Balancing Commodities and Culture: Alternative Agriculture and the Viable Indigenous Model

I woke up to the sound of morning glory frying as my host mother, Pikoon Phanloed, cooked up breakfast before starting her morning chores on the farm. I was on one of my first home stays during my fall 2011 semester in northeastern Thailand, living with a family involved in the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN)—a non-governmental organization that promotes sustainable agriculture. The sun was beginning to peak through the cracks of the wooden house, illuminating some of the dusty posters on the wall. Most of these were of the royal family— par for the course in any Thai household—but there was another that stood out. It depicted farmers, sweating and tired, digging up money from the earth in front of an industrial skyline. In the corner of the poster were the letters WTO (World Trade Organization) crossed out by a bold red line. I was in Thailand to study human rights as they relate to global development policies and environmental degradation, focusing particularly on non-governmental organizations' opposition to these issues. During that first home stay, I had only just been introduced to the AAN and the concept of NGOs for sustainable agriculture , so my understanding was still developing. At that point, I had been engaging with activists and NGO leaders who explained how the government's agricultural policies and exploitative bilateral free-trade agreements had prompted their network of farmers to seek alternatives. Hyped up on these issues of environmental human rights and international political economy, I assumed that my host mother had that poster as an indication of her strong organic advocacy and fiery political drive. But when I asked her about it, she just laughed and explained that it was a gift from her sister—she didn't know what the picture represented, or what the World Trade Organization was. She simply stated, " It looks nice, that's all " (P. Phanloed,