Thailand: How New Cooking Stoves Assisted Phieng Tac Village

Ha Thi Thom, 23 years old, is living with her husband and two sons in Phieng Tac village, Kim Cuc commune, Bao Lac district. Thom said that for many generations, the people in her village were using open cooking stoves, which was the traditional one with three stands. One of the worst disadvantages of the traditional cooking stove is its high consumption of firewood. For one-day use, it consumes about 20-30 kg of firewood. The firewood collection was an important daily work and burden for Thom and her husband. Thom also knew that cutting down the trees was not good for land protection.

As a member of the Community Development Club (CDC) in Phieng Tac village, Thom has joined fully in all project activities conducted in her village. Since June 2018, with the support of the project, Thom and other CDC members were introduced to energy-efficient cooking stoves. Like many other households in her village, Thom decided to take one to try if it would take less firewood as the Project Officer said.

Thom shared: “Only after one day of using this cooking stove, I realized that it consumed about 10 kg of firewood per day before the traditional one took 20-30 kg. The high consumption of firewood made it become a burden for me and my husband. It took us time to collect the wood, if we didn’t collect the firewood, we could not cook food at home. And if there was any free time, we had to spend them all collecting wood and save them for the days when we were busy and did not have time to collect them. I also notice that this cooking stove makes the cooking faster and releases less smoke than the traditional one. We love using it, especially in the summer because the energy-efficient cooking stove releases less heat.”

After trying the new cooking stove, Thom shared her experiences with her neighbors and other households in the village. Thom said that: “I know many other households in my village want to have one now. The more households use it, the less work burden we have to take and the fewer trees we have to cut down.”