A new machine stands quietly in a corner of a small rice mill north of Amnat Charoen town. Its operation will commence at the end of this year, marking an important step for local farmers to boost their rice production.
"Amnat Charoen is changing the world," an ambitious voice echoed inside the plant, which was turned into a gathering place for a thousand local farmers on a hot afternoon in September.
They are members of the Network of Community Enterprise on Organic Farming Amnat Charoen, a group of local farmers and civil society who cooperate to promote sustainable farming and enhance farmers' negotiating power in the market.
Their achievement is manifest in the plant and new rice mill machine that cost around 5 million baht, mainly paid for by the Amnat Charoen provincial administration after the network's success in negotiation for funding.
The plant will take up paddy from network members. Their products will come with quality guarantees and get help with marketing.
Priority is given to organic agricultural products, particularly high-quality jasmine rice that has raised the fame of Amnat Charoen, a small province which depends on agriculture, in both domestic and international markets.
"Rice farmers can earn only a bit of money. They sell rice to agribusiness operators at a very low price. Sometimes they even have to plead with rice mill owners to buy their rice," says Vanich Butree, a supporter of the farmers' network.
"When they form a network like this, they can determine prices. They can determine their future."
When local farmers talk about "changing the world", it means supplying premium organic produce to the market. In return, they receive a reasonable income that lifts up their livelihood.
Other groups of farmers are going in the same direction -- producing organic rice and holding small shares in the domestic high-end market, supplying hotel kitchens or exporting to European countries.
They were able to convince the provincial administration to declare Amnat Charoen as a province of Dhamma Kaset -- meaning responsible and ethical agriculture that is fair to both producers and consumers.
This concept of organic farming appears in the People's Charter of Amnat Charoen, a bottom-up local agreement that determines social and economic aspects of the province.
However, on a macro scale, national economic data have yet to recognise organic agriculture products because of its minor share. Organic farms cannot provide mass production like monoculture, usually associated with the pervasive use of chemicals, fertiliser and land clearance. Successive governments have promoted large-scale agriculture because it plays a major role in generating national income, with the agriculture sector accounting for 9% of GDP in 2015, according to the Office of the National Economics and Social Development Board.
This often involves agribusiness conglomerates and controversy over farmers' chronic poverty and debt cycle, caused by high production costs and unstable prices.
The self-determination movement of local farmers in Amnat Charoen is challenging the perspective of the central government and the entire agriculture sector, whose direction is determined by top-down policies.
Promoting large-scale farming is on the agenda of the current military regime too, leading to conflict and public scepticism about whether it can save farmers in the long run.
SWEET INCENTIVES
At first, organic rice farmer Isara Keaodee didn't know who came to buy paddy fields in his community in Amnat Charoen's Nam Plik subdistrict.
It started with a few plots, then more.
The purchaser offered enticing prices for each plot. Farmers mired in debt could hardly resist such offers that delivered quick cash. Some sold their land without knowing the consequences.
It later became clear that each small tract pieced together in a large land plot, where a new sugar cane mill and a 61-megawatt biomass power plant will be soon built.
The mill, with a total daily processing capacity of 20,000 tonnes of sugar cane, will be run by Kalasin Mitr Sugar Company Limited, owned by Thailand's and Asia's biggest sugar and bioenergy producer Mitr Phol Group. The biomass plant will be fed by bagasse.
The advent of the sugar industry has raised concerns among organic rice farmers. Most of their fears concern herbicides and chemical fertiliser used in sugar cane plantations. Water seizure by cane monoculture is another major worry.
"We have been trying to promote organic farming for fragrant rice in both domestic and international markets. How can consumers trust our product if a factory is located in our fields?" says Mr Isara.
The mill is one of 22 new sugar cane mills approved by the Ministry of Industry (MoI) in 2015 as part of the central government's policy to promote the sugar and ethanol industries.
Most of the proposed mills will be in the Northeast. The MoI's Office of the Cane and Sugar Board revealed last year that the government expected to expand sugar cane plantations from 10.53 million rai in 2015 to 16 million rai by 2026.
This will increase annual sugar cane production from 105.96 million to 180 million tonnes, doubling the production of sugar, ethanol and electricity produced from sugar cane biomass and top up the industries' annual revenue from 200 billion to 500 billion baht.
Half of Thailand's annual sugar is for the export market, raising controversy over the environmental impact on local communities.
Meanwhile, the government also implemented a controversial grand-scale Pracha Rat (People's State) strategy in the agriculture sector.
The project seeks to bring about collaboration between the state and the private sector in improving income for local people. But it has been criticised for opening channels for agribusiness conglomerates to expand their benefits and influence.
In July, a group of reporters were invited to Amnat Charoen to inspect the Pracha Rat project promoting sugar cane among local farmers.
It was apparent that Kalasin Mitr Sugar Company had joined the project and taken the lead in supporting farmers with technology and buying sugar cane from them.
Company representative Paitoon Praphatharo told reporters the sugar industry will increase local farmers' income and improve the overall economy of Amnat Charoen, which ranked 75 out of 76 in terms of gross provincial product in 2015.
The last three years have painted a bleak future for rice farmers, lumbered with high production costs, a drop in the rice price and hit by the 2016 drought. Most farming households are heavily in debt.
So when the company began to promote sugar cane, providing know-how and input factors, and promised future availability of the market, many farmers were persuaded to shift from rice to sugar cane -- and they await sweet prospects.
Inspection tours of Mitr Phol's sugar mills were arranged for local farmers.
After the tours, they wrote a letter praising the sugar industry to the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy (Onep), which is in charge of the environmental impact assessments for the mill and biomass plant.
They stated that the mill will create jobs, reduce social problems and improve local farmers' income.
"[We] saw effective measures to manage the environment and keep the community happy," stated the letter written by Jitraphon Promthar, deputy chairman of Nam Plik Municipality's elderly club.
"We want to have a sugar cane mill and a biomass plant of Mitr Phol Group in Amnat Charoen as soon as possible."
ORGANIC ALTERNATIVE
Funded by money from their own pockets, a group of organic farmers toured communities around sugar cane mills in the Northeast to get more information.
"I've seen many farmers suffer when they produce only to serve factories. They produce fast. They get support. But they are in great debt from purchasing chemicals and fertilisers to boost growth to catch up with the factories' demand," says Mr Isara.
"They don't actually hold market shares. They have very low negotiation power."
Two public hearings on a sugar cane mill and a biomass power plant were held at Nam Plik. Protesters claimed that the hearings did not provide complete information about the pros and cons of the project.
When Spectrum requested an interview with Mitr Phol, we were told by its public relations department that the executive who can comment was abroad.
However, the public relations department informed reporters a few months ago that the hearings were transparent and open to every stakeholder living within a 5-kilometre radius of the mill.
Promoted by the government, sugar cane, cassava and rubber plantations have sprouted in Amnat Charoen and all over the Northeast -- a region which originally concentrated on rice.
The rice-planting area has remained stable in Amnat Charoen, with jasmine rice currently accounting for over 888,000 out off 943,000 rai of the overall rice-planting area.
Meanwhile, the province's sugar cane-planting area has increased dramatically in recent years -- from 3,230 rai in 2008 to 51,446 in 2016, according to figures from the Office of Agricultural Economics. This follows the allocation of sugar cane mills in nearby provinces.
Some organic farmers have seen the expansion of the sugar industry as a threat to the People's Charter of Amnat Charoen, which prioritises organic farming.
As the sugar industry looms in Nam Plik, organic farmer recently set up a federation to maintain their farming ideology.
"We don't have a policy to make the whole agricultural sector of the province organic, even though the civil society group wants to," says Amnat Charoen governor Sirirat Chumuppakan.
"From the perspective of a government official, we must consider the overall economy. We promote all agricultural approaches that provide alternatives to farmers to improve their livelihood. We can't select just one way of farming."
Organic or non-organic is not really the issue, he says. Sugar cane is among the choices. He added that it's not always easy to find markets for organic farm products.
The local agriculture office recently distributed five million eucalyptus trees among rice farmers so that they can earn extra income from selling wood.
The water-hungry eucalyptus, which is a non-native species, has spread around the country under government promotion. According to an Onep report, the new biomass power plant in Nam Plik will use eucalyptus as supplement fuel along with bagasse.
"At the beginning, people will say organic farming is not realistic," says Sirisak Tongkeaw, an organic farmer in Amnat Charoen's Senangkhanikhom district.
Organic farming requires patience and is labour-intensive, such as removing insects by hand instead of spraying herbicides. But he believes that quality and environmentally friendly products will eventually raise farmers' livelihoods.
Amid the problems of unstable prices and climate change, many rice farmers are lured by the possibility of a higher income and quick cash from a single crop.
"To prevent people from embracing one-crop farming like sugar cane is not easy because farmers may be heavily in debt so they need to source ways out. What they want is a steady income," says Mr Sirisak.
"By the end of the year, will their life get better? Will they have more savings? Will they still be in debt? If the answers are no, they may suffer the same no matter which plant they grow."
The Network of Community Enterprise on Organic Farming Amnat Charoen, of which Mr Sirisak is a member, recorded 68,880 rai of organic farms this year -- far higher than local administration's tally of 10,000 rai.
Organic farms are expected to expand to 100,000 rai by 2018.
When the new rice mill machine roars into action at the end of the year, perhaps there will be a gradual expansion of organic farms and more faith in organic farming.
Perhaps it will gain further recognition despite being eclipsed by the fast growth of single crops.
the natural way: A farmer and her child take a morning tour around an organic paddy field in Amnat Charoen's Senangkhanikhom district. PHOTOS: PARITTA WANGKIAT
not in my backyard: Organic farmer Isara Keaodee has joined protests against the new sugar mill and biomass power in Amnat Charoen.
ready to roll: New milling equipment stands in the corner of a rice mill as the Network of Community Enterprise on Organic Farming Amnat Charoen holds a meeting.
trundling along: A truck loaded with freshly harvested sugar cane heads for the mill. Farmers in Amnat Charoen fear that a new sugar cane mill will have an adverse impact on their community. PHOTO: Thanarak Khunton
the unhealthy choice: Demand for sugar has increased domestically and globally. Thai consumer groups claim that drinks on the local market contain too much sugar, leading to health problems. photo: Patipat Janthong
toiling in the field: Sirisak Tongkeaw, an organic rice farmer in Amnat Charoen's Senangkhanikhom district, feeds his buffalo. photos: PARITTA WANGKIAT