Agricultural prices high on agenda of new minister

[webfact]

Agricultural prices high on agenda of new minister

By The Nation

 

 

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chalermchai Sri-orn will assign key responsibilities to officials in the ministry in the next two days, with focus on boosting the prices of agricultural goods such as rubber.

 

A survey by ruling coalition partner Democrat Party on the production and price of agricultural products found that the price of rubber has seen a sharp decline.

 

The ministry has not taken action yet, as it is waiting for the incoming government to first announce its policies.

 

“The price of rubber price has dropped considerably and this issue needs to be taken care of,” he said.

 

The party already has plans to support farmers. However the 2019 government budget, which has not been released yet, could pose challenges, he said.

He urged the Agriculture and Cooperatives, Commerce and Finance ministries to work together to address these issues in the upcoming months.

 

The issue of drop in agricultural prices and drought should be considered national agenda, said deputy minister Thamanas Phrongphao, attributing the problem of prices to the role of middlemen.

 

Chalermchai will oversee the Office of the Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Office of Agricultural Economics, Royal Irrigation Department, Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation and the Rubber Authority of Thailand.

 

Thamanas is expected to take care of the Office of Agricultural Land Reform, Department of Fisheries, Marketing Organisation for Farmers and the Rice Department.

 

The other deputy minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Prapat Phothasuthan, is expected to oversee the Department of Agricultural Extension and the Department of Livestock Development.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30372808

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-07-12

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[khwaibah]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

drought should be considered national agenda, said deputy minister Thamanas Phrongphao,

 

No government pass or present has every given a rats arss about this especially for all of isaan. BS words being spoken as usual.

[cmsally]

With the strength of the Baht I would imagine raising the prices would be near impossible !!

[tutsiwarrior]

someone please explain how the international market price for rubber will be affected by a pronouncement by a wienie thai cabinet minister...

 

 

 

[Lenny Jones]

Do not worry.  His sidekick has got lots of experience selling agricultural products.  It landed him in an Aussie jail for 3 months then immediate deportation back to Thailand.  In Australia jail does not come as a first offense.  You have to earn your stay there with a track record.

[geistfunke]

The Thai Baht will destroy everything in this country and the point of no return is near if not already reality.

[expatfromwyoming]

Just empty platitudes from people who care not. 

[expatfromwyoming]

Perhaps the strong baht is more to do with the weakness of the US$. If Trump were impeached tomorrow, I am betting the dollar would rise dramatically.

On the strong baht you are not hearing too much complaining from the powers that be-A higher Baht means extracting more 'value' from the declining Tourists coming here and that prized Mercedes or Rolex is cheaper.

[londonthai]

democrats will take care of rubber prices, because the south is their voters in the next general election.

 

bhumjaithai is pushing marihuana legalisation, now it's on government agenda, because it was their condition to join the coalition. Licences for growing and processing will be given to friends or for bribes to the ministers of agriculture (deputy being a drug dealer and self-confessed mafia member). There is big money to be made, so they promoted legalisation and asked for ministry of agriculture.

Edited July 12, 2019 by londonthai

[cmsally]

3 hours ago, geistfunke said:

The Thai Baht will destroy everything in this country and the point of no return is near if not already reality.

Presumably the strong Baht is good for those that want to take it out of the country. So maybe the country will be "milked" over the next couple of years.

[Srikcir]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

attributing the problem of prices to the role of middlemen.

With regard to exports that might be true. However, in the case of exports the problem isn't how the rubber is sold but Thailand exports too much rubber. Even when the government decided to cut its rubber exports together with Indonesia and Malaysia for four-month period earlier this year, it delayed its own cuts blaming the election due in May. The Thai government didn't specify why the election was delaying the cuts.

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1091483-thailand%C2%A0expected-to-delay-start-of-cuts-in-rubber-exports-due-to-election/?utm_source=newsletter-20190326-0614&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news 

With regard to domestic prices, I don't think that it was any longer true that there is a problem of middlemen as it applies to domestic rubber sales. Prayut and the NLA have agreed that farmers in general can make direct sales by themselves, or in the case of rubber farmers to sell directly to various Thai government agencies.

 

The real problem has been that rubber farmers say they need upwards of a 30% profit margin for a sustaining income and would only happen when prices reach 80-90baht/kg (compare to market price of 120 baht/kg in 2011!).  https://www.nationthailand.com/national/30249655               

• While Prayut has subsidized domestic rubber prices, stockpiled 100,000-200,000 tons of rubber, and subsidized production costs to shore up a domestic price as high as about 61 baht/kg, he rejected any higher price supports because the government does not have the money to do so and its is against the government's policy. (2016-01-07) englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/pm-rejects-rubber-farmers-demand-for-price-subsidy/ 
• The government further rejected subsidizing rubber prices at 50-60 baht/kg. englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/maj-gen-sansern-says-government-has-no-money-to-subsidize-rubber-price

Now global market prices are even lower and that puts price pressures on domestic sales. I don't see many options for government solutions other than substantially reducing the cost of production, ie., consolidating small land owners into larger operations for better economy of scale, reducing the amount of rubber production and more mechanization to reduce number of workers.

• Prayut seemed in 2016 to understand the larger problem: "The Prime Minister has stated the issue of rubber pricing must be solved within the entire rubber manufacturing industry" ... "low rubber price is an issue that requires an integrated effort to solve, starting from the purchase of fresh rubber to processing." https://globalrubbermarkets.com/39942/rubber-industry-must-be-entirely-revamped-pm-prayut-says.html

But what has followed through to today is a repeat of the old tried and failed "solutions." No industry revamp. No change in Prayut's Cabinet with regard to his Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs.

[overherebc]

Here's an idea no-one has thought of before.

Government buys all the rubber and stores it warehouses for years, tell everyone it's the best rubber in the world and all the other countries will be lining up to buy it no matter how expensive it is.

Good idea eh ??

[Eric Loh]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

A survey by ruling coalition partner Democrat Party on the production and price of agricultural products found that the price of rubber has seen a sharp decline.

Likely first sign of bias serving their own constituent needs. Dem and rubber farmers being focused while rice and others farmers probably come come in second. 

[oldrunner]

The poor Thai can't afford vegetable products and they rightfully blame their so-called leaders.