Landfill transformed into urban farm feeds Thailand’s poor during pandemic

An urban farm cultivated on a former landfill site in northern Thailand increased food security and provided livelihoods for poor families during the coronavirus pandemic and can be a model for unused spaces in other cities, urban experts said Thursday.

The farm in Chiang Mai, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the capital Bangkok, took shape during a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus last year when many of the city’s residents lost their tourism-dependent jobs.

Supawut Boonmahathanakorn, a community architect who works on housing solutions for Chiang Mai’s homeless and informal settlers, approached authorities with a plan to convert the unused landfill into an urban farm to support the poor.

“We had previously mapped the city’s unused spaces with an idea to plant trees to mitigate air pollution. The landfill, which had been used for…