What If…? Harvest Moon — Pun Pun Farm & Hin Lad Nai

Panya Forest, Pun Pun Farm and the P’gakenyaw village of Hin Lad Nai run What If…? together twice a year, and the November 2026 session takes place from the 17th to the 22nd. It is a six-day residential course held across two sites: Pun Pun Organic Farm in Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai, and Hin Lad Nai in Wiang Pa Pao, Chiang Rai. Sessions are bilingual, taught in both English and Thai. The course is Panya Forest’s most established offering, and it takes a different route into the same territory as a practical permaculture course. Rather than starting with design method, it starts with the relationship between people and the land they live on, and works outward from there through seed saving, farming, cooking, storytelling and time spent in the forest.

The first half runs at Pun Pun, the seed-saving and self-reliance centre next door to the Panya land. Participants work with seed as both a practical and a cultural subject, learning saving and growing techniques alongside the stories, songs and lineages attached to particular varieties. Natural farming sessions cover growing and harvesting food with attention to soil, water and the underground fungal networks that support both. Slow cooking sessions move from harvesting in the garden through cooking from scratch, with a focus on root vegetables. Embodied group exercises, which Panya calls Waking the Wild, run alongside the hands-on work.

The second half moves to Hin Lad Nai, a P’gakenyaw community in the Chiang Rai hills whose rotational farming system is one of the better documented indigenous land practices in northern Thailand. Participants learn how rotational farming works in practice and how it shapes community life, spend time with Khun Yai Lumpoo, the single old tree left standing when the surrounding forest was logged, and learn about wild honey collection and the tea harvested from ancient trees on the site. The visit closes with a Baisi ceremony, the Thai and Lao thread-tying ritual, marking the end of the group’s time together.

The fee is a sliding scale rather than a fixed price. Panya suggests 7,000 to 10,000 baht for most participants, and 12,000 baht or more from those in a more comfortable financial position, so that the higher contributions cover places for people who could not otherwise attend. The course suits people who want to spend time on working land and in an indigenous community rather than in a classroom, and who are comfortable with a programme built around ceremony, storytelling and group work as much as around practical skills. Because Panya is a small community and places on both sites are limited, contact them directly to confirm what the fee covers, the arrangements between the two locations, and current availability before making travel plans.