Farmers battered by Thailand floods find golden upside

BANG SAPHAN, Thailand — Nature regularly taunts the farmers of Thailand by flooding their fields, but this time she’s tossed some of them a potential safety net: the chance to pan for gold.

Crops in Bang Saphan district, a rural community 150 miles south of Bangkok, were decimated by heavy flooding that affected much of southern Thailand in the week after New Year’s.

Villagers’ opportunity to eke out a meager living diminished further when the waters destroyed a local market.

“It is local knowledge that has been passed down through generations that whenever there is a flood and the waters have receded, locals will go searching for gold,” said Boonyarit Daengraksa, deputy chief of Ron Thong sub-district, through which the canal runs.

Villagers can use this money to support themselves during this time of crisis, said Kritsada Muadnoi, a gold buyer and adviser to the local government.

Local villager Yuang Padthong, 67, said that she earned around 2,000 baht ($57) a month cultivating coconuts, but since her crop and the local market had been destroyed, she was trying her hand in gold panning.

[...] community leaders want to trade on the area’s golden reputation to develop it as a tourist site.