Being sick is a phase of life that our body warns us to come back to ourselves.....
If we don’t have a cold, we won’t think about the value of being able to breathe.
If we are not sick, we won’t know the value of being alive.
...Death may be the most precious gift the nature gives to you. But we are afraid of it.
Because no one explains to us how it is like to be dead. If we accept this fact of life, our
problems in life will diminish. The way I understand life is to reduce the fear of death.
Jon Jandai’s interviewed by Songglod ( 2012 :85–86)
In our relatively short lifetime, we should appreciate the miracle of life that gives
us biodiversity. Life’s appreciation is more important than hedonism. More
importantly, sustainability means freedom from being dominated by biogenetic
engineering. That leads to my next topic.
- The Importance of Seed Collection and Conservation
Jon has campaigned for a seed center. He states in his interviews and in the
course that the disappearance of seeds is alarming. The attempt of a few interna-
tional biotech industries to patent native seeds and living resources has made the
locals rely on the seeds and chemical fertilizers they need to buy from these
companies. Biopiracy and genetic engineering to control the seeds implies that the
locals cannot collect seeds from their vegetables and fruits any further because they
are either mutated or no longer re-plantable. That is what is being practiced in the
contemporary globalization period. Genetically modified organisms to implant
strange genes from other species to make living sources resistant to pests, insects,
and regrowth are being promoted by multinational corporations. This kind of
development reduces the biodiversity, and worse than that the safety of eating them.
GMO products are not tasty. They are made to look good and grow fast. Food is
developed for the market, not for the consumers.
There will not be self-reliance without the collection of authentic seeds that our
ancestors have developed and selected for us. It would be a shame that we cannot
transfer our indigenous wisdom of food selection, food safety, cooking, preserva-
tion of seeds, and more to the coming generation (Punpunthailand.org2016b).
It is a very clever move that Punpun did not advocate to go against the multi-
national corporations overtly, but Punpun opts to give away seeds free of charge to
anyone. This is to counteract the idea that everything is for sale. The way to
conserve seeds is simple for Punpun people. They do not have a big cooling place
to keep the seeds. They know that the seeds can be kept for a year in a refrigerator.
They encourage people to sow the seeds, grow them, eat the produce, and if it is
good, just keep the seeds and share them. By so doing, we keep the seed conser-
vation in our lifestyle; quietly, we are no longer slaves of biotech industries.
- The Importance of Networking with Like-Minded Others
Punpun has collaborated with other green and organic centers, such as the Santi
Asoke, the agri-nature foundation, Mor Keaw (self-reliance in health care) group,
Sufficient agriculture club, and more. The Santi Asoke group is an austere Buddhist
group that prefers to call its profits from selling homegrown organic produce and
100 6 Self-Reliance and Sustainability from a Thai Perspective