If this year's severe drought returns next dry season, Uncle Wai Rodtayoy and other salt farmers in tambon Koek Kharm of Samut Sakhon, known as the country's largest sea-salt-farming area, will see mounting debts.
The price of salt this year bottomed at 450 baht per cart while to stay afloat, farmers need at least 1,500 baht per cart. Usually, drought means low production for other agricultural products. Not for the sea salt farming. Two consecutive years of scorching drought have led to the overproduction of sea salt -- known as klua sin thao -- and brought down the price.
Unfavourable climate is just one of the problems, for Uncle Wai has something bigger to worry about: salt farming is facing the threat of extinction. As is the case in many provincial areas, young people in his district prefer to find work in offices, or sell online products -- in short anything less labour-intensive and that makes more money.
What makes him angry, Uncle Wai says, is that the government during the last few decades has not acknowledged the importance of salt farming, unlike in the past. In fact, over 70 rai of land he owns is a part of a larger plot donated to farmers by King Rama VIII. Governments now tend to champion salt-mining projects in the Northeast, despite objections from rice farmers in that region, while conservationists have raised concerns over pollution and the spread of salinity.
"For authorities, there are only rice farmers, rubber farmers and sugarcane farmers," says Uncle Wai. "Salt farmers like us are forgotten. We rarely receive subsidies."
Rare spoon-billed sandpipers arrive at the wetlands in Samut Sakhon. Photo COURTESY OF REDBULL SPIRIT AND THE BIRD CONSERVATION SOCIETY OF THAILAND
The decline of salt farming can be observed along major roads that run parallel to coastal zones such as Sukhumvit Road (towards Chon Buri) and Rama II to the southern provinces. Not long ago, a drive towards the seaside towns such as Hua Hin and Pattaya yielded a sightseeing opportunity of large salt farms dotted with windmills and rows of mini-pyramids made of sparkling white crystals.
These exotic scenes have recently been replaced with real estate-developments, factories and community malls, as Rama II has expanded into a superhighway, and peripheral towns have grown. Salt farmers have started selling their land. Those who wish to remain need to switch to other professions such as shrimp farming, a risky investment that also creates water pollution. Another popular way of making money among salt farmers is to sell soil to construction companies.
Yet farmers still love the profession and want to protect their farmland. A few years ago, a manufacturer in tambon Koek Kharm wanted to open a factory in the community, but had to roll back after fierce protests from villagers and salt farmers.
Recently, a new development project has made headway in the area of Samut Songkhram province. This time several salt farmers, including Uncle Wai, embraced it with open arms -- though it entails another kind of problem.
The project is solar energy. In a move that has begun to change the landscape of the salt farms, several solar energy companies have started leasing empty land to put up rows of solar panels to produce electricity and sell it to the state.
Uncle Wai last year decided to lease 42 of his 70 rai to a company to lay solar cell panels. The project does not require environmental-impact assessment, or EIA, because it falls under an NCPO order issued early this year exempting any renewable energy project of less than 10Mw from environmental study.
The transformation from salt farms to solar farms sounds like a graceful metamorphosis but it has caused worry among conservationists and birdwatchers, because the salt farms and coastal zones in the community were listed as wetlands of national significance over a decade ago by the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (Onrep).
A few years ago, the town-planning division of the Interior Department was about to propose the area as a conservation zone. Yet the junta government shot it down early this year to allow industrial projects to move in.
Two months ago, conservationists and birdwatchers from the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand (BCST) started a campaign against the solar project and has tried to derail the construction of a solar-cell panel on Uncle Wai's property. These opponents have petitioned the Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning and Energy Ministry. They have asked the office to intervene on the project and lodge a complaint accusing the company of skipping certain regulations in order to finish the construction of solar panels.
"We are not romantic conservationists who try to freeze time and refuse change. We do not oppose solar energy at all," said Dr Boripat Siriaroonrat, chair of BCST. "What we fight against is unsustainable development.
"The gist of the problem is not solar-versus-bird, but the lack of zoning policy, transparency and clear conservation direction."
Four hundred rai of land in this community is known as the core area where shorebirds, including endangered spoon-billed sandpipers, visit annually as they migrate from the north of China to India. Apart from salt farming, the community has conducted a birdwatching festival for 18 years. From November until March, birdwatchers have visited the wetlands and come to find food in salt farms.
In the old days, migrating shorebirds had plenty of coastline and salt farms to share. Now the largest place where those shorebirds can land is Koek Kharm and mangrove forest within the Laem Pak Bia Royal Initiative Project in Phetchaburi province.
Birdwatchers worry that the reflection from huge array of solar panels on Uncle Wai's property will drive the birds away. And there are many farmers who want to lease land for other solar farm projects.
A recent development this month is that the Energy Ministry decided the project could not be built, and if Uncle Wai really wants to go on, he has to prove that his farm does not fit the wetland category.
"I did not do anything wrong. Am I giving my land for a coal-fired power plant? This is a clean-energy project and I think our community villagers can have the choice of leasing our land to create electricity to sell to Bangkok and keeping the remaining land for farming," Uncle Wai said. Without a proper solution to provide salt farmers with opportunity, Uncle Wai suggested they will sell their land, or at least sell soil to contractors. "Birds will not find a place to live here anyway."
Respected biologist and expert on shoreline bird conservation, Assoc Prof Philip D. Round of Mahidol University's Faculty of Science, said conflicts would not have erupted if the authorities and Onrep demarcated the area as wetlands right from the start. In his opinion, coastal wetland like that in Koek Kharm is too rare and too vital for biodiversity conservation at a global level to be sacrificed for any reason.
"Instead of debating between solar panels and salt farms, what the government should do is find a way to help these salt farmers continue their profession," said Asst Prof Round.
"The government should find a way to create real sustainable development by helping salt farmers flourish. This way, ecology and shorebirds can coexist in harmony."
Below Uncle Wai Rodtayoy at his salt farm in tambon Koek Kharm, Samut Sakhon province. Photo: Somchai Poomlard
Solar energy panels in Samut Sakhon province. Photo: Somchai Poomlard
