TDRI proposes disposal of rotten pledged Thai rice

[webfact]

TDRI proposes disposal of rotten pledged rice

BANGKOK, 17 December 2013 (NNT) – The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) has proposed that a new government issue a law requiring warehouse owners to burn rotten pledged rice found in their silos, in order to prevent corruption in the scheme.

The TDRI also pointed out the upcoming government can discard the rice pledging program, but the process must be done gradually, otherwise rice prices would drop sharply.

Mr. Nipon Puapongsakorn, a TDRI honorary member, made the comments at a recent seminar on 'Future of Thai rice in the Global Arena', organized by the Thai Rice Foundation under the Royal Patronage.

He stated that the new government needs to urgently examine the amount of stockpiled rice, saying without the exact figure of rice in store, the country would have to unnecessarily spend higher amount of money on maintenance and face depressed prices for the whole stock. He also said that the lack of reliable pledged rice inspections would likely attract corruption.

Thus, he advised the government to check the stockpiled rice both in lists and in silos, to ensure the accuracy of the data which would be used to formulate an efficient rice clearance plan.


-- NNT 2013-12-17

[otherstuff1957]

So they're admitting that no-one knows how much rice is stored in Thailand? I guess that explains the varying figures of 10 million to 17 million tons that various people mention!

[ratcatcher]

Now Thailand will be hoping to be in the Guiness Book of Records for the largest single dish of Fired Rice in one place at one time.

[MacWalen]

That is not good. A lot of hungry people in the world but here rice is rotting. Mixing terms, populism is not democracy.

[waza]

Thanks Thaksin for a brilliantly conceived, well executed rice scheme that has benefitted all Thais, made the country wealthy and is the envy of all the world.

PS: Satire

Edited December 17, 2013 by waza

[Robby nz]

Who are this outfit anyway, don't they understand the minister has just said it is all going to be sold ?

And whats with this silos business isn't most of it in warehouses?

[gosompoi]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Edited December 17, 2013 by gosompoi

[ratcatcher]

BANGKOK, 17 December 2013 (NNT) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives predicts that Thailand will export 7 million tons of rice next year, while rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

This from the other humorous thread. Export 7 million tons out of god only knows how many million tons already in storage

PLUS "rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

Thailand, drowning in an ocean of rice and millions in the world starving to death. "Well, let 'em die"!

[Local Drunk]

So they're admitting that no-one knows how much rice is stored in Thailand? I guess that explains the varying figures of 10 million to 17 million tons that various people mention!

Yeah something like those numbers. The PTP is sweating their balls to pay off the farmers for all their rice now rotting in storage and the farmers are about to start a new crop.

Define insane? PTP's rice pledging and ex pats who came here to live because it too was was so beguiling at first sight.

[gosompoi]

BANGKOK, 17 December 2013 (NNT) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives predicts that Thailand will export 7 million tons of rice next year, while rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

This from the other humorous thread. Export 7 million tons out of god only knows how many million tons already in storage

PLUS "rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

Thailand, drowning in an ocean of rice and millions in the world starving to death. "Well, let 'em die"!

cras.jpg

Thailand consumes about 20 million tons of rice a year and normally produces before the pledging scheme 28 million tons. How did 10 million extra tons appear? With this math that would mean they are storing 18 million tons a year that the government will have 32 million tons by the end of this years harvest.

Edited December 17, 2013 by gosompoi

[slapout]

The first requirement should be the repayment to the AG bank for the orginal cost, storage, treatment, handling, etc for the bad rice. How does the man deduct that burning will prevent further corruption?

We have already had the Interior Ministery (Chalerm) send police to mills and storage facilities, Commerce Ministry (Naratt) order video recording devices installed, inspection of all storage facilities,, etc, The Finance Ministry (Kittyrat) ordered sampling of rice for quality and the PM (Yingluk) eating a bowl of untainted rice

Where else can Mr. Nipon suggest we look for manpower to inspect the 2900 storage facilities of which 90+_ were already on government blacklist when they were awarded contracts? Some have been reported to already have had fires, floods, and others probably never existed. The man, Mr. Nipon , may be somewhat out of his league in graft busting on this bunch or their elected/appointed replacements

[gosompoi]

The first requirement should be the repayment to the AG bank for the orginal cost, storage, treatment, handling, etc for the bad rice. How does the man deduct that burning will prevent further corruption?

We have already had the Interior Ministery (Chalerm) send police to mills and storage facilities, Commerce Ministry (Naratt) order video recording devices installed, inspection of all storage facilities,, etc, The Finance Ministry (Kittyrat) ordered sampling of rice for quality and the PM (Yingluk) eating a bowl of untainted rice

Where else can Mr. Nipon suggest we look for manpower to inspect the 2900 storage facilities of which 90+_ were already on government blacklist when they were awarded contracts? Some have been reported to already have had fires, floods, and others probably never existed. The man, Mr. Nipon , may be somewhat out of his league in graft busting on this bunch or their elected/appointed replacements

Burning increases corruption. Sell it but claim it was burnt.

[waza]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

So you claim that about 75% of the adult population of Thailand in engaged in rice farming? I think you better check your facts, the government states 6 million are involved in rice farming and 600,000,000,000 baht has been lost so far. What does that do to your assumptions?

Edited December 17, 2013 by waza

[slapout]

BANGKOK, 17 December 2013 (NNT) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives predicts that Thailand will export 7 million tons of rice next year, while rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

This from the other humorous thread. Export 7 million tons out of god only knows how many million tons already in storage

PLUS "rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

Thailand, drowning in an ocean of rice and millions in the world starving to death. "Well, let 'em die"!

cras.jpg

Thailand consumes about 20 million tons of rice a year and normally produces before the pledging scheme 28 million tons. How did 10 million extra tons appear? With this math that would mean they are storing 18 million tons a year that the government will have 32 million tons by the end of this years harvest.

Thai consumption of rice is about 10 million tons/year as per google. Production of rice jumped to 33 million ton/year as per world production figures after the rice scam was brought to reality. Then add rice from outside Thailand finding its way across the border, consignment of paddy being entered multiple times, and various other means of "screwing the system" A book could be written on this scam, and it was not even a good scam by criminal mind code of conduct. It was about as subtle as the 'rape of Nangking'

[Nibbles48]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Who told you there were 30 million people farming rice in Thailand??

Get your facts right.

Also, nobody tells them to farm rice, they choose to do it, who helps the garlic farmer or the palm oil farmer when they discovered they made a boo boo by choosing their preferred crop?

There are literally hundreds of crops that can be farmed and money made without having to take the simple LAZY route of plant and forget, then beg huge returns from the tax payer.

Thaksin and his ill thought out policies has taken Thailand's second largest industry after tourism, and wrecked it by offering out freely the tax payer's money to buy votes. Thailand was the biggest global exporter, and if farmers were not making money, they should not have planted rice, and chosen something else instead. But they just don't want to work hard, so why should anyone care.

Thaksin has ended up shafting them, and prices will fall through the floor when eventually this scam is closed off. Then maybe millions of these farmers will realize and go and plant something that they CAN make money from, especially to cover the huge debts they have incurred when they took out all those loans, credit cards and new cars and homes all riding on 'rice is gonna pay'.

Well.... now we all know that it isn't.

[gosompoi]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

So you claim that about 75% of the adult population of Thailand in engaged in rice farming? I think you better check your facts, the government states 6 million are involved in rice farming and 600,000,000,000 baht has been lost so far. What does that do to your assumptions?

Okay I took as all those from Issan are rice farmers. Where I live everyone in the family goes out to the rice fields to help not just a single person per farm but the whole family even the youngest children. Issan being 20,000,000 people and rice is not only grown in Issan. So my number was high but 6,000,000 is too low. Maybe 6,000,000 farms but there are more farmers than farms.

[gosompoi]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Who told you there were 30 million people farming rice in Thailand??

Get your facts right.

Also, nobody tells them to farm rice, they choose to do it, who helps the garlic farmer or the palm oil farmer when they discovered they made a boo boo by choosing their preferred crop?

There are literally hundreds of crops that can be farmed and money made without having to take the simple LAZY route of plant and forget, then beg huge returns from the tax payer.

Thaksin and his ill thought out policies has taken Thailand's second largest industry after tourism, and wrecked it by offering out freely the tax payer's money to buy votes. Thailand was the biggest global exporter, and if farmers were not making money, they should not have planted rice, and chosen something else instead. But they just don't want to work hard, so why should anyone care.

Thaksin has ended up shafting them, and prices will fall through the floor when eventually this scam is closed off. Then maybe millions of these farmers will realize and go and plant something that they CAN make money from, especially to cover the huge debts they have incurred when they took out all those loans, credit cards and new cars and homes all riding on 'rice is gonna pay'.

Well.... now we all know that it isn't.

30,000,000 or 20,000,000 million Issan families, the point was the total number but what do you think the protest will be like when all the rice farmers have no income. Remember the rubber tappers?

[fab4]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Who told you there were 30 million people farming rice in Thailand??

Get your facts right.

Also, nobody tells them to farm rice, they choose to do it, who helps the garlic farmer or the palm oil farmer when they discovered they made a boo boo by choosing their preferred crop?

There are literally hundreds of crops that can be farmed and money made without having to take the simple LAZY route of plant and forget, then beg huge returns from the tax payer.

Thaksin and his ill thought out policies has taken Thailand's second largest industry after tourism, and wrecked it by offering out freely the tax payer's money to buy votes. Thailand was the biggest global exporter, and if farmers were not making money, they should not have planted rice, and chosen something else instead. But they just don't want to work hard, so why should anyone care.

Thaksin has ended up shafting them, and prices will fall through the floor when eventually this scam is closed off. Then maybe millions of these farmers will realize and go and plant something that they CAN make money from, especially to cover the huge debts they have incurred when they took out all those loans, credit cards and new cars and homes all riding on 'rice is gonna pay'.

Well.... now we all know that it isn't.

"Also, nobody tells them to farm rice, they choose to do it, who helps the garlic farmer or the palm oil farmer when they discovered they made a boo boo by choosing their preferred crop?"

Well in the case of palm oil it was suthep who helped "them" with the manufactured scarcity of such oil, to raise costs of said oil, which helped his family a great deal.

[bigbamboo]

Thanks Thaksin for a brilliantly conceived, well executed rice scheme that has benefitted all Thais, made the country wealthy and is the envy of all the world.

PS: Satire

Not quite up to the standard of that other Chinaman's Great Leap Forward but that's what happens when you have policemen and soldiers playing at socio economics.

BTW, satire is not allowed in Thailand. They have comic sound effects machines for that.

Edited December 17, 2013 by bigbamboo

[Nibbles48]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Who told you there were 30 million people farming rice in Thailand??

Get your facts right.

Also, nobody tells them to farm rice, they choose to do it, who helps the garlic farmer or the palm oil farmer when they discovered they made a boo boo by choosing their preferred crop?

There are literally hundreds of crops that can be farmed and money made without having to take the simple LAZY route of plant and forget, then beg huge returns from the tax payer.

Thaksin and his ill thought out policies has taken Thailand's second largest industry after tourism, and wrecked it by offering out freely the tax payer's money to buy votes. Thailand was the biggest global exporter, and if farmers were not making money, they should not have planted rice, and chosen something else instead. But they just don't want to work hard, so why should anyone care.

Thaksin has ended up shafting them, and prices will fall through the floor when eventually this scam is closed off. Then maybe millions of these farmers will realize and go and plant something that they CAN make money from, especially to cover the huge debts they have incurred when they took out all those loans, credit cards and new cars and homes all riding on 'rice is gonna pay'.

Well.... now we all know that it isn't.

30,000,000 or 20,000,000 million Issan families, the point was the total number but what do you think the protest will be like when all the rice farmers have no income. Remember the rubber tappers?

By capping the system to only a certain amount of tonnes per farm and force them to sell the rest on the open market.

By educating them away from rice planting because it is on the way to becoming the most uneconomical crop in Thailand.

By not pampering them into a cushy existence on the back of a rice scam.

Or we can choose the other route. Continue with the scheme till he country is bankrupt and then have the whole 68 million on the rampage.

But the most sensible is to set aside a separate budget for the entire north and northeast, and pay for their rice scheme out of their own budget, and if that means health and education and all the other infrastructure suffers, then that is their problem. It is time they woke up to the reality of what these policies do to their country.

They choose rice, so they choose their own fate.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Nibbles48

[FangFerang]

What seems particularly crazy to me is that rotten rice, unfit for human consumption, can still be used in a very large number of ways. Even old rice is a valuable material. Burning it is an utter waste and contributes to pollution.

It can be modified to be feed (many animals can eat food that would kill human beings). It can be composted and used as fertilizer. Fuel can be extracted from it (biofuel). It can be dessicated, powdered, and made into paper. Glue can be made from it. Rice bran mixed with resins, a Japanese company discovered, makes a durable and quiet material for building roads.

The list of options is quite long. I know Thais read our posts...maybe one of you could pass this along?

Just because they cannot get full price selling it as a human food does not mean they should leave money on the table and then burn the table, too.

Just a thought from a Science teacher who loves Thailand....

Edited December 17, 2013 by FangFerang

[steveromagnino]

Okay I took as all those from Issan are rice farmers. Where I live everyone in the family goes out to the rice fields to help not just a single person per farm but the whole family even the youngest children. Issan being 20,000,000 people and rice is not only grown in Issan. So my number was high but 6,000,000 is too low. Maybe 6,000,000 farms but there are more farmers than farms.

Actually, for your information more Thai workers are working in the service/manufacturing sector than agriculture, for around about 5 years now. but anyhow, looking at the issues of your analysis you have:

1. mistaken Isaan is 21-22m not 30m (since corrected)

2. You have counted every single child/retiree as a rice farmer including people age 1 and 90

3. You have assumed that every single Isaan farmer is a rice farmer and ignored sugar farmers, rubber tappers, cassava, pineapple, fruits, tobacco, etc as well as pig, dairy, beef, chicken farmers

4. You have ignored the people living in the cities who have zero connection to the farming industry and do not 'go out into the rice fields' but are working as teachers, business people, waiters, cooks, students, prostitutes, etc etc

5. You have ignored the massive number of Isaan workers who are not involved in any form of agriculture, but in fact do something productive for Thailand in manufacturing/service industry/transport

2011 Thai labour survey by numbers with approx. 39m total who are able to work (i.e. excluding children, seniors, monks, longterm unemployed, handicapped):

Manufacturing 13.6%

Wholesale and Retail Trade 15.5%

Transport, Storage and communication 2.6%

Agricuture 38.2%

Construction and Mining 6.1%

Other services 24.0%

Using this statistic, you could ascertain that around 38.2% of the total workforce of 39m is in agriculture i.e. approx. 16m total, and of 16m in agriculture, we can ascertain that as high as 50% and as low as 40% are rice farmers, so around 6-7m TOTAL.

http://web.nso.go.th/en/survey/data_survey/560205_LFS+Table_Dec55_Eng.pdf

now your personal observations may contradict this - if you have other data, let's discuss but leave out the 'in my village' since it is probably not statistically relevant.

What you are suggesting is that the approx. 32m workers outside of the rice industry, should willingly give up their own entitlements to education, roads, infrastructure, healthcare, lower taxes....so that 7m rice farmers can grow a crop which can then be left to rot. There is only so much money to be spent....if we spend 400b baht a year on rice pledging, that's money that could have paid for something else. A nice new aircraft carrier perhaps, buying Liverpool football team and renaming them the Liverpoo, or perhaps a decent education system and reduced taxes which would actually empower and create genuine sustainable competitive advantage for Thailand. A truly novel idea, so novel that you could write a, er, novel about it and call it something like "Competitive Advantage of Nations" and pay someone 1m dollars to come and talk to Thailand about it, except they only talk about Thailand for 2 hours to the media, and the rest of the time they can tell you how to cash out of your monopoly telecoms business most profitably. For instance.

While you may feel this is a reasonable burden for the 31m majority to support a sizeable 7m minority (and in fact the reality it is more like 6m tax payers mostly from Bangkok who pay most of this cost to support the rice farmers), some of us here in Bangkok who pay 1m - 2m in income tax per year (30%+ of our personal incomes) feel that our money should be better spent. Some of us have the education to comment on this based on understanding of economics and drivers for economic growth. Some of us just prefer to pontificate and pretend we know what we are talking about by writing lots of words and actually knowing nothing, I like to count myself in this category.

While some of us do not claim a right to say how government money should be spent, it would seem illogical and foolhardy to encourage rice farmers to do a non sustainable business when at some point the budget will be exhausted and we will be unable to keep subsidising them to do something so worthless to the world - wasting precious water and resources just to have the rice stored and rotting. Instead, it would be better to have a price floor, so they would not be growing rice at a loss, guaranteed, and that would be fairer since the benefit would be based on 'insurance concept' and would not be nonsensical for the country to have such a policy since the aim of such a policy is to protect against a 'bad year' rather than ongoing subsidies which are just passed on to the rest of us with higher taxes and rice prices. In fact the country used to have this policy in 2010/11, but naturally like most good ideas, it was replaced with a really, really stupid idea which ONLY applies to rice farmers - if you farm another crop you are out of luck.

Some of us have substantial problems with the idea that encouraging more and more people to grow low grade rice longterm will be very bad for the country's rice industry competitiveness, and this feeling is shared by the rice traders and almost every industry expert. Some of us feel that encouraging people to stop growing other crops and only growing rice due to the economic market distortion will create a stockpile of rice so large that Thailand's only hope will be to employ expensive consultants of a Milo Minderblinder nature, who can sell off rotten rice as a variety of products, all for the good of the 'syndicate' that we are all part of, at least when it comes to paying for the costs. Some of us feel, with the bottom of our hearts, that rice farming is a tough career choice with low pay....but it is still a LOT easier than many other career choices because much of the year is spent not actually working....why should the majority of us who work 6 days a week have to carry these rice farmers only, and yet not support any other crops? Why should we be supporting them through this distortion in the market at all?

With starving people in the world, the whole policy becomes even more abhorrent.

I say this, coming from an illiterate family of rice farmers 2 generations ago - social mobility begins with the right signals in the market place. We know traditional small scale rice farming is a dying industry - the people who are young are going to do other things (mostly manufacturing and service industry) - that's a fact and trying to prolong the slow death using these subsidies is merely creating a bigger cliff for the families involved to fall off eventually...when the government runs out of money (supposedly already happening) because they failed to ever plan on how to run such a dodgy scheme in the first place.

The reality that most of the subsidies are not reaching the rice farmers in the form of higher profits anyhow, suggests the scheme was a dog with fleas to begin with.

Edited December 17, 2013 by steveromagnino

[rubl]

"The TDRI also pointed out the upcoming government can discard the rice pledging program, but the process must be done gradually, otherwise rice prices would drop sharply."

Well export prices seem to have dropped to try to sell some at least, but prices in Thailand haven't changed at all.

[Sunderland]

BANGKOK, 17 December 2013 (NNT) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives predicts that Thailand will export 7 million tons of rice next year, while rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

This from the other humorous thread. Export 7 million tons out of god only knows how many million tons already in storage

PLUS "rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

Thailand, drowning in an ocean of rice and millions in the world starving to death. "Well, let 'em die"!

cras.jpg

Thailand consumes about 20 million tons of rice a year and normally produces before the pledging scheme 28 million tons. How did 10 million extra tons appear? With this math that would mean they are storing 18 million tons a year that the government will have 32 million tons by the end of this years harvest.

20 million tonnes? Wow! If there were 70 million Thais, each person would have to eat 285 kg of rice per year. Not far short of a kilo of rice per day once you take into account the young and the elderly. That's a lot of rice for the 'average' person to eat.

[JRSoul]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Aside from the absurd numbers, the basic concept of supporting people because they are putting a great deal of effort into growing something of little value is equally stupid. But you are correct that when the subsidies stop there will be pain and civil unrest. Now, who should we blame for giving those people unrealistic expectations that their uneconomic industry is sustainable?

[backtonormal]

BANGKOK, 17 December 2013 (NNT) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives predicts that Thailand will export 7 million tons of rice next year, while rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

This from the other humorous thread. Export 7 million tons out of god only knows how many million tons already in storage

PLUS "rice production in the country will be as high as 38 million tons.

Thailand, drowning in an ocean of rice and millions in the world starving to death. "Well, let 'em die"!

cras.jpg

Thailand consumes about 20 million tons of rice a year and normally produces before the pledging scheme 28 million tons. How did 10 million extra tons appear? With this math that would mean they are storing 18 million tons a year that the government will have 32 million tons by the end of this years harvest.

Thai consumption of rice is about 10 million tons/year as per google. Production of rice jumped to 33 million ton/year as per world production figures after the rice scam was brought to reality. Then add rice from outside Thailand finding its way across the border, consignment of paddy being entered multiple times, and various other means of "screwing the system" A book could be written on this scam, and it was not even a good scam by criminal mind code of conduct. It was about as subtle as the 'rape of Nangking'

Links to evidence of rice scam

[JRSoul]

Links to evidence of rice scam

Links to evidence of normality?

[selftaopath]

Shame the same fate could not be rendered to rotten POLITICIANS/POLICE.

[moe666]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Who told you there were 30 million people farming rice in Thailand??

Get your facts right.

Also, nobody tells them to farm rice, they choose to do it, who helps the garlic farmer or the palm oil farmer when they discovered they made a boo boo by choosing their preferred crop?

There are literally hundreds of crops that can be farmed and money made without having to take the simple LAZY route of plant and forget, then beg huge returns from the tax payer.

Thaksin and his ill thought out policies has taken Thailand's second largest industry after tourism, and wrecked it by offering out freely the tax payer's money to buy votes. Thailand was the biggest global exporter, and if farmers were not making money, they should not have planted rice, and chosen something else instead. But they just don't want to work hard, so why should anyone care.

Thaksin has ended up shafting them, and prices will fall through the floor when eventually this scam is closed off. Then maybe millions of these farmers will realize and go and plant something that they CAN make money from, especially to cover the huge debts they have incurred when they took out all those loans, credit cards and new cars and homes all riding on 'rice is gonna pay'.

Well.... now we all know that it isn't.

Here we go with the lazy Thai bit again, what is it with you people

[Thai at Heart]

Better the government lose a few billion on a pledging scheme than 30 million rice farmers lose money on each harvest. Imagine if there were 30 plus million rice farmers protesting losing money on each crop. It costs them more to grow rice than the farmers would make without government buying it. Lets think again, 30 million farmers with no income for two years just loses from growing rice. They would protest in mass and burn the country to the ground.

Aside from the absurd numbers, the basic concept of supporting people because they are putting a great deal of effort into growing something of little value is equally stupid. But you are correct that when the subsidies stop there will be pain and civil unrest. Now, who should we blame for giving those people unrealistic expectations that their uneconomic industry is sustainable?

They would almost be better off to take a whole village and tell them they couldn't grow more than a certain volume as a village in return for every adult in the village receiving a monthly wage.

Job done. Everyone is fed. Volume is set.