Drought crisis cripples Thailand's agriculture

[webfact]

Drought crisis cripples Thailand's agriculture

YASOTHON, 13 November (NNT) – The northeastern province of Yasothon has been struggling with critical drought, causing crop failure across 120,000 rai of farmland.

Water supplies are quickly diminishing in the province, especially in the Chi River, which farmers use to irrigate their fields. Water capacity in the Chi River recorded at the provincial reservoir has fallen to 124.7 million cubic meters, while water levels in the Huai Ling Chon Reservoir have fallen to nine million cubic meters.

The lack of water for agricultural use has caused the more than 120,000 rai of rice fields to dry up.

In Kamphaeng Phet province, the drought crisis has impacted farmland both inside and outside of the irrigation network. Farmers are forced to suspend crop cultivation and look for ways to supplement their income.

Meanwhile, local officials from Nakhon Sawan's Provincial Waterworks Authority have begun pumping water from public canals into water retention areas to ensure the continued production of tap water.


-- NNT 2015-11-13

[jaltsc]

"The northeastern province of Yasothon has been struggling with critical drought, causing crop failure across 120,000 rai of farmland."

Blame it ALL on the weather. Of course governmental agricultural policies compounded by the farmers refusal to switch to crops requiring less water have nothing nothing to do with the crop failures. Agriculture is also part of the evolutionary process. That which does not adapt to the environmental conditions tends to become extinct. It's too bad that they will have to learn this fact of life the hard way.

Edited November 13, 2015 by jaltsc

[Lunchbob]

If you are not farming it is hard to understand how dry it is. It is more than just not enough water for normal irrigation. Even good soil properly cared for is severely dry and requires now double or triple the amount of normal irrigation which of course is not possible. It is incredibly hot, like a layer of atmospheric protection has been peeled away and the force of the sun is greater. Something very odd is happening.

[worgeordie]

No surprise there, this is a accumulation of 3 years below average rain fall,

especially this last rainy season,and NOW the Government feels it needs

to do something about it AFTER the rains have ended,its going to be a

long dry time until the next rains,also the farmers were told not to grow

more rice,but took no notice,now will be going to Government ,hands out

looking for compensation,after the crop has failed.

regards worgeordie

[noosard]

These farmers have only tried to grow the first crops of the year

Supposedly during the wet season which they have obviously missed out on

So their future is grim as the last crops if harvested were a year ago

and by the sounds of things won't be harvesting any crops till this time next year if they lucky

Edited November 13, 2015 by noosard

[chainarong]

Hullo Hullo the whole country is in water crisis , send all enquiries to PM Prayut- O he seems to issue General orders of the day that are unworkable, knee jerk solutions, this year it is water shortage what will it be next year, another one. .........

[shirtless]

I know drought only to well , dry heat coupled with no rain, at this point there is not a whole lot anybody could do, its now to late. Thais dont plan until the dyke is broken.

[whatproblem]

So Thailand is starting to get droughts ,good job this has never happened before

[SOUTHERNSTAR]

"The northeastern province of Yasothon has been struggling with critical drought, causing crop failure across 120,000 rai of farmland."

Blame it ALL on the weather. Of course governmental agricultural policies compounded by the farmers refusal to switch to crops requiring less water have nothing nothing to do with the crop failures. Agriculture is also part of the evolutionary process. That which does not adapt to the environmental conditions tends to become extinct. It's too bad that they will have to learn this fact of life the hard way.

It sound very easy what you are saying but unfortunately it is not. Farming is not like a factory which you switch on and off or change production lines. Before farmers can switch crops they must first be certain there will be a market. Here is where the government failed. Instead of ordering farmers to stop production they should have facilitated the change of crops by assisting farmers to develop markets for these alternative crops. Say for example farmers switch to corn and produce 2 million tons more corn than normal what will happen to the price, where will it be stored and who will buy it ? Many of Thai farmers use flood irrigation and many irrigation canals/pipes are leaking. By fixing canals/pipes and assisting farmers to buy new modern irrigation systems, water savings of more than 30% can be made. My question is why are there no calls for factories to stop production but farmers are ordered to stop production, is it maybe because the factory owners are rich friends of powerful people ? Why is only part of the population targeted to save water when the rest of society use water wastefully ?

[Hawk]

These people simply wait for the ship to sink, but they have had over a year to find a solution, only now they are getting out the plastic bags. Too little and too late.

Next year the drought will be even worse, its called climate change. But these news items are in English which very few Thais understand, hence the crisis.

[farmerjo]

Sounds like a good time to empty some older dams and clean them out so they hold more water when the rains do come.

[sbf]

The fact remains that even in a drier year such as this, Thailand has rainfall which many farmers in truly arid regions for example parts of Australia, Southern Africa or the band of states from California through to Texas amongst others would give anything to have. Large parts of Thailand do however have this prolonged dry spell we are now entering. So the problem is not one of the lack of total annual rainfall but one of storage of that rain for the drier part of the year, and coping with variation from the mean average rainfall.

There are a number of areas which I think improve the overall situation here. There has to be real attention paid to maintaining forest cover in the watersheds, good forest cover helps retain moisture when it falls in the soils from where it slowly seeps into the valleys and maintains river flows during the drier times of the year and in drier years. Thailand has good laws to prevent deforestation, they just need to be effectively and consistently enforced. Perhaps more could also be done to encourage re-afforestation of these critical catchment areas.

Another area which could be improved is to make sure that soil organic matter is maintained as high as possible. This is always difficult in the tropics, however the higher the organic matter the more moisture is retained in the soil in general, and it is a logarithmic increase, so a soil with 4% organic matter has substantially more than twice the water holding capacity of a 2% organic matter soil. To maintain organic matter levels farmers should be encouraged to use green manures and return all crop waste to the soil. Farmers should be discouraged from crop waste burning, educated about the importance of returning the organic matter, and perhaps if the burning problem persists fined ( as many countries do ) if they continue to fire their fields. It is a win win situation for the soil ( and therefore the farmer ) and the health of the population living near these areas of substantial burn-off.

If a programme of small scale farm dam building in appropriate places was encouraged and perhaps part funded by the government, there would be some real advantage to many farmers. They would control their own water source and have water to grow some crops during the drier times of the year, they could also raise some fish as a protein source and possibly cash income. This is what we have done on our rice land, which is terraced down a gentle hillside to a valley bottom. There is always an underground flow in the valley even if the surface stream dries up, which it often does during dry periods. It was a relatively simple and cheap exercise, I think about 25,000 baht for each 20 x 20 pond 4 m deep. We now have water to irrigate through other crops on land that previously only grew one crop of rice a year. Ditto the water tables in many places are close to the surface, and over the course of a year are topped up during the rainy season, so if wells are put down, and done so sensibly so that water tables are maintained then the area can be irrigated during drier spells.

There is little alternative to rice for much of the land in the wet season, since few crops plants are adapted like rice is to grow whilst under water. Our rice farm had nearly 200mm of rain a week or so ago spread over three nights. This led to all the rice fields being under at least 10cm of water for a week, and several of the lower lying fields still are. One could count on one hand the number of alternate crops which could grow well in these circumstances.

It seems to me that it does little good to tell a farmer not to grow something, especially when historically that is the only crop they have grown. If their individual economic circumstances, skill set and farm equipment are set around 2-3 crops of rice a year, of course they will try to maintain that. Not many of us could survive a reduction in income to a third or half of what we are used to, nor can they, but it is what they are being asked to do. It is outrageous I feel to suggest ( as one government official was quoted ) that farmers seek alternate employment, something that is woefully lacking in many rural areas here, and the farmers have little inclination for anyway.

During the dry season there are quite a number of alternate crops which will do well in different areas around the country, and certainly most need a lot less water than rice does. However how does one go about assessing these alternatives and then implementing their introduction and culture, and then marketing them. Most Thai farmers in my experience, whilst being decent, hard working folk are pretty poorly educated, and so lack the skills required to assess and then grow well these alternate crops. This assessment has to be carried out by governmental and university bodies in the main, and critically then good outreach from these researchers and government scientists to the farmers. This is where I believe Thailand could improve substantially, there seems to be almost no outreach to farmers on these matters or many others. I know there are some fantastic model farms set up by the King, but the farmers need to be encouraged to visit them, as many in our area have never been to visit them. Probably there needs to be more of a coming into the village approach at least initially for the outreach work.

[Mudcrab]

These people simply wait for the ship to sink, but they have had over a year to find a solution, only now they are getting out the plastic bags. Too little and too late.

Next year the drought will be even worse, its called climate change. But these news items are in English which very few Thais understand, hence the crisis.

No its not called climate change, its called the El Nino effect which is affecting the whole of the SEA south Pacific area. Some parts of Northern Australia haven't had rain for years.

Most of tropical Australia is parched at present.

The rain is predicted to come in May/June next year when the natural cycle runs its course.

[billd766]

These people simply wait for the ship to sink, but they have had over a year to find a solution, only now they are getting out the plastic bags. Too little and too late.

Next year the drought will be even worse, its called climate change. But these news items are in English which very few Thais understand, hence the crisis.

Actually the solution has always been there but NO government in the last 20 years or so has planned ahead so please don't try to blame the current government for the current crisis as it would have happened whichever government was in power.

A year is nowhere near long enough to make a start on fixing the problem.

Look back to the past to decide how to change the future.

This is nature at work and it won't change. People have to learn to adapt.

El Nino is affecting most countries in the world to some degree. Cambodia and Vietnam are suffering too, from the drought and part of their problems are caused by the dams up the Mekong river in China and Laos

Edited November 13, 2015 by billd766

[williamgeorgeallen]

if only ferang would stop coming to Thailand to use our water. I am sure they are the ones using all the water. every year more and more come (according to TAT) 28 million right? that must take so much water especially as they come to make love a lot (needs lots of showers before and after) and drink lots of beer. (beer is almost all water). what we need to do is make tourist visas more difficult to get, we could call it a METV visa. imagine how much water we could save.

[Sakeopete]

Farming in Thailand isn't easy many people just say to switch to another crop. One the one hand like other posters pointed out fields flood the other issue is theft. Anyone who has lived in rural Thailand knows there is little respect for property rights and theft is rampant. Rice is one of the few crops farmers can grow given the conditions and its not easy to steal. When we lived in eastern Thailand the locals had eucalyptus trees, sugar cane, corn, cassava and even the fish from their ponds stolen during the night. They new it was their own neighbors or people from local villages that did it but it is hard to prove and Thais tend to avoid confrontation.

[joeyg]

The fact remains that even in a drier year such as this, Thailand has rainfall which many farmers in truly arid regions for example parts of Australia, Southern Africa or the band of states from California through to Texas amongst others would give anything to have. Large parts of Thailand do however have this prolonged dry spell we are now entering. So the problem is not one of the lack of total annual rainfall but one of storage of that rain for the drier part of the year, and coping with variation from the mean average rainfall.

There are a number of areas which I think improve the overall situation here. There has to be real attention paid to maintaining forest cover in the watersheds, good forest cover helps retain moisture when it falls in the soils from where it slowly seeps into the valleys and maintains river flows during the drier times of the year and in drier years. Thailand has good laws to prevent deforestation, they just need to be effectively and consistently enforced. Perhaps more could also be done to encourage re-afforestation of these critical catchment areas.

Another area which could be improved is to make sure that soil organic matter is maintained as high as possible. This is always difficult in the tropics, however the higher the organic matter the more moisture is retained in the soil in general, and it is a logarithmic increase, so a soil with 4% organic matter has substantially more than twice the water holding capacity of a 2% organic matter soil. To maintain organic matter levels farmers should be encouraged to use green manures and return all crop waste to the soil. Farmers should be discouraged from crop waste burning, educated about the importance of returning the organic matter, and perhaps if the burning problem persists fined ( as many countries do ) if they continue to fire their fields. It is a win win situation for the soil ( and therefore the farmer ) and the health of the population living near these areas of substantial burn-off.

If a programme of small scale farm dam building in appropriate places was encouraged and perhaps part funded by the government, there would be some real advantage to many farmers. They would control their own water source and have water to grow some crops during the drier times of the year, they could also raise some fish as a protein source and possibly cash income. This is what we have done on our rice land, which is terraced down a gentle hillside to a valley bottom. There is always an underground flow in the valley even if the surface stream dries up, which it often does during dry periods. It was a relatively simple and cheap exercise, I think about 25,000 baht for each 20 x 20 pond 4 m deep. We now have water to irrigate through other crops on land that previously only grew one crop of rice a year. Ditto the water tables in many places are close to the surface, and over the course of a year are topped up during the rainy season, so if wells are put down, and done so sensibly so that water tables are maintained then the area can be irrigated during drier spells.

There is little alternative to rice for much of the land in the wet season, since few crops plants are adapted like rice is to grow whilst under water. Our rice farm had nearly 200mm of rain a week or so ago spread over three nights. This led to all the rice fields being under at least 10cm of water for a week, and several of the lower lying fields still are. One could count on one hand the number of alternate crops which could grow well in these circumstances.

It seems to me that it does little good to tell a farmer not to grow something, especially when historically that is the only crop they have grown. If their individual economic circumstances, skill set and farm equipment are set around 2-3 crops of rice a year, of course they will try to maintain that. Not many of us could survive a reduction in income to a third or half of what we are used to, nor can they, but it is what they are being asked to do. It is outrageous I feel to suggest ( as one government official was quoted ) that farmers seek alternate employment, something that is woefully lacking in many rural areas here, and the farmers have little inclination for anyway.

During the dry season there are quite a number of alternate crops which will do well in different areas around the country, and certainly most need a lot less water than rice does. However how does one go about assessing these alternatives and then implementing their introduction and culture, and then marketing them. Most Thai farmers in my experience, whilst being decent, hard working folk are pretty poorly educated, and so lack the skills required to assess and then grow well these alternate crops. This assessment has to be carried out by governmental and university bodies in the main, and critically then good outreach from these researchers and government scientists to the farmers. This is where I believe Thailand could improve substantially, there seems to be almost no outreach to farmers on these matters or many others. I know there are some fantastic model farms set up by the King, but the farmers need to be encouraged to visit them, as many in our area have never been to visit them. Probably there needs to be more of a coming into the village approach at least initially for the outreach work.

Don't hold your breath...

[joeyg]

If you believe in Buddhist Philosophy, the droughts are caused by cumulative reaction of bad karma from sinful activity around the planet. Especially the the wholesale slaughter of innocent people and animals.

Don't "shoot the messenger."

[kingalfred]

Stop the stupid wasting of water next April

[ratcatcher]

The fact remains that even in a drier year such as this, Thailand has rainfall which many farmers in truly arid regions for example parts of Australia, Southern Africa or the band of states from California through to Texas amongst others would give anything to have. Large parts of Thailand do however have this prolonged dry spell we are now entering. So the problem is not one of the lack of total annual rainfall but one of storage of that rain for the drier part of the year, and coping with variation from the mean average rainfall.

There are a number of areas which I think improve the overall situation here. There has to be real attention paid to maintaining forest cover in the watersheds, good forest cover helps retain moisture when it falls in the soils from where it slowly seeps into the valleys and maintains river flows during the drier times of the year and in drier years. Thailand has good laws to prevent deforestation, they just need to be effectively and consistently enforced. Perhaps more could also be done to encourage re-afforestation of these critical catchment areas.

Another area which could be improved is to make sure that soil organic matter is maintained as high as possible. This is always difficult in the tropics, however the higher the organic matter the more moisture is retained in the soil in general, and it is a logarithmic increase, so a soil with 4% organic matter has substantially more than twice the water holding capacity of a 2% organic matter soil. To maintain organic matter levels farmers should be encouraged to use green manures and return all crop waste to the soil. Farmers should be discouraged from crop waste burning, educated about the importance of returning the organic matter, and perhaps if the burning problem persists fined ( as many countries do ) if they continue to fire their fields. It is a win win situation for the soil ( and therefore the farmer ) and the health of the population living near these areas of substantial burn-off.

If a programme of small scale farm dam building in appropriate places was encouraged and perhaps part funded by the government, there would be some real advantage to many farmers. They would control their own water source and have water to grow some crops during the drier times of the year, they could also raise some fish as a protein source and possibly cash income. This is what we have done on our rice land, which is terraced down a gentle hillside to a valley bottom. There is always an underground flow in the valley even if the surface stream dries up, which it often does during dry periods. It was a relatively simple and cheap exercise, I think about 25,000 baht for each 20 x 20 pond 4 m deep. We now have water to irrigate through other crops on land that previously only grew one crop of rice a year. Ditto the water tables in many places are close to the surface, and over the course of a year are topped up during the rainy season, so if wells are put down, and done so sensibly so that water tables are maintained then the area can be irrigated during drier spells.

There is little alternative to rice for much of the land in the wet season, since few crops plants are adapted like rice is to grow whilst under water. Our rice farm had nearly 200mm of rain a week or so ago spread over three nights. This led to all the rice fields being under at least 10cm of water for a week, and several of the lower lying fields still are. One could count on one hand the number of alternate crops which could grow well in these circumstances.

It seems to me that it does little good to tell a farmer not to grow something, especially when historically that is the only crop they have grown. If their individual economic circumstances, skill set and farm equipment are set around 2-3 crops of rice a year, of course they will try to maintain that. Not many of us could survive a reduction in income to a third or half of what we are used to, nor can they, but it is what they are being asked to do. It is outrageous I feel to suggest ( as one government official was quoted ) that farmers seek alternate employment, something that is woefully lacking in many rural areas here, and the farmers have little inclination for anyway.

During the dry season there are quite a number of alternate crops which will do well in different areas around the country, and certainly most need a lot less water than rice does. However how does one go about assessing these alternatives and then implementing their introduction and culture, and then marketing them. Most Thai farmers in my experience, whilst being decent, hard working folk are pretty poorly educated, and so lack the skills required to assess and then grow well these alternate crops. This assessment has to be carried out by governmental and university bodies in the main, and critically then good outreach from these researchers and government scientists to the farmers. This is where I believe Thailand could improve substantially, there seems to be almost no outreach to farmers on these matters or many others. I know there are some fantastic model farms set up by the King, but the farmers need to be encouraged to visit them, as many in our area have never been to visit them. Probably there needs to be more of a coming into the village approach at least initially for the outreach work.

Don't hold your breath...

A rather pathetic comment to make about a positive and very well thought out post.