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| AsiaViews, Edition: 46/VI/February2010 |
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| Dealing with Water Shortage |
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| A Thai farmer works his rice paddy near Ta Pha Mok, Thailand. Photo: AP PHOTO/DAVID LONGSTREATH |
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It is understandable why farmers continue to ignore repeated warnings from the Irrigation Department not to plant second or third rice crops this year because the department is concerned there will not be enough water to irrigate all the rice fields.
The main driving force is the attractive prices. The 5% white rice, for instance, is priced at about 16,000 baht per ton. Such high prices are irresistible to the farmers, most of whom have no other alternatives to earn additional income besides rice farming - a traditional practice they have been familiar with since their childhood.
According to the Irrigation Department, about 12 million rai of farmland, mostly in the Central Plains, have been planted with the second crop, but only nine million rai will receive water supplied through a network of irrigation canals. This means the second rice crop in the remaining three million rai will very likely be left to wither and die under the scorching summer sun. Unless, of course, Mother Nature has sympathy for these defiant farmers and unleashes an unseasonal torrent of rainfall, which would be wishful thinking at best.
Seasonal rains will come late this year as a result of the El Nino weather phenomenon, says the Irrigation Department.
Despite this grim prospect and the department's warnings, many farmers are willing to take the risk anyway. For them, planting a second crop is better than leaving their farmland fallow and losing out on the opportunity to make some extra income which would enable them to survive through the summer without having to flock to the cities in search of menial jobs. As such, it is hard to blame these farmers.
The truth is, the farmers are not supposed to be the only group to have to sacrifice while the rest of us continue to enjoy the privilege of consuming water seemingly without any restrictions or any limits imposed by the Irrigation Department. This unequal treatment must change. All sectors of society, be it agriculture, tourism, industry or households even, must have equal access to the use of water for the sake of fairness. So if farmers are being told not to plant their second crops in order to save water, the other groups of people, too, must be warned to consume water sparingly.
As has always been the case with drought, the usual conventional methods employed by various government agencies to cope with the problem include artificial rain-making, water distribution via water trucks and warnings to farmers to refrain from second crop farming. These short-term contingency measures work to a certain extent but they are hardly adequate or effective enough to cope with the future situation, in light of the harsh fact that natural sources of fresh and clean water are shrinking and increasingly threatened by pollution, whereas the demand for water is ever increasing as a result of the growing population as well as business and industrial activities.
We may scrape through the drought this year without much damage to the farming sector. But we may not be as lucky in the future and cannot afford to place our fate in the hands of Mother Nature alone. The twin disasters of drought and flood which have taken turns in wreaking havoc on different parts of the country almost on an annual basis, clearly speaks volumes for the dire need for a nationwide water grid and the improvement of our water infrastructure.
But first and foremost, people must be made aware that water, aside from being crucial for life, is a most precious commodity which must not be used wastefully, or there will not be enough water for us all in the future. |
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| Bangkok Post, Editorial, Vol.III No.10 February - March 2010 |
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