News Headline
How Thai rice farmers are shunning 'big agribusiness' and fighting climate change
Source
Economic Times (India)
Publication Date
2019-12-12
Battling drought, debt and ailments blamed on pesticides, rice farmers in northern Thailand have turned to eco-friendly growing methods despite powerful agribusiness interests in a country that is one of the top exporters of the grain in the world. Walking through a sea of green waist-high stalks, a farmer said his fields were "exhausted" by chemicals, his family regularly felt ill, and his profits were too low to make ends meet. But that changed when he joined a pilot agricultural project for the SRI method, which aims to boost yields while shunning pesticides and using less water.