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Khun Wang Royal Project, Mae Wang District, Chiang Mai Province
Khun Wang Royal Project is the area consisting of a wide range of ethnic groups such as townspeople, Karens (Pakakoryor) and Mong, resulting in a variety of traditions and cultures with harmony and peaceful co-existence. Also, they are still maintaining the uniqueness of their own languages and traditional dress very well.
Since in the past, community in this area usually planted opium, which is a kind of narcotic plants, therefore, in B.E. 2525, the King Rama IX had visited Ban Khun Wang and had royal thought to assign government agencies in the area to jointly consider, improve and develop the community by promoting to plant other kinds of crops generating equivalent or better income than opium. The project was led by Thai Royal Project Foundation, an organization related to the development of careers for Thai mountain people in the upper Northern part of Thailand.
Presently, Khun Wang Project Development Center is responsible for the operations in the area of 1,652.76 Rai, covering seven villages. Population to be developed and supported is 380 households or 2,005 people, activities promoting farmers consist of vegetable culture, fruit culture and winter-blooming flower planting. Apart from plants and vegetables, Mong people living in the area of Khun Wang Royal Project are also supported to plant “hemp”, a kind of cannabis plants with lesser addictive substances. It has been a plant in the lifestyle of Mong people for more than 3,000 years. Hemp fiber in Mong people’s culture is another material for weaving fabric, which is normally tailored to be a clothing used in the rite or wear in daily life since the ancient time when their ancestors lived in China. In planting hemp, seeds will be planted and it will spend about six months for growing. When it is fully grown, villager will dry male steams and they will be processed as fibers while seeds of female stems will be stored for next planting.
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