Farmers in many provinces say they are being driven off their land by the drought and are being forced to sell their holdings at cheap prices as they cannot grow crops and have no money to service their debts.
Surveys by reporters found desperate farmers were losing their land in provinces like Chai Nat in the Central Plains and Nakhon Ratchasima in the Northeast. With no water, they cannot grow crops and earn enough money pay their debts.
Cheap land is being put up for sale in Muang Chai Nat, Sankhaburi and Sapphaya districts of Chai Nat.
One local farmer said on Wednesday that the money he would get from the sale of his land would earn him enough to repay a loan from a financial institution to plant a previous crop.
The drought and the low price for rice had not earned him enough income. Any money left over from the sale of his land would be invested in another livelihood that was not drought-sensitive, he said, asking that his name not be revealed.
Despite government warnings about off-season cultivation, some farmers began to grow a new crop of rice on about 2,000 rai in Sankhaburi district late last month. But the crop is now dying as local irrigation canals dry up.
Sompong Senajorhor, a 65-year-old farmer in Ban Nokham village of Non Sung district in Nakhon Ratchasima, said on Wednesday that like many others in the district he did not want to sell the land he had inherited from his ancestors, but he had no choice.
He had suffered badly from drought in the past few years and had to repay debts with the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives and loan sharks. He was hoping he might have some money left to afford a new land plot with more resources elsewhere.
Normal land prices in Non Sung are about 100,000 baht per rai, but many rice farmers were selling their paddies at 60,000-70,000 baht per rai and land brokers from Nakhon Ratchasima and other provinces were arriving to buy the property. Off-season rice in about 20,000 rai of paddies in Non Sung was dying.
