Weenarin Lulitanonda sounds angry.
“The air that people in northern Thailand breathe shortens their lives by three or four years. It causes cancer, psychological problems, other problems. And hardly anyone is taking the case, there is so much passivity,” she told Al Jazeera.
Weenarin is a co-founder of Thailand Clean Air Network, an NGO, and a former World Bank economist.
She is trying to mobilize the Thai public and force the government to do something about what has become one of the region’s most acute environmental disasters. Every year between February and April – now simply referred to as the “fog season” – northern Thailand battles dangerous levels of smog.
Chiang Mai, the region’s cultural and tourism hub and home to about 128,000 people, ranked as the world’s most polluted city on Tuesday, ahead of hotspots like Lahore, Tehran and Beijing.
On April 6, the worst day of this year, the reading reached 223, according to Swiss air quality company IQAir, nearly 15 times more than the daily limit advised by the World Health Organization (WHO). PM2.5 is particulate matter in the smog with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less and can penetrate deep into the lungs and is associated with health problems such as acute and chronic bronchitis, as well as asthma attacks,
No complicated equipment is needed to see the problem. Toxic haze limits visibility to a few hundred yards; the blanket of smog looks like a toxic fog from the plane. The air smells like a campfire.
Thousands of people suffer from respiratory problems – just one hospital in Chiang Mai reported nearly 13,000 patients seeking treatment for respiratory problems in the first quarter of 2023, according to local media outlet Prachatai.
No longer able to ignore the problem, authorities turn to the symptoms. They spray water into the air in city centers and seed clouds from military jets, hoping for rain to wash away the pollution, with a predictable dulling effect.
A common joke in Chiang Mai is that the policy seems to be “Let’s wait for Songkran” – the Thai Lunar New Year which falls on Wednesday this year – as it largely coincides with the start of the rainy season.
Experts say that to address the real root of the problem, the government needs to confront one of its major political backers.
“The problem is closely tied to the big agribusiness, which the government is not even trying to address,” Weenarin said.
“Tycoon families at the top of the economy” — including those who run agribusiness conglomerates — “are very close to the government, Danny Marks, a professor of environmental politics and policy at Dublin City University, told Al Jazeera.” They donate to all major parties, are close to the military.”
“The main reason for the crisis is the way politics in Thailand operate,” he said.
The largest source of the toxic fumes is field combustion.
Somporn Chantara, a chemistry professor at Chiang Mai University, explained that during the haze period, half of the smog comes from the combustion of agricultural biomass. Farmers use controlled fires to clear the undergrowth and fertilize their sugar cane, maize and rice fields.
The harvest season falls during the dry season when neither wind nor rain can remove the haze.
Particles known as secondary aerosols — products of pollutant chemical reactions that usually come from still-air field fires — account for another 30 percent of the haze.
The dominance of PM2.5 particles when burned gives the Northern Thai smog its characteristic smoke smell. Between a third and a half of smog, depending on the region, comes from the same sources in neighboring countries, including Myanmar and Laos.
“The story puts the blame on the farmers or the hill tribes, or neighboring countries – politically they are the appropriate scapegoats,” Weenarin said.
However, she stressed that the cause is in Thailand, even though some burning is happening abroad.
The real problem, she argues, is contract farming. Small farmers, who dominate in Thailand, contract with large companies, which sell them seeds and fertilizers, and commit to buying the crops. This puts pressure on farmers to maximize yields. Since there is no capital to invest in modern harvesters, field burning is the easiest method to increase productivity.
Weenarin said even a second-hand harvester would cost the farmer 5 million baht ($150,000) – more than they can afford. “It’s almost indentured labor in the modern world,” she added.
Marks said the system amounts to what he called “slow violence” against marginalized people blamed for burning fields while ignoring the circumstances that prompted them to do so.
He gave an example of Charoen Pokphand and its subsidiary CP Foods, the world’s largest animal feed producer and owned by Thailand’s richest tycoon, Dhanin Chearavanont.
While CP is not the only giant agribusiness, it has greatly expanded the contract farming model in Thailand and neighboring countries. “This allows it to have a hands-off approach – CP doesn’t directly burn fields,” he said.
CP did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
In mid-March, it announced it had implemented a corn traceability system to ensure a combustion-free supply chain. It said it is using satellite imagery to map fires in crop areas and “advise farmers to stop burning crops and take advantage of the stubble”.
Burn bans, the government’s only attempt at stopping the haze, can only make matters worse.
While some farmers simply ignore the ruling expecting they are unlikely to be punished, those who comply may be more likely to burn their fields. Somporn, the CMU researcher, said that while that could reduce peak pollution levels, the haze season would start earlier instead.
This is in addition to the near total absence of agricultural air pollution standards in Thailand.
Weenarin, from the Thailand Clean Air Network, said there is some pressure from international customers for Thai crops. But most of the demand for corn and sugar comes from China and Indonesia. She thinks the Thai Clean Air Act, a citizens’ bill to be submitted to parliament, could help.
Another problem, she argues, is that many everyday Thais don’t seem to care enough to push the government to take action on air pollution.
“The public is numb to the issue and the environment was not a major issue for the student protest [since 2020]. There are no boycotts, no one goes after CP. People think there are so many issues that have not been addressed that they become disillusioned,” says Marks of Dublin City University.
Weenarin is furious that even people in the north, most affected by the seasonal smog, rarely protest. There are exceptions – on April 10, about 1,700 Chiang Mai residents filed a lawsuit against the government for negligence – but most of the actions are piecemeal and do not aim to hold the agricultural sector or the government accountable.
Even as Chiang Mai chokes, none of the major parties contesting May’s elections are campaigning on environmental issues.
“Politicians don’t care about people in the north, that’s only 10 percent of the electorate. But this should not stop us from trying something. There is too much cynicism, fatalism, powerlessness. Everyone knows exactly who is responsible for the problem, but it remains silent,” said Weenarin.