OTOP stands for "One Tambon One Product", a Thai government initiative launched in 2001 to promote the sale of unique hand-made products from village communities (tambon) as a means of improving incomes at the grassroots level.
OTOP aims to build the income derived from traditional art and craft work in rural communities, and to increase community sustainability by developing local talent and placing it in a global context.
The government adopted the "One Village, One Product" concept pioneered by governor Hiramatsu of the Japanese Prefecture of Oita, by which he helped to build up smallsized enterprises within communities. The Thai programme sought to draw on the local knowledge and ingenuity of Thai villages in all the regions of Thailand.
The OTOP programme encouraged people to make traditional local products using their home-grown skills and expertise. The government provided technical assistance and advice to enable them to produce their goods more efficiently and improve their quality. It then helped them with the marketing of their goods throughout the country and beyond its borders.
An OTOP logo has been developed as a symbol of excellence to be awarded to those hand-crafted items that reach the high standards set by the OTOP National Committee and have export potential.
OTOP products are traditional items made in village communities, each crafted in the inimitable style of their locality. They are hand made from local materials using inherited designs and techniques. They might be household items for decorative or practical use, furniture, textiles, clothing, fashion accessories, toys, or any article that is a traditional product of a particular community.
Different regions are noted for specific types of products. Silverware and special paper products, for example, are specialities of the North of Thailand, as are ceramics, bamboo baskets, cotton fabrics, silver jewellery and tea.
The Northeast is famous for its silks and cottons, especially tie-dyed mudmee designs and lai khid and phrae wa silks. Dan Kwian is known for its pottery, triangular pillows and baskets woven from water hyacinth.
Pottery and ceramics are important products of the Central Region, too, notably the exquisite Benjarong and the distinctive Ko Kret earthenware and terra cotta pottery.
The East is well known for fresh and preserved fruit as well as bamboo and rattan baskets and reed mats, while natural tie-dyed and batik fabrics are a speciality of the South, with woven liphao baskets, mother-of-pearl inlays and carved wood.
All products are selected for promotion for their overall quality and their potential for export.
The OTOP programme has firm government support at several levels, from identifying potential products, advising on design, production, quality control, and packaging to attract buyers for the domestic and export markets.
The entire OTOP product cycle comes under the supervision of a National OTOP Committee, with regional and provincial level committees to assist in identifying, developing and grading OTOP products.
Traditionally, craft workers made products for their own use or to be exchanged with or sold to their neighbours. They made these items when the daily work of farming or household chores were finished, and with this limited part-time work, production capacity and supplying in volume were not an issue.
With the introduction of OTOP, though, village communities face the realities of trading beyond borders. They must meet deadlines, standards of quality control, production capacity, design preferences and marketing challenges. Not all OTOP products are of export quality, but there are now government agencies providing support in these areas.
Their local products constitute a form of natural and environmental conservation, and a valuable exchange of local wisdom. To the consumer, each hand-made object has a specific local identity that speaks for itself. It is unique, or if not unique, then a limited edition of an artifact, a garment or an item of jewellery that does not exist elsewhere and cannot mass-produced.
It may be a sentimental memento of a certain time and place in Thailand; it may even be "a thing of beauty and a joy forever", but however humble or however aesthetically exciting it may be, an OTOP product will be a personal link between a part of Thailand and a traveller who has seen, enjoyed and responded to it.
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