When the Crop Burning Ban Becomes the Last Straw for Smallholders
From late last year through April this year, Chiang Mai—a popular tourist destination in northern Thailand—has frequently been shrouded in thick smog. On 29 March, IQAir ranked the city as the world’s most polluted, recording an AQI (Air Quality Index) of 188; this stands at 17.4 times the limit set by the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines.
A significant proportion of these airborne pollutants stems from burning sugarcane. Across northern, northeastern, and central Thailand, December to February marks the annual season for the practice.
The crop in question is the variety cultivated specifically for sugar production. The plants produce an abundance of long, narrow, and sharply pointed leaves. Harvesting by hand demands considerable effort to strip away the sugarless tops and foliage. With sugar concentrated in the main stalk and a thick fibrous outer rind shielding it from the flames, burning the fields before cutting has become a pragmatic choice for many growers.
Caught between air quality and their livelihoods, sugarcane farmers find themselves trapped in a recurring dilemma: to burn or not to burn.
According to official figures released this year, burnt cane makes up around 15% of the total sugarcane crushed daily across Thailand. Still, some mills flout the rules, accepting burnt cane well above the 25% threshold.
Mills in Udon Thani province purchase the highest proportion of burnt cane, reaching 43%, which makes it the province with the highest sugarcane burning rate nationwide. Situated in north-eastern Thailand, Udon Thani is the country’s top sugarcane-growing province, with crops spanning 120,000 hectares, or 10% of its total area.
Amid nationwide alarm over air pollution, pressure is mounting on the Thai government. Different ministries are now moving independently, rushing to expedite the “handling” of pollution sources.
On 14 January this year, the Ministry of Industry ordered the shutdown of sugar mills in Udon Thani, citing safety law violations to penalise them for their persistent over-purchase of burnt cane.
Yet closing the mills ultimately lands the punishment squarely on the farmers.
Farmers had already set fire to their fields and harvested the cane before heading to the mills, only to discover the closures upon arrival. Nearly 2,000 trucks were left stranded, with lorries queueing bumper-to-bumper at the gates. Farmers waited in anxious limbo, hoping the government would back down and permit the mills to reopen. As the wait stretched on, the sugarcane continued to rot, the damage worsening with every passing hour.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra holds farmers responsible for air pollution. According to The Nation Thailand, in response to the severe air pollution in Bangkok, she stated that should farmers be found burning land for clearance, the government will halt all subsidy payments from 1 June this year to 31 May next year.
Sugarcane farmers in the region noted that the sugar mill in Udon Thani province has been purchasing their burnt cane for many years. This marks the first time the government has taken such decisive action to shut down a mill.
II. Why sugarcane burning cannot be eradicated
By 2019, the Thai government implemented stricter measures. These included further support for agricultural mechanisation, the establishment of no-burn zones, a subsidy of 120 baht per tonne (approximately 25.68 yuan) for unburnt cane, and restrictions on mills purchasing burnt cane. The quota for burnt cane was capped at 30%, with a gradual reduction to 5% over the following two years.
Subsidy incentives and penalties did work initially. The proportion of sugarcane burned fell from 60% to 26% over three years. But the respite was short-lived; after 2021, burning rates began to climb again. In the 2023–2024 crop year, the figure stood at 30%.
The reason is straightforward: harvesting unburned sugarcane costs roughly three times as much as burning it. For burned cane, the penalty is around 6 yuan per tonne; for fresh cane, the subsidy is about 26 yuan per tonne. Whether penalty or incentive, the amounts are simply too small to bridge the cost gap between the two methods.
When faced with the costs, many sugarcane farmers simply choose to burn and pay the fine.
Farmers are well aware of the benefits of unburned cane: it is easier for sugar mills to purchase, yields a higher sugar content, and improves air quality. Burning sugarcane releases vast quantities of air pollutants in a short space of time, including particulate matter, carcinogenic organic compounds, and trace metals. The health impacts of exposure to these pollutants are primarily respiratory illnesses, such as asthma and lung cancer. Naturally, the most immediate victims are the farmers themselves and neighbouring communities.
Yet for them, making a living takes priority over health, which is why the practice persists. With little success, the government’s response has been to keep raising fines. Ahead of the 2024–2025 crop year, the Thai Ministry of Industry moved quickly to introduce stricter measures, such as reducing collection points for burned cane and sharply increasing the penalty to roughly 26 yuan per tonne, aiming to further curb burning and encourage the harvesting of fresh sugarcane.
Khon Kaen is a major sugarcane-growing province in Thailand’s northeast, with 9.6% of its land dedicated to the crop, second only to Udon Thani. Labour shortages consistently rank as the primary challenge each harvest season. Chairat ekes out a living cultivating sugarcane, cassava, and rice. To mitigate costs and market risks, he has developed a calculated strategy: during the 2023–2024 season, he harvested 80% of his sugarcane green, leaving the remaining 20% to be burnt prior to cutting.
The choice comes down to a careful assessment of various factors, including how much burnt cane mills are willing to take that year, prevailing sugar prices, and other overheads. Chairat notes that harvesting green is purely to guarantee the crop will be bought, rather than because unburnt cane fetches a premium.
“Adopting this approach this year doesn’t mean I’ll repeat it next year. Costs rise annually, conditions change, and sugar prices fluctuate—all factors that will dictate next year’s planting schedule and harvesting methods,” Chairat explains. “Even though green-harvested cane may bring in a better price, the cost of cultivation is rising in tandem.”
Chairat’s situation is hardly an isolated case. Figures reveal that production costs for Thai farmers reached a record high during the 2022–2023 season—1,122 baht per tonne (roughly 247.34 yuan). This spike is the result of several compounding factors: soaring prices for fertilisers and pesticides, higher wages driven by labour shortages, and increased transport and processing costs fuelled by the global rise in energy prices over recent years.
Climate change is likewise emerging as a mounting cost driver. In 2022, Chairat’s fields were hit by substantial flooding, leaving the ground too waterlogged for harvesting machinery to operate. Because delaying the cut risked the cane lodging, he was forced to hire manual workers. By harvest time, he discovered that wages had soared to record levels.
In 2024, prolonged drought hampered crop development, pushing Thailand’s sugar extraction rate to a 13-year low. With cultivation pressures mounting, a number of smallholder farmers have abandoned sugarcane production altogether.
III. Smallholders: Suffering the Most, Profiting the Least
For some smallholders, the question is not how to earn more, but how to survive—making mere existence their paramount concern.
At present, the most viable alternative to burning before harvest is the use of cane strippers and harvesters. The Thai government has primarily promoted mechanisation by cutting loan interest rates and backing domestic manufacturers of harvesting equipment. Yet, judging by the results so far, these loans have failed to motivate the majority of sugarcane farmers. In short, without direct financial or mechanised support from the government and sugar mills, the burden is simply too great for smallholders to bear.
According to the Thailand China Daily, as of 2021, Thailand had only 2,000 to 2,500 sugarcane harvesters, capable of harvesting between 60 and 75 million tonnes of cane annually. If all cane grown across the country were to be harvested fresh, the number of machines would need to rise to 3,400–4,500. More crucially, not all regions’ planting scales and methods are suited to mechanised harvesting.
Smallholders in Thailand typically grow cane on modest private plots, with farms nestled closely together. It is impractical for every farm to own machinery, given the high upfront costs and low utilisation rates. A single harvester costs between 8 and 12 million baht (roughly ¥1.71–2.57 million RMB), not including fuel, and is only operational for three to four months during the harvest season.
“We would need to be growing over 10,000 tonnes of cane before we could even consider buying a machine,” says Ganok, a sugarcane farmer in Thailand. He argues that the cost of machinery should not fall entirely on the farmers: “The mills ought to help us by purchasing the equipment themselves. Instead, they are pushing the burden onto the growers, while sugar prices are falling and labour costs are rising.”
While these initiatives to assist farmers may appear to fall short, let us look at it from another angle: how can we turn the by-products that cannot be processed into sugar into valuable resources?
The Thai government previously rolled out a series of alternative energy development plans spanning 2015 to 2036. One key aim was to support the biochemical industry to maximise the utility of sugarcane resources—such as generating electricity from bagasse and producing ethanol from molasses. By increasing the added value of cane, the plan sought to secure farmers’ incomes while stabilising agricultural prices. It also projected that sugarcane could generate an additional $9.6 billion in economic value annually, providing cane-related employment for 300,000 households.
Unfortunately, smallholders were left out of this development plan.
Under Thailand’s 1984 Sugarcane and Sugar Act, 70% of the annual total revenue from sugar production is allocated to sugarcane farmers, with the remaining 30% going to the mills. However, revenue generated from non-sugar cane by-products, such as ethanol and electricity, is not shared with the farmers.
In recent years, the North Eastern Thailand Sugarcane Growers’ Association has been calling for a revision of the Sugarcane and Sugar Act. The association hopes farmers will receive a fair share of the income from cane by-products, thereby improving their financial stability. It also urges the government to invest in infrastructure and provide support or subsidies for farmers’ labour costs, which would help reduce the need for cane burning.
Thai scholar Professor Sirima Panyamethikul advocates that reducing air pollution requires community involvement in crafting sustainable solutions, rather than a blanket ban on agricultural burning: “We must provide farmers with more practical and viable alternatives.”
Yet, after being voiced time and again, such appeals seem to have become little more than correct but hollow platitudes. Rising production costs, market volatility, and inequitable policies leave sugarcane farmers with no choice but to squeeze marginal profits by exploiting the environment. When they are branded “polluters” and forced to “pay for the pollution,” abandoning farming becomes the last resort for some.
After all, it is not only Thailand’s sugarcane farmers who are trapped in this “pollute or leave” dilemma.
