From salt to solar
Salt farmers, hit by low prices and other problems, now see their land as potential sites for the lucrative solar energy business, but opposition is rising from conservationists.
Salt farmers, hit by low prices and other problems, now see their land as potential sites for the lucrative solar energy business, but opposition is rising from conservationists.
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This is an excerpt from a much longer story in the lifestyle section. You can read it in full here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/lifestyle/social-and-lifestyle/1085568/from-salt-to-solar
From salt to solar
Anchalee Kongrut
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 overproduction of sea salt due to drought has led to a big price fall. Photo: SEKSAN ROJANAMETHAKUL
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.
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.
Uncle Wai Rodtayoy at his salt farm in tambon Koek Kharm, Samut Sakhon province. Photo: SOMCHAI POOMLARD
Yet farmers still love the profession and want to protect their farmland.
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).
Solar energy panels in Samut Sakhon province. Photo: Somchai Poomlard SOMCHAI POOMLARD
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.
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