Thai farmers beat costly fuel with water buffalo

Struggling to cope with soaring food and fuel prices, Thai rice farmers are swapping diesel-fuelled tractors for water buffalo, the beasts used for ploughing the paddy fields for centuries.

Despite benefiting from rising rice prices this year, farmers in northeastern parts of Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, say the soaring costs of fertiliser have also prompted them to rely more on manure to nourish their soil.

"Farmers can never keep up with skyrocketing prices of fuel and fertiliser, so they are now depending on buffalo again," said Thongbai Gaewwan, who has been working with the government to promote buffalo raising in the region.

With support from Bangkok, farmers in Hinkone village, 450 km (280 miles) northeast of the capital, have started to turn back the clock to the old days when buffalo were widely used for labour, fertiliser and meat.

The number of buffalo in the village now stands at 250, from a mere 50 in 2003, thanks to a project by the Livestock Development Department to lend farmers a buffalo and take a calf back as a rental fee, Thongbai said.

Thai farmers abandoned buffalo in the quest for better returns, as machinery was considered a more efficient way of ploughing. Now some believe buffaloes are more cost-effective.

"When people saw tractors working all day and buffalo stopping when the sun gets strong, they switched to iron buffalo," said farmer Arn Saigrasoon, who recently switched back to buffalo from two-wheeled diesel tractors. "But when buffalo leak in the field, their waste becomes fertiliser. When tractors leak, we lose money in fuel waste," Arn said.

Buffalo maintenance costs are very low as their "fuel" is grass and medicine comes from livestock officials. Unlike tractors, they are also not prone to getting stuck in the muddy rice paddy, Arn said.

Owners of the diesel-powered, hand-steered tractors who contract plough for farmers say they can only charge 10 percent more than they did last year despite a rise of as much as 50 percent in diesel prices since the start of the year.

"My business is in a critical condition," 51-year-old tractor contractor Chanthong Seeon said, blaming the switch to buffalo power for his woes. Six more buffalo in the village are being trained this year for ploughing, and the number of people learning to work with them is rising, Thongbai said. He also disputed the popular perception that buffalo lack intelligence, although conceded they could be very disobedient.

"Most people will call someone 'dumb as a buffalo', but buffalo trainers call disobedient animals 'stubborn as people,'" he said.