When the No-Burn Policy Becomes the Final Straw for Smallholders
From the end of last year through April of this year, Chiang Mai, a popular tourist destination in northern Thailand, has been repeatedly shrouded in dense smog. On 29 March, IQAir ranked Chiang Mai as the most polluted city in the world, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 188, 17.4 times the World Health Organization’s air quality guideline level.
A considerable proportion of the air pollutants come from sugarcane burning. In northern, northeastern, and central Thailand, December to February marks the annual sugarcane burning season.
The sugarcane in question here is sugar cane grown specifically for sugar extraction. Its leaves are numerous, long, and sharply pointed. Harvesting by hand demands great effort to cut away the sugarcane tops and leaves, which contain very little sugar. Sugar accumulates primarily in the main stalk, and the fibrous layer of the cane stalk is thick, so burning does not easily affect the sugar inside. For this reason, burning before cutting has become the choice of many cane farmers.
Caught between air quality and livelihood, cane farmers find themselves trapped in a recurring dilemma: to burn or not to burn.
According to official statistics released this year, the proportion of burnt sugarcane received across Thailand averages approximately 15% of all sugarcane processed per day. Nevertheless, some sugar mills have failed to comply, with burnt sugarcane exceeding 25% of their total intake.
Among them, the sugar mill in Udon Thani Province received the highest quantity of burnt sugarcane, at 43%, making it the province with the highest sugarcane burning rate in the country. Udon Thani Province, located in northeastern Thailand, is the nation’s largest sugarcane-growing province, with 120,000 hectares under cultivation, accounting for 10% of the province’s total area.
Under mounting pressure from nationwide air pollution, the Thai government faces growing scrutiny, with various departments scrambling separately to “deal with” pollution sources.
On 14 January this year, the Ministry of Industry ordered the sugar mill in Udon Thani Province to close on grounds of violating safety regulations — a penalty for its persistent over-receipt of burnt sugarcane.
Shutting the sugar mill, however, punishes not the mill but the cane farmers.
Cane farmers had already set fire to their fields and harvested before travelling to the mill, only to learn upon arrival that it had been shut down. Nearly 2,000 trucks were stranded, one after another, blocking the entrance to the factory. Cane farmers waited anxiously at the gate, hoping the government would relent and the mill would reopen. As the waiting stretched on, the sugarcane continued to rot.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra believes farmers should bear responsibility for air pollution. According to The Nation Thailand, in response to the severe air pollution episode in Bangkok, she stated that if farmers are found burning land to clear it, the government will suspend all subsidies from 1 June this year to 31 May next year.
Cane farmers in the region said the sugar mill in Udon Thani Province had been accepting their burnt sugarcane for many years; this was the first time the government had moved so decisively to shut a sugar mill.
II. Why the Burning Never Stops
By 2019, the Thai government introduced stricter measures, including further support for the use of agricultural machinery; the establishment of no-burn zones; a subsidy of 120 Thai baht per tonne (approximately RMB 25.68) for fresh-cut cane; and a cap of 30% on the proportion of burnt sugarcane that mills may accept, to be reduced gradually to 5% over the following two years.
Subsidies and penalties initially did work. The proportion of burnt sugarcane fell from 60% to 26% over three years. But the improvement proved short-lived; after 2021, the burning rate began to climb again. For the 2023–2024 season, the proportion of burnt sugarcane stood at 30%.
The reason is simple: the cost of fresh-cut harvesting is roughly three times that of burn harvesting. The fine for each tonne of burnt sugarcane accepted is about RMB 6, while the subsidy for fresh-cut cane is about RMB 26 per tonne — whether as a penalty or an incentive, the sums are far too small to bridge the cost gap between the two methods.
For many cane farmers, a quick calculation made the choice clear: better to pay the fine and burn.
In truth, cane farmers are well aware of the benefits of fresh-cut cane — it is easier to sell to sugar mills, it has a higher sugar content, and the air is cleaner. Burning sugarcane releases large quantities of air pollutants in a short time, including particulate matter, carcinogenic organic compounds, and trace metals. The primary health consequences of exposure to these pollutants are respiratory diseases such as asthma and lung cancer. The most immediate victims are, naturally, the cane farmers themselves and nearby communities.
But for them, livelihood matters more than health, and so the burning continues. With limited results, the government’s response has been to raise the fines further. For the 2024–2025 season, the Ministry of Industry moved early to tighten measures, such as reducing the number of collection points for burnt sugarcane and sharply increasing the fine to approximately RMB 26 per tonne, in an effort to further deter burning and support fresh-cut harvesting.
Khon Kaen Province is also a major sugarcane-growing province in northeastern Thailand, with 9.6% of its land area under sugarcane cultivation, second only to Udon Thani Province. Each harvest season, labour shortages are the number-one problem here. Chairat makes a living growing sugarcane, cassava, and rice. To balance costs and sales risks, he has developed a shrewd strategy: for the 2023–2024 season, he fresh-cut harvested 80% of his sugarcane and burn-harvested the remaining 20%.
The decision was made after weighing many factors, such as the proportion of burnt sugarcane mills would accept that year, sugar prices, and other production costs. Chairat said that fresh-cut harvesting was simply to ensure his cane would be accepted, not because fresh-cut cane commands a higher price.
“Doing it this way this year does not guarantee I will do the same next year. Costs rise every year, circumstances change, sugar prices fluctuate — all of these affect the planting plan and harvesting method for the following year,” Chairat said. “Fresh-cut sugarcane fetches a higher price, but growing costs are rising too.”
Chairat’s situation is far from exceptional. Data shows that the cost of producing sugarcane for Thai farmers hit a record in the 2022–2023 season at 1,122 Thai baht per tonne (approximately RMB 247.34). This was the result of multiple factors, including rising prices of fertiliser and pesticides, labour shortages driving up wages, and the global surge in energy costs in recent years pushing up transport and processing expenses.
Climate change is also emerging as a growing cost variable. In 2022, Chairat’s sugarcane fields suffered significant flooding, which made subsequent harvesting difficult. Waterlogged soil prevented harvesters from entering the fields, and delaying harvest risked lodging, so he had to hire manual workers. By harvest time, Chairat found that labour costs had reached an all-time high.
In 2024, drought led to poor cane growth, and Thailand’s sugar yield fell to its lowest level in 13 years. As the pressures of cultivation mount, some smallholders have entirely stopped growing sugarcane.
III. Smallholders: Bearing the Most, Gaining the Least
Some smallholders are thinking about how to survive, not how to earn more — survival has become their foremost concern.
The most viable alternative to burn harvesting at present is the use of sugarcane leaf strippers and harvesters. The Thai government has primarily been promoting mechanisation by reducing loan interest rates and supporting domestic manufacturers in producing harvesters, but the effect so far has been limited: the loans have failed to incentivise the majority of cane farmers. Put simply, if the government and sugar mills cannot provide direct financial or machinery support, smallholders will find it difficult to shoulder the burden.
Data from the Thai Chinese Daily shows that as of 2021, Thailand had only 2,000–2,500 sugarcane harvesters, capable of harvesting 60–75 million tonnes of sugarcane per year. If all sugarcane grown across Thailand were to be fresh-cut harvested, the number of harvesters would need to rise to 3,400–4,500. More importantly, not every region’s sugarcane-growing area and method is suitable for mechanised harvesting.
Thai smallholders typically grow sugarcane on private land, on small plots situated adjacent to one another. It is impossible for every farm to purchase its own machinery, given the high cost and low frequency of use. A single sugarcane harvester costs 8–12 million Thai baht (approximately RMB 1.71–2.57 million), not counting fuel, and is used for only three to four months during the harvest season each year.
“We must grow more than 10,000 tonnes of sugarcane before we could even consider buying a machine,” said Ganok, a cane farmer in Thailand. He believes the cost of mechanisation should not fall entirely on cane farmers: “The mills should help us by purchasing machinery themselves. The mills are pushing the burden onto the farmers, while sugar prices are falling and labour costs are rising.”
While these measures to support farmers may seem inadequate, what about a change of thinking — turning the parts of the sugarcane that cannot be processed into sugar into something of value?
The Thai government introduced a series of Alternative Energy Development Plans covering 2015 to 2036. Through these plans, the government hopes to support the biochemical industry and make the fullest possible use of sugarcane resources — for example, generating electricity from bagasse and producing ethanol from molasses. By adding value to sugarcane, the plan aims to safeguard farmers’ earnings while stabilising agricultural commodity prices. It further predicted that sugarcane could generate an additional $9.6 billion in economic value each year and provide sugarcane-related employment for 300,000 households.
Unfortunately, smallholders have been excluded from this development plan.
Under Thailand’s 1984 Sugarcane and Sugar Act, 70% of total annual revenue from sugar production is distributed to cane farmers, with the remaining 30% going to the sugar mills. However, income from non-sugar sugarcane by-products, such as ethanol and electricity, is not shared with the farmers.
The North Eastern Thailand Sugarcane Planters Association has in recent years consistently called for a revision of the Sugarcane and Sugar Act. The association hopes that cane farmers can also earn a corresponding share of revenue from sugarcane by-products, making them more financially secure. At the same time, it calls on the government to invest in infrastructure and to support or subsidise cane farmers’ labour costs, thereby reducing the need to burn sugarcane.
Professor Sirima Panyamethikul, a Thai scholar, has called for community participation in developing sustainable solutions to air pollution, rather than a blanket ban on agricultural burning: “Farmers must be offered more practical alternatives.”
Yet after being repeated so many times, such appeals seem to have become nothing more than correct but useless platitudes. Rising agricultural production costs, market volatility, and policy inequity leave cane farmers with little choice but to exploit the environment to extract their meagre profits. When branded “polluters” and told they must “pay for pollution”, abandoning agriculture becomes the last resort for some.
Smallholders trapped in the dilemma of “either pollute or leave” — are they limited to Thailand’s cane farmers?
