Abstract

This qualitative instrumental case study explores how aging, low-literacy vegetable smallholders in Wang Thong Sub-district, Northern Thailand, learn, hesitate, negotiate, and adapt while moving from chemical-heavy cultivation toward national Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standards. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and naturalistic participant observations, the study shows that the shift toward safe farming was not experienced as a simple technical adjustment. For many farmers, change began with embodied pressures, including declining health after long-term chemical exposure, rising household debt, and fear of crop failure if familiar practices were abandoned. The findings also reveal that formal training sessions, written GAP logbooks, and digital platforms often intensified anxiety among older farmers with limited schooling. In contrast, practical learning in village demonstration plots, locally understood as “Living Plots,” created safer spaces where farmers could observe, test, fail, ask questions, and rebuild confidence through hands-on experimentation. Peer mentoring, community sages, and everyday exchanges through local networks, including LINE groups, helped sustain learning beyond formal state-led training. Rather than presenting lifelong learning as an individual process of acquiring new knowledge, this study demonstrates how unlearning and relearning occur through bodily experience, shared risk, local trust, and community-based support. Based on these empirical patterns, the study proposes The Evolving Rural Lifelong Learning Ecosystem Model as a field-grounded framework for supporting age-responsive, care-based, and community-embedded agricultural learning in rural contexts.

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