Farmers and water scarcity in Thailand

Sarah writes*

I have been living in Thailand for two months now. While here, I have had the opportunity to visit farms, agricultural learning centers, and farmer’s council meetings. During these experiences, I have been able to collect information on the concerns and opinions farmers have about water scarcity.

In order to grasp their frustrations and worries, I first needed to develop an understanding of the water situation in Thailand. Who manages the water? What policies are in place? What are the main industries that use water? How does the change in climate affect farmers’ crops, the price of water, and their irrigation systems? It will be difficult to answer all of these questions within one blog post, however, they are important to consider in order to understand the reasoning behind the concern of many farmers.

After the economic boom, water sources became heavily exploited from industries such as textile manufacturing and agricultural processing leaving less water for farmers and residents. The government of Thailand established a national water resources regulator in response, however, this system turned out to have its flaws. One is the fact that local concerns are not represented and there is a gap in communication that leads the water to be poorly managed and exploited.

In this design, there is a lack of government planning and skills available for the farmers regarding solutions and projects development for the water scarcity issue. Water tanks are widespread, as there are common in monsoon climates. However, water collection facilities are missing and no plan seems to be implemented. The region of Pak Chong takes its water from the Lamtakong Dam, but the farmers there have no collective or private capability to store the rainwater except in natural ponds, leaving many farmers without enough water.

Farmers try to exploit their water availability and consequently they overexploiting their land’s water supply, thus further impoverishing soils from their nutrients and increasing the need for fertilizers and other chemicals. Lack of sufficient water thus generates a vicious cycle of need and scarcity which dramatically affects the environment. Lack of water leads to overexploitation of ground reserves, decreasing soil fertility, and decreases the number of plants that can be grown, thus leading to the need to use fertilizers to make up for the fertility losses.

Additionally, the change in climate patterns of Le Nino and La Nina due to climate change has caused Thailand to see more flooding and droughts than usual. Droughts have been so extreme that two water sources dried up in the Nakhon Ratchasima region.  These droughts have led to a decrease in viable irrigation water for farmers, poorer quality crop production, and overall, fewer yields. This decrease in income has had negative effects on the livelihoods of many farmers in the region.

Many farmers turn to a mono-crop system in order to maximize their produce and sell to big export companies that are looking for large quantities, which is mostly rice and sugarcane. Agricultural specialists have advised farmers to establish multi-crop or agroforestry systems whose crop diversity allows more more efficient water use.  However, organic systems make up less than 5% of Thailand’s agricultural industry.

The main takeaways from my discussions with farmers are that there needs to be a better management system that is capable of allocating resources more effectively, which is conducted on a local scale. This management needs to be based on knowledge sharing on effective water storage, filtration, and collection that is appropriate for the region and the people.

Bottom Line: Local management and clear, effective knowledge sharing is key to beginning the process of solving the water scarcity challenge in Thailand.


* Please help my Water Scarcity students by commenting on unclear analysis, alternative perspectives, better data sources, or maybe just saying something nice 🙂

Author: David Zetland

I'm a political-economist from California who now lives in Amsterdam.

3 thoughts on “Farmers and water scarcity in Thailand”

  1. hey sarah! I thoroughly enjoyed your article, I think it is super interesting that you are currently in Thailand and are taking advantage of that to go talk to the farmers directly. Also, I appreciated the fact that you are focusing on farmers’ use of water for their crops and how climate change and water management affects them, as I think that most of us are focusing on domestic use of water. Great blog post!

  2. Hey Sarah,

    Cool post and awesome that you can directly speak to farmers about their experiences with how water is managed in the area. I have two questions: what is the filtration set up like for farmers who store rain water in natural ponds, and how do you think that less water intensive agricultural methods can be adopted by farmers, given that they are likely more expensive to employ?

    I look forward to hearing more about how farmers are dealing with water scarcity in the Pak Chong region!

  3. Hey Sarah!

    I’m a college student researching water usage for farmers in Thailand I would love to ask you some questions about your experience. For instance, how do small holder farmers currently get water for their farms (eg. do they have access to shallow ground water?).

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