Sinking Village Farm
Soil subsidence caused by salt production factories using old methods is destroying the livelihood of a farming community

For almost two decades, villagers in Non Thai district, a farming community in Nakhon Ratchasima, have been pointing fingers at salt production factories for ruining their rice fields. For those peasants, the threat of salt production came more from salty wastewater and salt dust, which ruins water resources and their farmlands. But the soil subsidence early this year have only served to add more fear to these villagers.I felt the Earth moving. My first thought was 'earthquake', and so I ran for cover," Amnuay recalled, a villager of Ban Nong Rang, tambon Rang Plu in Non Thai district. It was not an earthquake, however, but a massive land subsidence, which had taken place right in the middle of her village. The ground had caved in, creating a huge sinkhole as large as 17m in diameter and about 15m deep. Though it never occurred to her that the sinkhole was the result of a salt production factory that stood almost a kilometre away from her village.
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