that honors them.

At a deeper level we are also learning how to shift our paradigm from a consumer-centrist perspective (our addiction to cheap and available food all year long) to a producer-centrist perspective: following seasonal availability of food and being in direct contact with the people growing our food deepens our daily relationship to the land while restoring our sense of belonging to Nature.

++ For more information about our CSA, please contact me directly: damien@seedlings-foundation.org. I will send you a complete inspiring pdf presentation.

++ For coaching and consulting services to help you start your local resilience network/project, please contact me: damien@seedlings-foundation.org

++ For weekly updates on the CSA project: follow this blog or my social media!