Agri-Nature Foundation

The Agri-Nature Foundation (มูลนิธิกสิกรรมธรรมชาติ) is a Thai non-profit that promotes self-reliant, chemical-free farming based on the philosophy of sufficiency economy. It was founded by Wiwat Salyakamthorn, the educator and farmer widely known as Ajarn Yak, and registered as a foundation in 1983. Its work sits close to permaculture: it teaches people to design farms and households that meet their own needs, rebuild soil and water, and reduce their dependence on outside inputs.

The foundation is best known for a network of natural-farming learning centres across Thailand, anchored by the Mab Ueang Agri-Nature Learning Center in Ban Bueng, Chon Buri. At these centres, farmers and members of the public take short residential courses in what the foundation calls kasikam thammachat, or natural agriculture: composting and soil building, herbal fermentation, mixed cropping and tree planting, water management, and making household necessities without synthetic chemicals.

Much of the training is organised around the Khok Nong Na model and the New Theory of agriculture, an approach to arranging land into forest, ponds, paddy and living space so that a single household can grow diverse food and store its own water through the dry season. This land-and-water design overlaps closely with permaculture practice, and the foundation frames it as a route to food security and resilience for smallholders. Courses combine fieldwork with instruction in cooperative organisation, so that graduates return not only with techniques but with ways to organise production and trade in their own communities.

Alongside teaching, the foundation supports research and development in low-cost biological inputs such as herbal enzymes, natural fertilisers and plant-based pest repellents, and it helps community groups set up cooperative stores and local production cycles. Its stated aim is practical self-reliance: communities that can feed themselves, care for their own health through traditional Thai medicine and herbs, and rely less on external markets and chemicals.

The foundation works with farmer groups, cooperatives, schools and, at times, government and corporate partners on reforestation and rural-development projects. Through its founder it also connects to the wider regenerative and permaculture movement in Thailand and the region. Ajarn Yak is among the Thai practitioners taking part in IPC16, the International Permaculture Convergence, which comes to Thailand in 2026, and the foundation's decades of work in natural farming and household self-reliance sit naturally alongside the permaculture design tradition that convergence brings together.

For anyone exploring permaculture in Thailand, the Agri-Nature Foundation is one of the country's largest home-grown networks teaching self-reliant, chemical-free agriculture, and a practical entry point into the sufficiency economy approach that has shaped much of Thai regenerative farming.

Short residential courses in natural agriculture (kasikam thammachat), Khok Nong Na and New Theory land-and-water design, soil building and composting, herbal fermentation and biological farm inputs, and cooperative community organising, delivered through a national network of learning centres.