'Life is sweet'

The azure sky looked cheery and bright on a fine February morning, but in the middle of the sugar cane fields, the heat was stifling. By 8:30 am, just one hour after Jan-Ruay started work, splashes of perspiration had already soaked half of the cane cutter's long-sleeved shirt.

As a farmhand in the central province of Kanchanaburi, Thailand's sugar cane capital, Jan-Ruay and her co-workers seem unconcerned about the controversy surrounding their industry at the moment. The tug-of-war over sugar prices, their bosses' threat to march into the capital to pressure policy makers, and allegations that a certain politician took bribes from interest groups all take a backseat this morning. There's work to be done.

"I've got about 10 bunches so far, each with 10 sugar canes. My record?" Jan-Ruay fanned herself with her palm-leaf hat, "About 500 bunches. But I was dog tired by the end of the day.

"With a patch like this, though, making 100 would be a real sweat," the northeastern native said referring to a stretch of slanting, or "lazy", cane in front of her.

Dreaded by the cutters, the sight of tangled cane leaning against each other also reflects the plight of many sugar cane planters. The complex structure of this industry seems to dictate that when hardship hits, the planters are the ones to take a tumble. One on top of another.

More so than other cash crops, sugar cane cultivation is tied directly to millers, who issue quotas to the planters as well as supply them with the means of production (money, seedlings, fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides) at high interest rates. Only those who can meet the minimum requirement set by the mill are entitled to deal directly with the mill and earn the title of "quota head".

Small scale planters (luk rai) supply sugar cane to the quota head. At the bottom of the pile are the cane cutters, or farmhands, many of whom are from the Northeast, seasonally drafted in to pay back debts to the planters.

A debt hierarchy thus emerges: farmhands borrow money and food from their bosses, the planters; small-scale planters seek loans from larger-scale planters, the quota heads; who in turn borrow from the millers. On the highest rung are probably the commercial banks which grant credit, reportedly as much as 18 months in advance, to the millers.

The borrow-first-pay-later principle seemed to run smoothly year in and year out. Until the economic crunch came and credit lines dried up.

The relentless sun hammers down on Jan-Ruay and her colleagues, who, as if in a hypnotic state, cut through cane after cane, nipping off the crown leaves, paring down the yellowish leaves, and when they reach 10 sticks, tying each bunch with two quick knots at the top and bottom.

They have to race against time and their own strength: for every 100 bunches of 10 sticks they are paid 70 baht. This rate is higher than at most plantations, and it's a slight increase over last year.

The brouhaha over sugar prices and allegations of corruption are something for others to worry about. For the cane cutters, their main concerns are simply to watch out for sharp cane blades, or spiky caterpillars which can cause bad rashes, particularly to those suffering from allergies.

"I'm lucky though," boasted Jan-Ruay as she tightened her new 7-baht pair of gloves. "The worst for me would be a mild itchiness. By that time, others may have already developed pus."

Such concerns are far from the mind of Jan-Ruay's boss, sugar cane planter Prasong Nawathampichet, whose crop brings him less and less profit every year.

Despite its image as an easy-to-tend crop, sugar cane in fact demands a vast stock of inputs in order to turn out consistently sweet and juicy yields.

According to Prasong, the list of costs is endless and the bills keep soaring. First, the soil must be ploughed three times (480 baht/rai), then applied with pesticides and "foundation" fertilisers (495 baht/rai), before each shoot can be transplanted (costs for the shoots and labour amount to 1,850 baht/rai).

Unlike tapioca which can be left alone until harvest time, sugar cane needs occasional dabs of herbicides (700 baht/rai including labour), sprinkles of water (requiring fuel oil for water pumps), and "cosmetic" fertilisers (260 baht/rai) to ensure enough sweetness is stored in the greenish stalks.

Harvesting the crop and delivering it to the mill drains the planter's pocket even further (2,080 baht/rai). Miscellaneous items, such as daily transport costs for hired hands and interest on loans add to the expenses.

"The main advantage is the fact that once planted, the crop will give yields for about three years," said Sunant Sutthiprasert who runs a 60-rai sugar cane farm.

But the sugar cane stumps remaining underneath the dry cane leaves tend to give slightly lower yields in subsequent years, ranging from 3-5 tonnes per rai in drought areas, to 5-8 tonnes per rai with moderate rainfall. In comparison, new shoots generally yield from 4 to 10 tonnes per rai.

This year's unusually dry weather, however, has driven down crop yields for both young and old shoots.

"My 600-rai farm has turned out less than 3,000 tonnes of cane. You can imagine how pathetic the average yield is. Even 200 bunches can't make a tonne. Prices for everything have gone up, except sugar cane," sighed Prasong.

This year's figures are lower not only in weight, but more importantly, in the degree of sweetness, known among planters as the CCS value (Commercial Cane Sugar).

The CCS system was introduced in 1992 to replace the gross weight system. Typically, millers will first pay planters according to total weight of the cane, with an extra fee for each point of CCS above the year's base index. Many planters said they don't understand how the ranks are determined.

"The base figure is 10, and each point is worth an additional 30 baht. But the cane at my farm this year was practically bland," Sunant explained.

"I don't know how it happened. Is it drought or excessive use of fertilisers? I have sent in two truck loads so far and both posted a CCS value of 8 only. Last year, the average was about 11," added Prasong, shaking his head.

The sub-standard sweetness signifies that planters may find themselves even deeper in the red as the current offer of 600 baht per tonne for their cane is far below their actual expenses, they claim.

"We don't know how the board comes up with the price. But if that's the final price, small farmers like us can't survive," confided Mongkol, Sunant's husband.

Both Mongkol and Prasong have their eyes on the so-called "October compensation" from the millers. Every year, the Cane and Sugar Board (CSB) will determine the amount of annual net profit after all expenses are deducted from revenue of both domestic sales and exports of sugar, to be shared between planters and millers at a ratio of 70:30.

The bigger the reimbursement, the better. The two planters hope it will at least cover part of their debt. In Sunant's case, she had already spent her 80,000-baht loan by the beginning of this year when the harvesting season had hardly began.

"Our quota head gave us four cheques, each for 20,000 baht. Whenever we're short of money, we 'sell' a cheque to the bank which gives us cash minus interest," Sunant explained the meaning of the check giew lending system prevalent in the sugar cane industry.

According to Mongkol, the difficulty of obtaining loans from the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) contributes to the flourishing of this unofficial credit scheme, wherein interest rates rise according to the number of stages the loans have travelled - from banks to millers to quota heads to small-scale planters.

"The BAAC won't take on new lenders, and existing lenders can't ask for more. I myself owe them 30,000 baht. You need either guarantees or assets to get a loan," Mongkol continued.

Millers deduct repayments for the loans from the estimated value of each delivery of cane. The government has restricted the total number of mills nationwide to 46, and generally planters don't have much choice of the destination for their crops.

"We can't just switch around differnt mills checking for a better price. Unless they move elsewhere, like our original one that relocated to Khon Kaen. Generally they will monitor us regularly," added Sunant.

Delivering cane to be processed into sugar crystals is time consuming both in terms of the distance between the farms and the mill, and the waiting time. Even though the mills operate 24 hours a day during the harvesting season, a typical picture is of mills with their belching chimneys surrounded by lines of trucks brimming with sugar cane. As a rule, the sweetness dwindles 36 hours after the cane has been cut.

"Burnt" cane, however, jumps to the head of the queue. Although detrimental to the fertility of the soil, quite a few planters have resorted to this method as it saves on labour costs and juices up the CCS value.

After all, Mongkol and other small-scale farmers are discovering that growing sugar cane has actually made them poorer.

"The harvest is only once a year, but you have to eat every day. Child birth, medical care, all must be paid for from this 'sugar cane money'," the father of three complained, glancing at a group of workers loading a truck with cane from his farm.

"Unless you have your own truck, by the end of the day, you will find there's nothing much left," Mongkol continued, elaborating that the delivery, usually provided by the quota head, incurs a 10-baht-per-tonne surcharge in addition to normal charges for gasoline and labour.

"Fines or bribes to police officers for exceeding the load limit are another fact of life," added Prasong as two more full trucks leave the farm.

Quietly rolling cheap tobacco in a rice paper cigarette, Jan-Ruay looks out at the fading outline of spindly trees on the horizon as the day slowly dissolves under the shrouds of approaching darkness.

"Before, my husband and I used to make charcoal here. But when the wood was gone, we switched to labouring on sugar cane farms," the mother of two explained.

From a meagre 50 bunches per day, Jan-Ruay gradually sharpened her skills in cutting cane and built up a tolerance for the heat, bugs and blades: "Without courage, you can't do this job."

It is still uncertain how much longer her tenacity will sustain her. A few small-scale farmers in the area have already dropped out of the business. Those who remain, perhaps because of debt, try to trim all possible costs, or set aside a plot of land for other crops, just in case.

"Now I only hire locals. Northeastern workers are too costly. One-way transportation is already 7,000 baht," said Sunant.

However, large plantation owners like Prasong continue to rely on migrant workers, bearing expenses such as brokering fees and deposits, which are sometimes paid a year in advance.

"Few realise how much sugar cane cultivation is helping soften the blow in the labour market, particularly during the economic gloom," he said.

Admitting that a few of his neighbours have already called it quits, Mongkol still does not see himself growing other crops besides sugar cane.

"You know, I basically don't know what else to do. As far as I can remember, I have always been doing it, building expertise in this plant."

There do not seem to be many alternatives for the planters. In fact, the sugar cane price seems to suffer less volatility than other cash crops, at least in theory. Jute and tapioca, once widely promoted, have landed many farmers into bankruptcy.

And perhaps nobody can guide Mongkol, as he leaves the sugar cane labyrinth and heads towards home, where his wife had bought three kilogrammes of white sugar, at 16 baht a kilo.