Thailand, the world’s largest exporter of rubber is feeling the brunt of the US-China trade conflict. Despite a new price guarantee scheme, rubber farmers in the Northeast are set to be hit the hardest.
The combined challenges of monocropping and pesticide use have prompted beekeepers, academics, and environmentalists to speak out in the name of bees, biodiversity, and the businesses that use honey.
Modern farming is destroying traditional sources of nectar. Increasingly, beekeepers are becoming mobile, transporting their bees throughout Isaan and even to other regions in search of nectar.
Air pollution is nothing new in the Northeast, but it is getting more severe. The region has the largest sugarcane cultivation areas and the burning of sugarcane creates toxic dust particles. Yet, Isaan only has very few air quality monitoring stations.
The government wants Thailand to become the bio hub of ASEAN by 2027, and Isaan will play a role with its own bio hub in Ban Phai district. But this state-sponsored development is too often pushed through without meaningful participation of local people, writes guest contributor Maenwat Kunchon na Ayutthaya.
The government’s sugarcane strategy calls for the construction of 29 new sugar mills in Isaan, each with its own biomass power plant. Locals are concerned the mills and power plants will jeopardize efforts to promote organic agriculture, take communal resources, pollute water sources, and impact long-term health and well-being of communities.
Thailand’s ten-year sugar plan glowingly envisions more than doubling sugarcane production and making the country the “bio-hub” of Southeast Asia. But in the Northeast where nearly half the country’s sugarcane is produced, growers both large and small are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Are the environmental costs of sugar production worth suffering for a substance that contributes nutrition-less empty calories to the human diet?
A group connected to the Wetland Association of Rasi Salai plans to set up an organic agriculture network and a new green market in Sisaket’s provincial capital.
