Many times I'll read some random article and get so angry about the prejudices against foreigners here that I blame all of Thailand and everyone in it. This woman's stories reminds me that Thai's like that are in the minority.
Keep an eye out for her articles in the Bangkok post, as well as on her blog there. Pete
Stop hunting for 'foreign' scapegoats
Writer: Sanitsuda Ekacai
Published: 13/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
It is one thing to nurse concern for small-scale farmers. It is another thing, however, to make foreigners the scapegoats. For the so-called backbone of the country, the lack of farmland indeed poses a serious problem to Thai farmers, who are also struggling with indebtedness from the high cost of farm investment amid chronically low prices, while their once fertile soil is rapidly dying due to intensive chemical farming. Should we focus on the root of their problems instead of resorting to xenophobia?
The recent spate of news on proxy ownership of rice farmland by rich foreign investors has stirred much public anxiety and nationalist fervour, although much of the news has been based on the news sources' concerns, rather than on concrete evidence. According to these news reports, the foreigners - mainly those from oil-rich Arab countries - are buying up rice paddies in the countryside and hiring the locals to till the land in order to ensure sufficient rice supply for their countries, and to benefit financially from the various rice support schemes offered by the government.
While this story is going nowhere, reportedly due to the farmers' fear to talk, the latest news angle focuses on the foreign husbands of Thai women who, through their wives, are buying up farmland in scenic areas in order to build resorts.
Yes, we should be concerned about the farmers' rapid loss of land. But aren't we pointing the finger in the wrong direction?
When the government launched the Green Revolution 40 years ago with an aim to make Thailand the world's biggest rice exporter, every farmer dreamed that the high-yield rice varieties and chemical rice farming would make them prosperous for good.No one knew that they would soon suffer from frequent pestilence as a result of mono-culture farming and a losing business. How could they survive when fluctuating rice prices in the world market just could not keep up with the skyrocketing prices of farm chemicals?
While the farmers wilt, intensive chemical farming destroys soil fertility, contaminates the waterways, causes various illnesses from chemical residue in the food chain, or simply maims and kills farmers from prolonged over-exposure to hazardous chemicals.
And now when the farmers feel they know better and are trying to switch to organic farming and herbal pesticides, guess who are their main opponents? Who else but the farm chemical giants - and our very own agricultural authorities.
Remember their efforts to list such medicinal herbs that are widely used for herbal pesticides as "hazardous" and thus subject to tight control? Guess why.
Amid the losing business of rice farming, many farmers decided to sell their land to speculators under rising demand from the tourism industry and the urban middle class' need for holiday homes. For those who wanted to keep the land, many experimented with contract farming with big business, only to find themselves in the same trap of chemical farming and empty promises.
Out of familial gratitude, many daughters of poor farmers entered the sex trade to support their families. Many are severely exploited. Many have died from work-related sicknesses. But some, too, found love and security through marrying foreigners. They set up families and started doing business, as all couples do. We should be happy for them, shouldn't we? Why should we harass them with this proxy land ownership fervour?
Is it because it is much easier to hassle them than take to task the big investors, Thai and foreign, who are paying the land officials big time to get prime resort locations illegally?
Or is it because they prefer to turn a blind eye to the inequitable land ownership system, knowing that the politically powerful landlords are here to stay, regardless of their political colours?
Have some guts. Deal with destructive farming. Deal with big landlords. Deal with corrupt officials.
If the government cannot address the real cause of landlessness, leave those women who now have a life with their foreign spouses alone.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor (Outlook), Bangkok Post.
Email: sanitsudae@bangkokpost.co.th
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Monday, August 10, 2009
Living with a dying sea
Posted by Sanitsuda Ekachai , Reader : 1208 , 04:13:00
Now in her 80s, a granny at Ban Pod, a small fishing village in Surat Thani, still has vivid memories of a happy childhood. That should make her glad. Instead, it makes her sad.
Not for herself, though. But for her children and grandchildren, who are helplessly watching their village disappearing and their once abundant sea dying right before their eyes.
Her small house was rattling in the gust of strong wind as we sat and chatted. Little wonder, since it sits right next to the sea. There is no long strip of beach between the village and the sea, like there used to be. Obviously, the concrete barriers to prevent coastal erosion have failed miserably.
"This is the third time I've moved the house inland," says the granny, sighing. "Before long, we will have no land to move to."
The villagers would have felt relieved, however, if coastal erosion had been their only problem. They could have moved further inland across the street and returned to fish in their old sea.
But the sea is no longer their old sea.
Across the street from their village are two mega prawn farms that stretch as far as the eye can see. The bottom of each pond is covered with a huge sheet of plastic. And when it is cleaning time, the mud, the chemicals and all, are cleansed by strong water sprays and flushed right into the canal which flows into the sea at Ban Pod.
After a decade, the sea has become putrid.
"If you have a wound, it won't heal easily and the infection will be very bad," says one villager.
The fish, crabs and many kinds of shellfish, once abundant and taken for granted, have all but disappeared.
Feeling cornered, with the dying sea on one side and toxic waste from prawn farms on the other, the villagers keep moving out.
The number of Ban Pod's residents has plunged from some 400 households to about only 170.
"Can you imagine how it used to be?" the granny reminisced. "When I was young, I just walked in the shallow sea, felt something move beneath my feet, and just picked it up. My basket would be full with crabs and clams in no time at all."
Other villagers heave a long sigh.
Even people in their 40s and 50s can still remember when a family in Ban Pod could easily send their children to university from fishing alone.
Ban Pod used to be famous for healthy, delicious seashells because the brackish water from the canal had turned the sea in front of the village into a perfect breeding ground for crabs, clams, cockles and all kinds of seashell.
That is history now.
"Before, our muddy beach was just about a few inches thick. Underneath, it was full of clams of all kinds," recalls one villager.
With the accumulation of toxic mud waste over the years, the new mud seafloor has become more than 1.5-metres thick, completely covering the clams' old breeding ground.
"What it is now is is a clam graveyard," another villager comments.
But why submit to such abuse? Can anything be done to stop this madness?
Some people in other villages had tried to fight back, say the villagers, but they were no longer breathing.
"That's why we asked you not to reveal our names. It's just too dangerous."
The owner of one prawn farm is an influential politician. The other is a giant agro business with wide connections.
"And who are we?" asks one villager.
But if the authorities saw what was happening with their own eyes, they'd simply have to act, wouldn't they?
I realised this was a silly question when our car drove past the Ban Pod canal. Anchored there is a government patrol boat, sitting empty and ineffectual, while the machine in the prawn farm is in full swing, releasing stinky, foamy waste water into the already dying canal.
