Air pollution reaches “unhealthy” levels in Thailand’s north and northeast

6 Comments

1. 

   Issan John

   Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 4:28 pm

   Most “farmers” in Thailand DO NOT “choose to burn the leaves off the plant, exposing the stalks, before harvesting the profit-making stalks, saving time and money.”

   This is the OLD way of harvesting, still practiced in Cambodia for example, but NOT as a general rule in Thailand any more.

   All you need to do to see very clear, absolutely irrefutable evidence of this is to look at the screenshot in the article and to compare the fires in Cambodia (which produces only 600,000 tonnes of sugar cane) with the fires in Thailand (which produces over 12 million tonnes of sugar cane).

   Thailand very clearly has a small fraction of the fires, but produces twenty times as much sugar cane.

   The government also pays farmers a bonus of seven baht per tonne for cane sold to the processing factories that is NOT burnt, and the factories in turn also pay more for unburnt cane (as much as 25% more).

   Farmers also have to pay the cutters more to cut burnt cane than unburnt as it is far more unpleasant to cut.

   With few exceptions, the only cane which is burnt BEFORE harvesting is cane which is due to re-planted, which happens every four years, so around a quarter of the fields. The rest of the burning, so some 75% of it, is burning the leaves AFTER the cane has been harvested.

   As the Bangkok Post correctly said: “Concentrations of PM2.5 dust have risen across 18 provinces in the North and Northeast, as farmers begin to set fire to their agricultural waste to prepare for next season’s crops, the Pollution Control Department said yesterday.”

   The farmers are burning “agricultural waste” (the cut leaves) AFTER harvesting “to prepare for next season’s crops”, NOT before.

   The screenshot in the article could hardly be clearer evidence.

   Reply
   • 

     Patrick

     Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 6:58 pm

     Weird, I saw them recently burn the sugar cane before harvest. Very fierce fire and smoke seen from kilometers away spreading steady in the North East.

     Reply
     • 

       Issan John

       Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 9:16 pm

       What part of “With few exceptions, the only cane which is burnt BEFORE harvesting is cane which is due to be re-planted, which happens every four years, so around a quarter of the fields” isn’t clear, Patrick?

       … and maybe you have some other explanation for the fact that Thailand produces twenty times as much sugar cane as Cambodia but, according to the screenshot in the article and the NASA site, clearly only has a very small fraction of the fires?

       … or maybe not …

       Reply
       • 

         Joe

         Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 7:35 pm

         With an easterly wind direction which is common at this time of the year, the smoke from Cambodia goes to Bangkok.

         Reply
2. 

   Lane Narrows

   Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 8:56 pm

   What difference does it make if the burning is before or after the harvest. The facts are Thai farmers, and residents of local mu bans for that matter, ARE burning. On average, the PM 2.5 levels in Chiang Mai are three to four times what is considered safe by the WHO. Each year the burning season gets longer and the pollution levels worse. Something needs to be done!

   Reply
   • 

     Issan John

     Saturday, January 30, 2021 at 12:32 am

     Three or four times as much difference, actually, L N, as far as the open field burning goes.

     Have a look at the screenshot in the article. Most of the burning is in Cambodia, far more than Thailand, although it produces a twentieth of the sugar cane.

     Sure, “Something needs to be done!”, but it needs to be the right thing.

     Reply