Khon Kaen farmers beg for water to save 1,000 rai of rice fields

The residents of Ban Bueng I-thao and Ban Tha Kae villages in Tambon Sila said their rice plants had fully grown and would soon be ready to harvest but their fields had dried out because the provincial irrigation office was refusing to release water via an irrigation canal.
They said their rice plants could die in two weeks if they didn’t get water.
The villagers said they could not grow rice as usual in the rainy season as their fields are always flooded at that time of year.
They therefore had to grow the rice during the dry season but then depended upon water from the irrigation canal …and this year officials had stopped releasing water earlier than usual.
One of them, Samarn Paodee, 47, said during the rainy season, their land is under two-metre-high water for more than a month so all their crops are damaged.