AYUTTHAYA/CHAI NAT — Resigned to their fate, farmers ordered to delay or suspend rice planting say they will not protest or demand relief or compensation from the government for fear of being arrested.
Agriculture Minister Pitipong Phuengboon Na Ayudhaya confirmed earlier this week that the military government would not compensate central region farmers who had been asked not to grow a second crop because of a severe water shortage.
He said the government had no budget for the purpose, adding that the ban might be lifted if normal levels of rain returned by late July.
He also said that the amount of water in northern dams was not enough for farmland irrigation. As a result, farmers in the central region are under a lot of pressure.
"We don't know what to do. We're struggling already to live from hand to mouth. Yet we can't protest as we could be arrested. We're on our last legs now," said Kwanchai Mahachuenjai, vice-president of the Central Region Farmers Club.
"We dare not protest because we fear the law," he said at his farm in Ayutthaya on Saturday. "If there's anything we can still ask, it's that if the government can't give us any compensation, at the very least it should suspend our debts for three years with no interest and find us new borrowing sources so those of us with some assets can borrow more."
The Agriculture Ministry said last week that reservoirs currently held only enough water to irrigate the 3.4 million rai of paddy fields already planted in the main rice bowl of the Chao Phraya River basin.
Farmers holding another 4 million rai in 22 provinces have been asked to delay planting until normal levels of rainfall return, expected around late July. Even then, a second crop would be out of the question, authorities have said.
Water levels at the country's major dams are critically low as rain has been below average so far this season, according to Thai Rath Online.
At the Pasak Jolasid Dam in Lop Buri, water was at a historically low level of 80.76 million cubic metres, or 8.4% of its capacity on Friday.
The discharge rate has been reduced to 1.2 million cu m per day from 4 million under normal circumstances, and strictly for consumption and not farming.
At the Chao Phraya Dam in Chai Nat, the discharge rate was increased by five cubic metres per second to 75 cu m/s to push back salty water at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River. The water level above the dam was 5 centimetres lower.
If there is no rain north of the dam, the remaining water will last for 30 days, officials said.
Farmers in Chai Nat are feeling the brunt of the dry conditions, which have affected both those who have already started growing rice and those who haven't, since most owe money to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) and farm cooperatives.
Pisit Kratkrayang, 51, a farmer in Muang district, said that when the Royal Irrigation Department announced that it would bring water to his area on May 1, he started ploughing in the hope of earning enough income from the crop to repay what he owed the BAAC.
"My rice is now a month old. If the irrigation water stops coming, we'll be in deep trouble," he said.
"We're already indebted for not being able to grow the second crop. If we can't farm the main crop, we'd like the government to compensate use at the rate of 2,500 baht a rai of the actual farmed fields."
Narong Narod, 64, also in Muang district, said he too was running out of options.
"My rice fields are at the end of an irrigation canal and there have been no signs that any water will come," he said.
"The government has asked us to suspend growing rice since the 2014 main crop and I have had to borrow several tens of thousands of baht from cooperatives. Now we are being asked to suspend farming again and I don't know how I can repay my debts.
"Please compensate us and suspend our debts. Please feel sympathetic toward us. Would government officials be able to live if their salaries were suspended for a full year?" he asked rhetorically.
"Compensation and debt suspension might help but personally, I don't want it. I'd rather have water to farm my land."
A barren rice field in Chai Nat. (Photo by Chudate Seehawong)
This watergate in Ayutthaya no longer has anything to hold back.