Thai PBS on the Pesticide Crisis

Below are links to Thai PBS news articles from the last month – all focusing on pesticide contamination in the Thai food system.  Thai PBS has become a major ally for the AAN and organic farming throughout the country.  Their documentary-style journalism has helped to expose the risks involved with Thailand’s increasingly agri-business focused economy and the impacts on small-scale farmers.  The stories below are in Thai, but English summaries can be made available.

1. Thailand suspended the export of 16 kinds of vegetables to the EU.   ไทยระงับส่งออกผัก 16 ชนิดไปอียู (2011-01-12) http://www.thaipbs.or.th/s1000_obj/front_page/page/1031.html?content_id=288732

2. Vegetable importers prepared to raise the standards for Thai agricultural products. ผู้นำเข้าพืชผักเตรียมเพิ่มมาตรฐานสินค้าเกษตรไทย (2011-01-13) http://www.thaipbs.or.th/s1000_obj/front_page/page/1031.html?content_id=288803

3. Researchers indicate the contaminants involved in the Thai vegetables crisis นักวิชาการชี้สารปนเปื้อนผักไทยอยู่ในขั้นวิกฤต (2011-01-27) http://www.thaipbs.or.th/s1000_obj/front_page/page/1031.html?content_id=290863

From The Atlantic – Thailand’s Other Protests: Pro-Sustainable Food

To view a slide show of images from Jarrett’s trip to visit the organic farmers of Ubon Ratchathani, click here.

In a remote Thai village, a 24-year-old New Jersey man named Bennett Haynes farms rice and vegetables. But Haynes also plays a more sinister role: in a recent farming folk opera about rice, he’s been cast by villagers in the part of sticky rice #6. This type of rice is an “improved” variety—a commodity crop sold by seed companies—that has supplanted local varieties.

In the opera, Haynes’s evil character wanders the countryside, stealing the hardy brown and black grains sown for centuries and infecting the paddies with his own seed. Sticky rice #6 is white, and so is Bennett, which makes the audience chuckle.

Reflections Upon Return: AAN & The Thai Crisis

Here is some recent writing on the current crisis and what it means for the AAN.  Your reporter is currently in the U.S. and next week will begin working for Hearty Roots Farm in Tivoli, New York.  The next few months will be covered by our new intern, Abe Levine – I look forward to seeing his writing on the local and network-level efforts carried out by the AAN.  I will continue to support this website and will be presenting on the AAN at a TEDx event in Bangkok at the beginning of September.

เรื่อง ขอให้รัฐบาลยุติการใช้ความรุ An open letter to the Thai Government and UDD

York University, Toronto, Canada
May 16, 2010
Subject: STOP using violence and repression to dismantle the demonstrators

An open letter to the Thai Government and UDD

On May 14,2010, just one day after Thailand was elected with land slide majority of 182 votes out of 192 members of the United Nations to sit in the UN Human Rights Council (of which the total number of members is 47) the Thai Government seriously breached its own commitments and pledges made during the campaign for the seat. In the campaign, the PM.Abhisit Vejjajiva has committed that “…I can reaffirm that this Government will address problems relating to freedom and liberty and human rights on the basis of accepting them as reality. This is the first crucial step so that every agency, including civil society, recognizes the need to cooperate in seriously solving the problems…if the Government or state officials do not learn how to respect human rights themselves, problems will never end.