Content warning: Some readers may find certain images in this article disturbing.
As the sun rises over the village of Ban Wichit Pattana in north-east Thailand, 62-year-old Chuchart Srithachum does his morning exercise, walking as best he can on his prosthetic leg along the street outside his home.
These days, Chuchart is unable to work. He gets by with money from his son, as well as government allowances for his age and disability. He used to be a rice farmer, working 2.4 hectares of land on the outskirts of his village in Nong Bua Lamphu province.
Almost nine years ago, he was working in his flooded fields, barefoot as usual, when he noticed a strange greenish tint in the water. He carried on but soon started to feel a tingling in his feet. By the time he got home, the skin on his leg had begun to develop a rash, accompanied by pain. He was quickly taken to a local clinic.
The doctor told him the rash on his leg “showed telltale signs of paraquat exposure,” Chuchart recalls. The damage to his skin allowed for a bacterial infection that had devastating consequences.
Paraquat is a liquid herbicide used to kill weeds and desiccate leaves, often for commercial crops such as coffee, pineapples, tea and sugarcane. Widely identified as being highly toxic to humans and other animals, it can cause serious internal damage or death if swallowed, inhaled or even absorbed via the skin. Its corrosive nature means contact with the skin can also result in chemical burns and other damage. In north-east Thailand as well as other parts of the country, this has been controversially linked to a rare flesh-eating disease called necrotising fasciitis, which develops rapidly and has led to a spate of deaths and amputations.
Chuchart’s condition quickly became too severe to be treated at his local clinic. He was promptly transferred to the provincial hospital in the town of Nong Bua Lamphu, but by then it was too late – his right leg needed to be amputated to save his life. He spent the next six weeks in hospital recovering.
Chuchart was not alone. When he was hospitalised in 2017, there were more than 50 cases of farmers who suffered severe chemical burns and subsequent infections in sugarcane production areas across Thailand’s north-east region, according to Mana Muangkhun, an activist with the Consumer Association of Khonkaen involved in a lawsuit against importers of paraquat.
The cases added momentum to an already ongoing campaign led by civil society groups like the BioThai Foundation and Thailand Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-PAN). Using various techniques, including testing fruit and vegetables for pesticide residues to raise consumer awareness and direct advocacy with government bodies, the campaign called for bans of paraquat and two other controversial agrochemicals: the insecticide chlorpyrifos, which is known to cause brain abnormalities and developmental delays in children; and the herbicide glyphosate, which the World Health Organization has named “probably carcinogenic to humans”.
Backed by a growing body of scientific evidence, the campaign led in April 2017 to a recommendation from the Ministry of Public Health that paraquat and chlorpyrifos be prohibited and the use of glyphosate restricted by the end of 2019. What followed was a prolonged and heated national debate, marked by pushback from various stakeholders, street protests from both sides and government policy flipflops.
Bans eventually came into force in June 2020 with the reclassification of paraquat and chlorpyrifos as category 4 hazardous substances, the highest level. This made it illegal to produce, sell, use or even possess the chemicals. In line with this, the Thai Food and Drug Administration introduced a policy of zero tolerance to residues of the chemicals, even on imported foods. Glyphosate was to be included in the reclassification, but pressure from the US government and agrochemicals manufacturer Bayer stopped that. It remains legal, although as a category 3 hazardous substance, its use requires a licence and is heavily restricted, allowed only on specific commercial crops and not within certain zones, such as watersheds and public areas.
Two down, hundreds still in use
Contamination of produce with paraquat and chlorpyrifos has fallen significantly since the ban, according to Thai-PAN coordinator Prokchon Usap. The network and their fellow campaigning organisations count this as a major battle won. But their war is not over. Prokchon sees all agrochemicals as “highly hazardous”, and says there are “over 230” others still in use in Thailand. Perhaps more importantly, she and other campaigners argue these chemicals are being heavily over-used, posing health risks for all those exposed to them, including both farmers and consumers.
In their most recent tests of market fruits and vegetables conducted at the end of 2024, Thai-PAN found that 68% of samples had pesticide residues above the maximum limits set by the government, which apply in varying degrees to all foods. This included above-limit residues of restricted category 3 chemicals such as chlorfenapyr, fipronil and carbendazim.
For Prokchon, one of the most concerning chemicals found was carbendazim, a fungicide used on multiple crops to control plant disease that is banned in many places around the world.
“We found carbendazim on almost every contaminated fruit and vegetable sample,” she says. “This chemical is responsible for many underlying health threats, including infertility, as there is evidence linking carbendazim with sperm count reduction in men.”
A forced reliance
Over the past few decades, Thailand has seen a major shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture. It is now one of the world’s top growers and exporters of commodity crops such as rice and tropical fruits. Sugar has played a major part in this – the country is the world’s fifth largest producer and the second largest exporter. This shift has been matched by the growth in use of agrochemicals. Thailand is the world’s 15th largest importer of synthetic pesticides, and in 2016, before the bans came in, glyphosate and paraquat were the top two imports.
This nationaltrend has played out on steroids in the north-east, which has seen the “rapid expansion of sugarcane and rubber plantations” in recent years, says Patiwat Chalermchart, a leading member of the regional branch of watchdog the Thailand Consumers Council. “These types of commercial farming rely heavily on pesticides to lower production costs and maximise profits,” he explains, adding that this is why “the previous paraquat poisonings had an epicentre here”.
Despite widespread awareness among farmers of the dangers of using pesticides, many still consider it a necessity. They have no choice, says Patiwat, pointing to limited finances and the need to bring labour costs down.
Natthanan Photiwong is a 64-year-old sugarcane farmer with a smallholding in Suwannakhuha district of Nong Bua Lamphu province. He stopped using synthetic herbicides entirely for over three years after he too suffered a necrotising fasciitis infection linked with accidental exposure to paraquat in 2018. But the difficulty of finding workers to clear weeds from his 1.4-hectare plot has forced him to start spraying again.
“It’s a tiring task to clear weeds by hand in a dense sugarcane field. I can hardly find anyone willing to do this job,” he says. “I eventually needed to hire someone to spray herbicide instead, as I still do not dare do it myself.”
In the neighbouring district of Na Klang, young farmer Sinaphon Namphrom, whose family grows rice commercially, holds the same opinion.
Although concerned about the health impacts, agrochemicals “are essential materials to make our farming easier to maintain and profitable,” she says. “We try to protect ourselves by wearing proper protective gear while spraying and using as little as possible, especially on the plots where we grow crops for our own consumption.”
For Thai-PAN’s Prokchon, “farmers are trapped in a vicious cycle of debt and chemical use”.The use of chemicals has destroyed natural processes that previously helped fertilise the soil and control pests, making their continued use unavoidable. In addition, commercial agriculture has introduced an economy of debt in rural areas, with many farmers taking out loans to purchase the products they need.
“The commercial farming sector has not developed new farming methods to help reduce reliance on chemicals,” she adds.
Alternative methods of farming without chemicals have come to be seen by many as unachievably expensive. “Our food production system does not favour organic farming,” says Patiwat of the Thailand Consumers Council. “There is no supporting system to help farmers invest in more costly organic food production.”
A pesticide-free future?
While options may be limited for many farmers, concerns over food safety among Thailand’s growing middle class are driving a growing demand for organic produce, especially in wealthier urban areas. Enter entrepreneurs like Krisana Tamvimol, co-founder of DiStar Fresh, which grows high-value leafy vegetables hydroponically in a vertical, indoor farm.
Launched in 2021 in Nonthaburi province’s Bang Yai district near the capital Bangkok, the 400 sq metre facility is capable of producing the same amount of food as 64,000 sq metre (6.4 hectares) of traditional outdoor farmland, says Krisana.
The company advertises its produce as “beyond organic”. Grown in a closed system using a water-based nutrient solution instead of soil – an environment DiStar calls “pristine” – the vegetables are protected from outdoor pests and diseases, so there is no need for pesticides.
Against a backdrop of what Krisana sees as Thailand’s considerably weaker agrochemical regulations compared to those in developed nations, his business is doing well. “We already have around 1,000 to 2,000 regular customers,” he says. “Now, the demand is nearly reaching the production capacity of our farm and we are looking for a location to expand our second hydroponic farm in Sai Noi district.”
While Krisana calls hydroponics part of the future of agriculture in Thailand, it’s unlikely to offer a solution when it comes to crops like rice or sugarcane, not least because of the costs. To build a facility capable of growing 3.2 hectares worth of produce requires an investment of around 20 million baht (USD 643,500), he explains.
Running costs are also high, although Krisana points out they are lower in Thailand than in western countries thanks to cheaper electricity. In developed nations, growing a portion of produce in a hydroponic farm costs an average of around 15 baht (USD 0.48), compared to 8 baht in Thailand, he says.
Far away from the capital in northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai province, known for the commercial production of rice and various fruits, there’s a growing organic movement of a different sort. Saranarat Kanjanavanit, co-founder of the Nunienoi Wetland and Farm, is just one of many in the area demonstrating how farming can be done without the use of synthetic chemicals, by restoring biodiversity and working with nature.
She says when she bought the property in 2018, it had very poor soil due to the prolonged and intensive use of agrochemicals, including both pesticides and fertilisers. She worked on restoring soil fertility by employing a traditional rotational crop technique, switching between rice and soybeans every season to naturally fix nitrogen.
The farm’s organic rice yields have reached 500 kg per rai (1,600 sq metres), which is comparable with regular commercial farms that heavily use chemicals, she says.
She also has no need of pesticides, as there are plenty of predatory insects and birds living in the restored wetland, helping control the population of pests on the farm.
“In the first few years, many people including my staff did not believe that ecological farming would work, as we had very low yields. But after we gave time for nature to restore ecological balance and regain biodiversity, we have proven that by understanding and working with nature we can assure food security without sacrificing the environment,” Saranarat explains.
