00:00The sun hangs low over Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
00:04It's there, beneath a thick blanket of smog.
00:08Tourists are learning to avoid the kingdom's second largest city
00:11between the months of January and April, the infamous burning season.
00:16But for residents, the hazardous haze has been unavoidable.
00:22It's suffocating. It feels like we're trapped in the smoke constantly because I'm at the market.
00:27In an open space like this, if someone is physically weak, they could easily faint.
00:33Burning season is named for an age-old agricultural practice.
00:38On farms across Thailand, after a harvest, plant matter is left to dry in the fields
00:43and then set a fire to make way for the next planting season.
00:47It's officially banned, but with little enforcement, most farmers still turn to what they've always known.
00:52Smoke from the fields and increasingly frequent wildfires combine with industrial pollution choking millions across Thailand.
01:01Doctors there see an uptick in respiratory illnesses and share their patients' anxieties.
01:08I'm worried this pollution directly causes respiratory disease.
01:12It affects everyone because these toxins and heavy metals enter the body directly.
01:17It causes damage to your body in the long term.
01:20And in the short term, it ruins your breathing and causes heavy phlegm.
01:25Farmers burn crop stubble because the tough straw takes too long to naturally decompose.
01:30But now, science offers another way.
01:33Professor Weijian Yong Manichai is a microbiologist and founder of Soil Digest.
01:39The company sells a bacterial formula that gets right to work breaking down plant matter.
01:44And with the natural fermentation in the field, it takes around 30 days to soften the rice straw and stubble.
01:52Soft enough for the farmer to use a small machinery to work in the field.
01:57But when you use Soil Digest, the farmer needs only seven days, five to seven days,
02:02to get that softened rice straw and stubble so that they can prepare the land easily.
02:09The microbes are mixed into water the way a baker prepares yeast for bread making.
02:14It can then be sprayed on the fields by hand or other means.
02:19Farmers who try the product say it improves soil quality.
02:24In the long run, this is definitely the way to go.
02:27If we stop burning, we're actually prepping the field.
02:30The soil gets better and we can cut down on the fertilizer costs down the road.
02:34People may only see the extra cost of the microbes, but they should look in the long run.
02:38Once the soil heals, we won't need nearly as much fertilizer.
02:43The microbial mix has been adopted by a few thousand farmers so far.
02:47Changing old ways is hard, but with government support and incentives,
02:51soil digest and other bacterial solutions may soon find wider use.
02:56Farmers like Siripan Thaidi might never take up the torch again.
03:02My life changed because I didn't want to throw money away every season.
03:06The microbial agent is a game changer.
03:09We just applied once and the job is done.
03:12Back in Chiang Mai, locals don masks and brave the haze.
03:16The smoke drifting over from burning crop residues is just one part of the air quality equation.
03:22But with the tide slowly turning towards cleaner farming practices, there may be brighter days ahead.
03:28Chris Ma and Jonathan Kaplan for Taiwan Plus.
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