Rice Tumbling as Thailand’s Unpaid Farmers Urge Reserve Sale

Thai rice farmer Pakasit Jamjaras usually spends his days tilling soil, just like his forefathers. Now he’s been harvesting signatures instead of grain, with a petition to King Bhumibol Adulyadej because the government hasn’t paid for his crop in five months.

“We are heavily indebted,” Pakasit, a 47-year-old father of three, said by telephone from Phichit province, about 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Bangkok. “We need to repay suppliers of fertilizers and others.”