Prapart Pintobtang PhD

RICE ACTIVIST

Industry : Advocacy

A retired lecturer at Chulalongkorn’s Faculty of Political Science, Assoc Prof Dr Prapart is better known as an advocate for restructuring the rice production system in Thailand, a mainstay of the local economy. Born into a rice farming family in Nakhon Pathom, he has seen firsthand the issues faced by farmers such as debt, rights to farm land or the domination of big corporations on rice sales and prices. Often farmers just worked the fields with no title deeds of their own, and through his efforts, farm land in Khlong Yong was finally issued under a community title deed just over a decade ago. Finally in charge of their own destiny, farmers were encouraged by Dr Prapart to embrace organic rice farming, eventually setting up a social enterprise in 2011. He also brought back traditional rice strains to replace the mass produced but low-price strains subsidised by the government that resulted in a huge surplus of rice grain stored uselessly in warehouses. He has also headed the People''s Movement for a Just Society (P-Move), advocating for decentralisation and rights of local communities to manage their own natural materials.