Thailand’s fertile soil at risk of being destroyed thanks to growing animal agriculture and unsustainable industrial farming.
Fertile soil and an incredible array of exotic fruit, vegetables and spices made Thailand a land of plenty. But as demand for meat there grows, industrialised farming practices are threatening this tropical paradise.
Thailand is one of the biggest poultry exporters in the world. That means there’s a huge demand for corn feed. The country’s maize farmers are increasingly switching to monocultures to keep up, but that quickly exhausts the soil. Now, farmers are also using chemical fertilizers, or are clearing forests to make way for new farmland to keep the harvest coming.
Environment organisation WWF is helping farmers in two pilot areas to find alternatives in cultivating maize, in the hope of halting the destruction of the local ecosystem.
Original source: https://www.dw.com