Thai Farmers Say No to New Water Burden by Phairath Khampha 30 June 2000 WATER PRICING: When droughts hit Thailand, farmers are asked to stop cultivating; when the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives wants to borrow money to restructure agriculture, farmers are told to pay. "If the government has no choice but to follow the dictates of international monetary organisations," says Prof Nithi Eiewsriwong of Chiangmai University, "then maybe there is no need for a government. It's as if we have no government left. Countries like Thailand have in effect been colonised using economic and monetary policies, but it is no different than 100 years ago--they have taken away our economic sovereignty. "It used to be that when you borrow money, you first propose a project, prove its benefits, and show how it will break even within a specific time.It is the duty of the government-who borrows the money-to decide how they can repay it. The government should decide its own measures of collecting money to repay the debt." "However, today, international monetary agencies such as the IMF or the ADB decide and design everything for us," said Prof Nithi. The Agriculture Sector Programme (ASP) will borrow some 600 million US dollars from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and from Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) One of its measures, "Increased Agriculture Productivity", includes water management, allocation and distribution, licensing and costing of water extraction. In its policy matrix in the area of Water Service Delivery reform, a prior action to be taken is to consult with stakeholders "to initiate a process of cost recovery in public irrigation schemes." Optimising Irrigation Mr Craig Steffensen, the resident advisor for the Asian Development Bank in Thailand, explained why water pricing must be implemented. He says the reform aims to "promote the optimal use of irrigation water in the country. "Demands for water in Thailand are increasing at a time when water resources are increasingly scarce. We have all witnessed the worsening effects of drought in Thailand over the past few years. International best practices suggest that efficiency in water management can be improved considerably through imposition of nominal water user fees." It's basically a quirk of human nature that people who get something for free are more inclined to use it less efficiently than those individuals who have to pay for water, however small the cost. "By assessing a nominal cost for water use, use of irrigation water might thus become much more efficient, and make more irrigation available to farmers, especially during critical periods" (Watershed, March-June 2000). In the same interview he said that the Thai government "intends to go after industrial estates, factories and housing estates in and around Bangkok which are located next to irrigation canals that the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) constructed years ago. "Many of these groups have pumps drawing water from irrigation canals and do not pay their fair share. So measures will be implemented to collect water user fees from these groups in particular. After that, there are groups that are willing to pay for water, such as sugarcane farmers in Chon Buri....," Steffensen told Watershed. "Given the increasing scarcity of water resources, the best way to develop broad support for water user fees in Thailand may be to demonstrate to people that it is to their advantage to pay, if doing so means having greater access to more reliable and plentiful water supply. "Supporting this statement, ADB senior national advisor Apichart Anukularmphai said, "Many farmers are willing to pay for water, including farmers in Nakhon Sawan province. They said it is fair for them to pay," said Mr Apichart. He said the fee is not a tax on water but a service charge to be paid by those who use the service. "It is not fair to use the money of people nationwide to support only a few groups of people. Therefore those who benefit from such projects should pay," said Mr Apichart. Bad Precedents Despite the logic of Mr Apichart, the farmers themselves have mixed feelings about paying for water. Most farmers are compliant-they have been shouldering so many burdens which they never asked for. For instance, they had never requested for the ASP loan. One must always remember that development loans, although they generate "development" infrastructure the construction of which enriches the wealthy, in the end is always paid back with interest by the ordinary people. Corruption more oftne than not results in infrastructure that does not work as intended or in projects that are not at all apprpropriate to the aspirations and needs of the so-called end-users. Yet, they are the people who must shoulder the costs of the loans; not the rich and usually corrupt government officials and the politicial and economic elite who asked for the loans. "How do these restructuring plans come up?" asks Mrs Duangjai Navathamapichet, a sugarcane grower in Kanchanaburi. "It is too much burden for us to pay for water-how can we benefit from these schemes that the Ministry of Agriculture proposes? We don't need these plans-we need only uncorrupt officials, politicians and cabinet members," she said. She said many irrigation projects bult with such financing have been abandoned and unused. "Look at the irrigation canal near my area: there is no water, nobody benefited from it except for the construction companies owned by the families of the government officials," she said, singling out the irrigation canal at the Klondo subdistrict in Dan Makhamtia district of Kanchanaburi. "But we have to pay back the loan out of our own money." On the other hand, some farmers do not mind paying up for water, provided they are assured of guaranteed service. "I don't mind paying for water service if the government can guarantee delivering us water all year round," said Sawai Dee-nguleaum from Nakhon Ratchasima. "But what will happen if it cannot deliver us the promised water?" asked the farmer. "Because depsite all their grandiose ideas, it always seems nothing works right." Many farmers wonder how officials would collect the water fee, or how they will be charged. How would the water officials, for instance, differentiate the water from the service that they use and the water from rain, or natural rivers and canals? Even if they have a means to measure it how can it be determined that what the farmers are told is the truth--farmers have no way to measure what is provided by rain. "Do we have to pay for the water that Mother Earth and the forest give us?" asked Pompet Kaenpet of Ban Tomdong in Phayao. "Are they going to charge us for something that they put no hands on?" added Pompet. "This canal is being maintained by all of us in this water basin. Do we have to pay for this?" asked the farmer. Who Really Benefits? In the Northern region domestic water management continues to deteriorate, mostly due to several external factors. Locals point to the new RID-introduced irrigation system, forest destruction, and industrial investment promotion. "Before the new irrigation system was introduced to us, we helped each other in the dry season. We helped clean and clear up the canal and our own weirs. We do not need the money from the government. We have enough water to distribute among us villagers," said 65-year-old Muankham Wongduang of Huykaew, Phayao. "The officials come around and say we need a new water project and say therefore they will ask for a loan from some foreign agency. But we do not need it and then we are the ones who have to pay it back, not the officials." Most farmers feel that it is not fair for them to be forced to pay for the water cost recovery, particularly when they know they do not need and new infrastructre because what they have and built with their own hands is adequate for their needs. Further, they believe that paying for water services will not solve the problem of water scarcity or increase the efficiency of the water usage. "Why does water become scarce?" asked Jorni Ordochao from Chiang Mai. "Is it because we farmers are using too much water, or is it because the forests-the water source and moisture generators-have disappeared?" "Do these technocrats believe that our paying for water can generate more water for us to use?" asks the Northern leader. "All it does is it makes what little available water there is too expensive for us to use so that quietly it can be made available to the rich people who own factories that use vast amounts of water. Then no one can say we were intimidated or otherwise forced to not use water because it will happen gradually as farmers become financially suffocated by these new policies. I do not think that these foreign banks work to improve our lives. It seems more that they cause us hardship and therefore increase our poverty" In order to provide more water for use, what does he suggest? "To provide more water is to protect forests, maintain and improve present irrigation systems," said the local leader. At present farmers pay direct and indirect taxes. "So far, we have been paying for all the rising costs of agricultural investments, fertilisers, and pesticides imposed on us by the government whether we want these investments or not. We have to pay for the high price of petrol, for farm machinery, as well as increases in transportation costs. We have been paying all kinds of taxes to the government, but does the government guarantee the price of our rice?"said Pensri Ratanadaeng from Kanchanaburi. "of course, it does not." Other farmers complain that the government has never done anything to relieve their debt but instead wants to actually increase it. "The new costs of investment that we have to pay will bury us, we will get into deeper debt. Why does the government not try to help us? Why do they have to collect more money from us," said Wat Kajongklang from Nakhon Ratchasima. "In the old days local tyrants would send there tough bosses and demand our wealth, but now it is no different but they use a more roundabout method. In the end we work hard and still have to hand over the wealth we create to these people. And the froreign only helps them do it better." Some wonder how the government could think that farmers do not practise water usage efficiency. "Had they come and seen how we plant rice, how we live.... Of course not. They sit in air conditioned rooms far away and devise new ways to take away our money. Whewn they do come out to the farms they stay around one or two hours and tell us how well we are doing as if they were talking to little children. The foreign experts are the same. None of them can talk Thai so they cannot understand about these issues. We sometimes have to carry water from faraway places when nearby water is gone. Sometimes we cannot plant at all when there is no rain." "Many irrigation canals are around our area, and they're all dry. Do we have to pay for these dry canals?" Other farmers suspect that money will be wasted in ASP loan projects as it has been on most previous projects. Experience breeds familiarity with the modus operandi. "Who will really gain from the loan scheme? After borrowing from different lenders-from the World Bank to Miyazawa-and then spending money like bia (play money) and now (spending) the ADB's money... Then the officials claim that this investment comes from the people's taxes so they have to collect it back from farmers. So... do we actually, really benefit from these schemes?" said Pompet Keanpet from Phayao. "Think about it, who really benefits from these schemes? How many construction and consultant companies gain from projects which are imposed on us?" Pompet asks state officials and the ADB to evaluate the past projects. "These construction comapnies and the consultants are the ones who make the money and then we have to pay back their fees and costs. Most consultant companies cannot understand the problems and pontificate and say what the government wants to hear so they can get more contracts. The construction companies build infrastructure that is of little use because the consultants did not understand the problems and, moreover, the owners of the construction companies are corrupt and cut corners." "Most dams and reservoirs can not store enough water for farm use in the dry season and many irrigation canals remain dry", he says. "And now they are going to build more dams and reservoirs!" During periods of acute water scarcity, agriculture receives lower priority than urban needs. For instance, farmers are ordered to delay or stop planting or using water to route water to major cities and towns. After 98 years of RID operations, the estimated irrigation area is about 22.11 million rai (1 rai=1,600 m2). There are 89 big irrigation projects and 25 river basins which have only about 70,769 million cubic metres of water. "What is the real sense of sustainable growth as stated by the government and ADB? Do they understand the word 'sustainable? Does 'sustainable growth' mean export competitiveness?" asked Pompet. "It must or otherwise it is just empty talk and some sort of favourite word. They always go around talking about sustainable this and that, but we cannot seem to sustain ourselves with their schemes." The Right to Water Natural resources-such as water-are essential to all, and should not be managed by market mechanisms, said Dr Kasian Tejapira of Thammasat University. "Otherwise, water would not flow by gravity but by purchasing power," he said. "Commoditisation of water should not be allowed, because the right to natural resources is a basic right all human beings have," Dr Kasian insisted. On the other hand, Mr Apichart says that two factors will shape water pricing: affordability and level of service. "If farmers use services, why don't they pay for it? We are not going to charge for what we have at the moment but if the government injects some money into existing reservoirs or irrigation canals, those who will use these should pay for it," said Mr Apichart. He warns that farmers should not panic and that the mass media should give correct information. "We are in the process of study and consultation with the stakeholders," said Mr Apichart. Benefits Favour the Rich Although small-scale farmers would now be exempt from the water fee according to the ADB, Mr Srisuwan Kuankajorn of the Towards Ecology Recovery Foundation remains concerned that small-scale farmers will be deprived of water because bigger farms will have the ability to buy. After the protests and complaints in Chiang Mai at the ADB's annual meeting in May, the ADB decided to restructure its Water Resources Management Capacity Building Technical Assistance to minimise the financial burden the imposed changes would bring on small-scale farmers. "The purchase power of farmers is not the same. Large-scale farmers or those in the agribusiness and industry can pay for the water they use. How can the poor do the same? Is there any guarantee that the small-scale farmer will have the same access to sufficient amounts of water-considering that they have no purchasing power?" said Srisuwan. He said it is difficult to treat water like most market goods. First, water is broadly perceived as a public property. Second, the uses of water within a river basin are interdependent. If large-scale farmers withdraw water in one part of the basin, it will automatically reduce the availability of water for other users. Golf courses or industries that pump groundwater may lower the water table and increase pumping costs for other users. "These interdependencies suggest that if the large-scale farmers can have access to water it will automatically affect others in the basin, particularly those located downstream," Srisuwan added, concluding: "Don't you think that the poor farmers will be left out? One miust remember that in Thailand things do not work like in more egalitarian societies such as Canada or the United States. Here the rich are nothing but bullies and thugs and because the have money they will get their way. If people still complain then they get hurt. And the infrastructure for all this is built with the loans that they ordinary people have to pay back." It appears that farmer sin Thailand no longer are the naive, ignorant peasants that the economic and political elite believe. Policy declaration In its Development Policy letter, the Thai government states: "The ASP's (Agriculture Sector Programme) primary objective is to achieve sustainable growth of the agriculture sector through the implementation of reform measures required for:(i) increasing agricultural productivity(ii) enhancement of export competitiveness of agricultural products, and (iii) restructing of agricultural institutions and improvement of government in the sector. A total of 22,200 million baht will go to six major programme loans covering 20 projects:- 8,000 million baht for increased productivity in irrigation and natural water areas- 3,100 million baht to develop commodity quality and the ability to manage agriculture programmes. - 2,500 million baht for community potentiality development programmes. - 5,350 million baht for research and technology development programmes. - 1,010 million baht to establish New Economy Zones. - 2,240 million baht to organisational, institutional and information system restructuring programmes.