That's my prediction, anyway.

 

Things are looking mighty bleak in rural Thailand these days. In fact, except for maybe one other year about 7-8 years ago, this is the most desperate I've seen things in the last 16 years.

 

First, there's the drought. The corn is stunted and so is the sugar cane. Cassava doesn't like too much rain, but drought isn't good either. If you happen to have access to water, you might be able to salvage things a little bit, but not very many people are this lucky. The puu yai in my village is irrigating his corn using the municipal water supply on the sly. I can always tell when he's doing this, because the water pressure at the house drops down to just a dribble.

 

Then there's the fall armyworm. At first it was hard to spot which fields were infested, but now the damage can be seen easily from afar. In some fields there are big swathes where the entire crop has died, and in just about every field I've inspected there's signs of infestation. In some fields in my area drought has so stunted the corn, ordinarily it would have been tilled under and replanted, but because there's so little rain, it's just being left standing to wilt and die. Problem is that the fields are still infested with fall army worm. Because the crop's dying from drought, the farmers figure there's no point to spray for the fall army worm as well. But just because the corn's wilting from drought doesn't mean the fall army worm's going to die off as well.

 

So not only are farm incomes going to be severely impacted, but there's going to be a lot less demand for farm labor associated with the fall harvest. Which of course is going to have a spill over effect on local merchants. In another words, everyone's going to get hit. I think there's going to be a lot of financially desperate people out there in the near future, and an oversupply of people may soon be forced to look for work away from the farm, and if they can't find it, property crime may be about to spike upwards.

 

Just a heads up.

legalizing marijuana would go a long way in making up for these shortfalls, too bad China says no..

Thailand will not suffer from drought this year as there will be enough water for use until early 2020. 

Deputy director-general Thaweesak Thanadachopol said an official survey in irrigation zones had learned that there will be sufficient water supply for consumption and farming. 

 

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