I heard some time ago that rice was being smuggled in from Cambodia, bought by Thai rice farmers in bulk at the market price, and then sold to the Government as part of the scheme, thereby providing an instant profit to the farmer.

No mention of this in the article.

Piss-up in a brewery comes to mind. The architects of any subsidy scheme should have the checks and balances in place to ensure it is administered properly.

It looks to me as though the rice pledging scheme was planned by a 9 year old with no thought about process control whatsoever.

Not really. Smugling Rice into Thailand has a long tradition and Thai governments seem to have always turned a blind eye to it for decades. It may well have suited the Thai goverment to ignore rice smuggling in the past as the volumes were just 25% to 30% of the current tonnage that was 2011-2012 production year.

I don't get the analogy. Taking coal to Newcastle is a better way to describe Taking a girlfriend to Pattaya.

Yeeah, THAT's the ticket

I think anyone doing that would be charged corkage.

Funny and appropriate.