Why do farmers need credit cards?? Surely the governments rice pledging scheme has made them all rich enough to meet their overheads?

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store"

Rubl, GNP or GNI is rapidly becoming a questionable measure, my point is that funding is poured into agriculture all over the world, and you guys appear to have your noses out of joint because farmers may get a helping hand, so what if they do not pay it back, neither are the direct subsidies in Europe 'paid back'. Apologies if you cannot make the connection, but then I recall most on here are against a reasonable 300 baht a day wage too!

Over the last ten years off and on farmers here were 'targetted' with price pledging and debt moratoriums and by now they're deeper in debt than ever. THB 260 billion on rice price fixing since 2011-10-07 and farmers still need a handout? Unpaid bills who cares? What is done in Europe doesn't matter a single iota in Thailand, the seemingly unstructured throwing away taxpayersxmoney here in Thailand is.

As for the 300 Baht/day that's another topic. Still if you like IMHO people are not perse against the 300b/d, but against the sudden increase which is only partial, not enforced and has led to inflationary pressure diminishing the increase. Same with rice prices. From 2011-09-19

"The government says that Thailand has been subsidising global consumers for years, that the new policy will raise prices to a more realistic level and the scheme will impose, or reimpose, a system that actually requires farmers to grow rice to receive their subsidy."

http://thailand-business-news.com/news/31610-rice-scheme-debate-populist-demagoguery-or-helping-the-poorest

When I look at my extended family up in Isaan and how much each if the aunts' and uncles' families own and spend, I think that they must exist on somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000 per month. They have the fields producing rice, tapioca or sugar cane for income and keep rice back if they grow it. There are the ugly but very tasty gai baans for food, vegetable patches and fruit trees. Trips to the market for occasional pork or buffalo but most likely for veggies.

To extend a tool of debt of 5 years income to them when they have never had the discipline of managing debt has unknown dangers which I hope never materialise.

Far better would be farming machinery, water management and education in better farming to bring the villages ahead. But keeping them poor and in debt seems to be the order of the day

When I look at my extended family up in Isaan and how much each if the aunts' and uncles' families own and spend, I think that they must exist on somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000 per month. They have the fields producing rice, tapioca or sugar cane for income and keep rice back if they grow it. There are the ugly but very tasty gai baans for food, vegetable patches and fruit trees. Trips to the market for occasional pork or buffalo but most likely for veggies.

To extend a tool of debt of 5 years income to them when they have never had the discipline of managing debt has unknown dangers which I hope never materialise.

Far better would be farming machinery, water management and education in better farming to bring the villages ahead. But keeping them poor and in debt seems to be the order of the day

I agree, increasing the debt burdon of the farmers isnt helping them, it would have been better to provide subsidies on fertilisers, seed grain ect or the supply of coin operated milling machines.

Isn't this like offering a drowning man a glass of water? Pulling the middlemen into line would do more good I'm thinking.