Last  night 9.35pm they set the field alight next to my  house, the sky lights  up head  of  village  just says they cant find who did it every time we report it, basically it's  being totally  ignored round here with the compliance of the head of  village,   I  went down with my  10  billion power  led  torch and shouted at them as they cowered in the  bushes quickly  turning off their  head lights.

Thailand, land of  lip service.

Thai govt biggest joke in the world, can't  stop  burning or road  deaths, do you really think they stopped  covid?

Real easy to stop this, fine the land owner stop  looking for the person doing it.

Dont need to "look" for anyone, the owner of the land gets the fine, and do it again and forfeit the land.  They'll soon get the message.

29 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

Dont need to "look" for anyone, the owner of the land gets the fine, and do it again and forfeit the land.  They'll soon get the message.

Aint gonna  happen.

This is nonesense to say that the old growth "needs" to be burnt off.

I come from a large scale 300 year old farming community and my family has not burnt land for many years.

Not at any significant scale anyhow. And where it is desirable or unavoidable to local farming community co-ordinate with one another.

There are many ways to re-fertilizer land the natural ways without compromising the air quality and peoples lives for weeks or months

to the point of creating very real health issues.

This is just totally ignorant, uneducated, care less for the environment and stupid, never mind illegal

 

3 hours ago, 2ndhomepattaya said:

This is just totally ignorant, uneducated, care less for the environment and stupid, never mind illegal

If you live in sugar cane growing area you can see the challenges the farmers face with getting rid of all the left over debris in their fields. Their little Kubota tractors can't possibly till the leftovers into the soil and have the field immediately ready for the next crop. I hate the burning but I really can't see a viable alternative in place right now. If it were me with large fields of cane I would probably do the same. Rice stubble on the other hand I don't understand why some (very few in our area) choose to burn that since its easily tilled back into the soil.

The air quality in Chiang Mai is terrible today

The fertilizer companies tell them to burn to sell fertilizer 

Where abouts in Thailand are you?

Up here in in Chiangrai no~one is even allowed to have a small bon fire at the moment.

I suppose this varies from district to district.The air pollution here often comes from Myanmar and Laos.

Just now, KC 71 said:

Where abouts in Thailand are you?

Up here in in Chiangrai no~one is even allowed to have a small bon fire at the moment.

I suppose this varies from district to district.The air pollution here often comes from Myanmar and Laos.

 

7 hours ago, KeeTua said:

If you live in sugar cane growing area you can see the challenges the farmers face with getting rid of all the left over debris in their fields. Their little Kubota tractors can't possibly till the leftovers into the soil and have the field immediately ready for the next crop. I hate the burning but I really can't see a viable alternative in place right now. If it were me with large fields of cane I would probably do the same. Rice stubble on the other hand I don't understand why some (very few in our area) choose to burn that since its easily tilled back into the soil.

 

If that is the case, the simplest solution would be to not plant the sugarcane in the first place.

 

I find your statement as a farang, i.e. " If it were me with large fields of cane I would probably do the same" to be appalling to be honest.  

19 hours ago, gunderhill said:

Real easy to stop this, fine the land owner stop  looking for the person doing it.

Might not work in Chiang Mai where it's mushroom hunters burning government forests.

19 hours ago, gunderhill said:

Last  night 9.35pm they set the field alight next to my  house, the sky lights  up head  of  village  just says they cant find who did it every time we report it, basically it's  being totally  ignored round here with the compliance of the head of  village,   I  went down with my  10  billion power  led  torch and shouted at them as they cowered in the  bushes quickly  turning off their  head lights.

Thailand, land of  lip service.

Thai govt biggest joke in the world, can't  stop  burning or road  deaths, do you really think they stopped  covid?

Real easy to stop this, fine the land owner stop  looking for the person doing it.

 

You appear to have expected that anyone, anyone at all, would take notice of what the law says. That has never been the case and never will as there is no will to enforce it.

2 hours ago, TheFishman1 said:

The air quality in Chiang Mai is terrible today

Exactly why I abandoned my fantastic 5 y.o. 2 storey palace in Saraphi that I designed & built & that was perfect in every way, making almost no profit and, took my wife and daughter & got the living hell out of Thailand for ever in 2013. The corruption, terrible driving and all the other immigration B/S was one thing - but the foul air was the final straw. Diagnosed with throat cancer upon arrival back in Oz, the fifth such non-smoker to have the same illness (T1 laryngeal cancer) caused, according to my specialist on the Gold Coast, from long-term exposure to filthy air. I lived in LOS for nearly thirty years, mostly in "Changers" and, saw the air degrade from average to terrible in LOS, in only ten years. I had to endure three months of radiation treatment - but I'm alive. It is 2200 hours here in Oz - I just wandered outside to take a pee, as we live in the bush. Crystal clear clean air. Paradise. Then I turned on my computer to look at T/V. I'm not at all religious, but I thanked God. The poor silly dill, a very wealthy man also from Oz, who spent four times the money I spent on a two storey home, to build a single storey bungalow opposite my old house in Saraphi, lives in total denial. He'll get the picture too, when he starts coughing. 

20 hours ago, gunderhill said:

Real easy to stop this, fine the land owner stop  looking for the person doing it.

Maybe it is the headman?

Here is the smart answer when, the last year, I reported a fire that every days, some neighbor burn, and no far from home... 

 

 

Hey Falang ! this is Thailand, if you don’t like it... GO HOME!.

Police did nothing.

 

BTW, today;

9 hours ago, KeeTua said:

If you live in sugar cane growing area you can see the challenges the farmers face with getting rid of all the left over debris in their fields. Their little Kubota tractors can't possibly till the leftovers into the soil and have the field immediately ready for the next crop. I hate the burning but I really can't see a viable alternative in place right now. If it were me with large fields of cane I would probably do the same. Rice stubble on the other hand I don't understand why some (very few in our area) choose to burn that since its easily tilled back into the soil.

I have not looked but I seem to remember that sugar cane is grown in the US (South) and in the Caribbean. how do they deal with the same issue?

1 hour ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

You appear to have expected that anyone, anyone at all, would take notice of what the law says. That has never been the case and never will as there is no will to enforce it.

Wife was  asked by the pu yai baan  not to  burn her fields, she didn't. Not everyone burns but there's   still too  many round here that do.

54 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Maybe it is the headman?

He  IS  part of the problem for sure. What they do  love though is to make a  nice  example of the Farang whenever they can, if  that had been me burning it would be a very different story for sure.

20 hours ago, CharlieH said:

Dont need to "look" for anyone, the owner of the land gets the fine, and do it again and forfeit the land.  They'll soon get the message.

While I certainly agree with what you are saying, there are times when other parties are responsible for the burning.  We grow sugar cane and on a few occasions someone else has come along at night and set fire to our land.  On a couple of occasions the fires had to be investigated because the fires had spread into nearby rubber plantations and the farmers there were looking for reparations.  There was nobody else burning nearby from where the fire may have spread and the harvester was nowhere near the land when the fire started.  The only conclusion was it was firebug kids wandering around at night. 

 

We have also had rice straw, which we normally keep for the home garden/compost etc, mysteriously set alight at night.  Kids out here in the sticks have little to do and have no respect for private property.  We have often gone out to the farm to find someone has been camping there the night before.  They drag straw up from the paddies and make beds and camp fires where they sit and drink beer and smoke yaa ba till the wee hours leaving empty bottles and trash everywhere.......and all the straw stacks have been burnt.

 

Coming from Australia and with all the bush fires we have, I know there are always lots of fire bugs around.......and not all are kids!

Same here in Chiang Rai,but a bit later  it was 2.00am . Nothing is never going to change ,.Anyone want to buy a beautiful home 

3 hours ago, 4MyEgo said:

 

If that is the case, the simplest solution would be to not plant the sugarcane in the first place.

 

I find your statement as a farang, i.e. " If it were me with large fields of cane I would probably do the same" to be appalling to be honest.  

Brilliant idea! To expand on your simple solution just shut down all the sugarcane plants in Thailand and the planting will stop. I'm sure the sugarcane farmers will all happily go back to subsistence farming.

 

But really its not about the simplest solution what's needed is a workable solution to provide alternatives to the burning.

 

Regarding you being appalled by my statement for what its worth that is me empathizing with the farmers in our village and in general.

Aussie Peter.

I agree it a nice relief to go out the back and have a pee. Especially if there is a fence to pee over. 

All the best with the cancer mate.

1 hour ago, wwest5829 said:

I have not looked but I seem to remember that sugar cane is grown in the US (South) and in the Caribbean. how do they deal with the same issue?

Search Youtube for 'sugar cane harvester' to get an idea of how it can be done but the machinery looks prohibitively expensive for the typical cash strapped Thai farmer farming their relatively small plots of land. In the future I imagine the farming will become very mechanized here as it is already getting difficult to find people to work in the fields.

3 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Might not work in Chiang Mai where it's mushroom hunters burning government forests.

then fine the govt dept that owns the land.

Burning continues unabated...

 

...as it does every year because burning ag waste is more profitable then other methods and the government doesn't give a ****. 

Just now, connda said:

Burning continues unabated...

 

...as it does every year because burning ag waste is more profitable then other methods and the government doesn't give a ****. 

Well, they do add a lot of hot air, but they do nothing to remedy the problem. That would cut into the profits of Big Ag as well as impact the locals who burn the forests to gather het top mushrooms in the rainy season.   The government will wring their hand and moan and groan - and do zip, zero, nada.

Here in Udon Thani, hardly ever used to have bad air quality (by that i mean 'unhealthy' i.e over 150). Last year for a couple of days you could taste the smoke. Just had 3 days over 150 without even local burning. Just getting other people <deleted> air blowing in. I did invest in an air purifier for Xmas.....

23 hours ago, gunderhill said:

Thai govt biggest joke in the world, can't  stop  burning or road  deaths, do you really think they stopped  covid?

Sounds like Australia.

4 hours ago, 4MyEgo said:

 

If that is the case, the simplest solution would be to not plant the sugarcane in the first place.

 

I find your statement as a farang, i.e. " If it were me with large fields of cane I would probably do the same" to be appalling to be honest.  

You never been out the city in Australia? The farangs do it there.

 

They do it there for exactly the same reason they do it here. Well not here in Natai Beach where the air is always clear, but up where you live.

Google “Burdekin Snow”.

 

https://www.northqueenslandregister.com.au/story/6773682/burning-desire-for-first-cane-fire/

2 hours ago, gunderhill said:

He  IS  part of the problem for sure. What they do  love though is to make a  nice  example of the Farang whenever they can, if  that had been me burning it would be a very different story for sure.

I doubt they would care if you were burning. It really doesn’t bother them. Only farangs get uptight about it.

 

The Poo Yai Baan is elected by the people. It is a popularity contest. Running around telling people they have to spend more money or do a hell of a lot more work, or not make any money ISNT going to get him re-elected. 
 

Their country. Up to them.