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Thai Farmers Pin Hopes on Microbes to End Annual Burning Crisis
Microbial products are gaining ground as farmers report softer soil, higher yields and lower fertilizer bills, while supplies and costs limit wider use.
- Farmers in Chiang Rai are adopting microbial solutions to break down rice straw, seeking alternatives to annual burning that pushes Thailand's air quality to dangerous levels.
- For years, Thai rice farmers burned crop residue to clear fields, but a recent government crackdown has put traditional practices on a collision course with national environmental goals.
- Developed by professor Wichien Yongmanitchai using Bacillus bacteria, the product Soil Digest decomposes stubble in five to seven days, with early trials showing yield increases of up to 20 percent.
- Officials struggle to scale up government supply, while private market alternatives cost farmers like Samart Atthong 1,200 baht , though adopters like Siriporn report swift decomposition of stubble.
- Agricultural policy expert Nipon Poapongsakorn of the Thailand Development Research Institute warns that "there is no one-size-fits-all solution," urging conditional subsidies and machinery access to reach 20 million farmers.
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30 Articles
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Thai farmers pin hopes on microbes to end annual burning crisis
Rice farmers Siriporn and Amnat Taidee used to burn their paddy fields between plantings -- a common method of clearing crop residue partly blamed for
Chiang Rai Farmers Use Tiny Microbes To Solve Field Burning
CHIANG RAI — For decades, the skyline across Thailand’s central plains has been defined by a thick, grey haze during the harvest season. As farmers cleared their fields for the next crop, the easiest way was also the most damaging: setting fire to the leftover rice stubble. But a quiet revolution is happening underfoot. Instead […] The post Chiang Rai Farmers Use Tiny Microbes to Solve Field Burning first appeared on Chiang Rai Times.
'Game-changer': Thai farmers pin hopes on microbes to end annual burning crisis
In the face of the seasonal smog that regularly stifles the country, a biological alternative to the burning of rice stubble emerges, promising to improve both the quality of the soil and that of the atmosphere. The ancestral practice of eco-buing, long preferred by rice growers to quickly eliminate crop residues, is today in the collimator of [...] Read more Bacteria to purify the air of Thai rice fields appeared first on Le Singulier.
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