Seventh suicide attributed to lack of rice-pledging payments

[webfact]

Seventh suicide attributed to lack of rice-pledging payments
Thanissara Chaowalitroj
The Nation

The government's rice-pledging scheme has driven seven farmers to suicide this year.

BANGKOK: -- The latest victim, Boonma Sa-thong-uan, hanged herself in Kamphaeng Phet yesterday morning. Recently, she had suffered severe stress over the fact that the scheme had not paid her family any money for months, despite taking her paddy last October.

The repeatedly postponed payments left her unable to repay her debts, including those incurred to cover her living expenses.

"She told me she bought stuff from local shops on credit to the point where she dared not open any more credit lines," village head Somjit Klinsorn said yesterday.

Boonma, 42, leaves her husband, farmer Chalerm Sa-thong-uan, 45.

Now under huge stress himself, he lamented that all his family's problems arose from the government's rice-pledging scheme.

Another farmer, Buaphin Toopklom, 47, said the rice-pledging scheme now owed her Bt390,000.

"My family is now in financial trouble. We have debts to repay," she said.


-- The Nation 2014-02-12

[animatic]

As usual, in Thailands kow tow history, the elites screw the little people.

But this time it's the LEGENDARY FRIEND of the little people VISIBLY doing the screwing.

It's been going on all long like that, but not in a way the poor were able to see,

now like a redheaded step child in a dark haired family, it's there on full display for all too see.

Who's your daddy? It ain't that Kuhn T.

Edited February 12, 2014 by animatic

[noikrit]

I do hope this Government reads these things ..... Very Sad indeed ....

[OMGImInPattaya]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

[EricBerg]

It's an outrage how the farmers are being treated. In another article Yingluck says the goverment is not broke. Pushing poor hardworking farmers over the edge is of no importance to her and her lot. No empathy at all.

This time the rats MUST go to prison.

Edited February 12, 2014 by EricBerg

[Bluespunk]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

That's it. Well done. Blame the victims.

[animatic]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

The problem is in the past, when financial times were better, they were told the same thing and they got paid.

The government Ponzi Scheme could still work. But as with ALL Ponzi Schemes someone gets screwed in the end.

So they believed it, This time it has gone tits up, as it always was expected to do in the eyes of

people who understood the whole scheme in relation to the current situation.

So the ones who were hoodwinked are getting it in the neck.

Edited February 12, 2014 by animatic

[noikrit]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

Sadly they where still "infactuated" with their Emporer being beamed live via Skype to the Red Shirt stage filling them with all the populist BS so they could be elected and continue to drain the trough ..... Now they are being forgotten .... Oh unless of course you come from Chan Mai or another " strong hold" of the Reds ...... Condolences to this Farming Family ....

[worgeordie]

No sympathy,No money,No explanations from the peoples Government,

its about time the people woke up and smelt the coffee,their leaders are

only interested in power and ways to enrich themselves,and don't give a

flying F@#k to the plight of the farmers,maybe the big boss whose great

idea this was to try and corner the world rice market,should now open his

very fat wallet and help the people and the country he claims to love so

much.

regards Worgeordie

[LuckyLew]

Congratulations Yingluck .. your incompetence is responsible for these 7 deaths.

Are you tying to catch up to your brother?

IMO should be arrested and jailed for the 7 deaths

[ETatBKK]

very sad story . . . grass root who trust and rely their life on the government, commit suicide because the government bring them down.

for those who get benefits from the rice scheme, you know where your money from.

[Artisi]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

That's it. Well done. Blame the victims.

+1

Yes many lack formal education including rational and logical thinking, but unfortunately believed the utter bullshit they were given. If you were in their shoes, in many case subsistent farmers and you were given this wonderful spiel from "the government" who are there to look after the people of Thailand - why would you perceive that anything was other as presented, I doubt it.

The blame is squarely at the feet of the YL government, dress it up, spin it as much as you like, blame everyone else but this doesn't change the facts in anyway.

[skills32]

Someone should lay charges of murder of murder so that YL and co really understand what they have done.

[pedro01]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

That's the thing about economics....

If you guarantee a high price of the end product, then more people will want to produce it and the costs of production will increase. Land rents and other cost rises made it more expensive to produce the rice.

So farmers really didn't have any choice but to join in my opinion.

[OMGImInPattaya]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

That's it. Well done. Blame the victims.

I'm with the farmers and feel bad that they have been used and abused by politicians of all persuasions for decades. In this particular case, I blame whoever in the PTP thought up and green-lighted such a hair-brained scheme as this rice program to begin with. I don't blame the farmers for grasping at it; but anyone with even a modest grasp of economics (and I don't expect Thai rice farmers to have this) would know such a program is unsustainable. Especially for an abundant agricultural product like rice. Rich developed countries like the US, Japan, and the EU can afford to distort their agricultural markets to the benefit of favored farmer voting blocs (and even for them it causes enormous financial strain on the governments and has deleterious effect on the overall economy) but to think a relatively poor country like Thailand could do the same was just folly from the start. Edited February 12, 2014 by OMGImInPattaya

[h90]

I do hope this Government reads these things ..... Very Sad indeed ....

What would the Shinawatra care?

[h90]

Tragic. More blood on Suthep's hands. His vindictive efforts to block these payments will come back to haunt him

Suthep blocks the payments over half a year?

Suthep blocks the sale of rice for 2 years?

Suthep caused a big minus on the budget so there is no money to use.

Amazing what Suthep can do.....

[noikrit]

I do hope this Government reads these things ..... Very Sad indeed ....

What would the Shinawatra care?

Yes you are right . .. If they did care, someting would have been done a long time ago ....

[BlueNoseCodger]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

The problem is in the past, when financial times were better, they were told the same thing and they got paid.

The government Ponzi Scheme could still work. But as with ALL Ponzi Schemes someone gets screwed in the end.

So they believed it, This time it has gone tits up, as it always was expected to do in the eyes of

people who understood the whole scheme in relation to the current situation.

So the ones who were hoodwinked are getting it in the neck.

It's not a ponzi scheme, it's a rice subsidy and a rice reserve. With floods and shortages in other places, you need a rice reserve and you need to keep farmers farming so we're not dependant on imports.

Edited February 12, 2014 by BlueNoseCodger

[MMarlow]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

Don't denigrate the farmers so much, without the benefit of hindsight, which even you do not have, they were not being naive at all given their circumstances. They were not just believing in some kind of nefarious "scheme", they were accepting, quite reasonably at the time, that the government of their country that was offering them a better price for their produce would pay them.

[chainarong]

It's an outrage how the farmers are being treated. In another article Yingluck says the goverment is not broke. Pushing poor hardworking farmers over the edge is of no importance to her and her lot. No empathy at all.

This time the rats MUST go to prison.

Not a well thought out scheme, at best a scam , if it is to good to be true it generally is, the PTP have a bad habit of mouthing off, but never doing anything ,that's what gives me the Shi!!ts about them and the good Thai people let them get away with it.

[webfact]

Farmer hangs herself

Another farmer in Klong Larn district of Kamphaengpet province hanged herself yesterday after suffering extreme distress for having no money to pay overdue loan. She was refused payment for her rice pledged under the government’s rice-pledging scheme for months.

The farmer was identified as Mrs Boonma Srathong-uan, 42.

According to her husband Chalerm, 45, his wife hanged herself at a tamarine tree. He said he woke up early in the morning to go the rice field but could not find his wife. He then walked along the path to the field and found she hanged herself to the tree with her neckerchief.

He immediately called the village headman and the police.

He recalled then his wife always complained of her 40,000 baht debt which she borrowed from the village fund as investment to continue planting paddy. She said that the loan has overdue but still could not find cash to repay it.

He said her only cash from the previous crop of more than 100,000 baht to be derived from the rice-pledging scheme at the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperative’s Klong Lan branch was also unpaid and put off several times.

He said this cash was the money which her wife expected to get and repay the village fund.

She was extremely in distress and decided to commit suicide, he said.

Doctor at Klong Lan hospital said the victim had been dead for over three hours before arriving at hospital.

Mrs Boonma was said to be the eight farmer to commit suicide from the failed rice-pledging scheme of the government which could not pay farmers on schedule, this prompting many of them to resort to loan sharks which fixed at least 10% lending rate per month.

So far seven farmers in Ratchaburi, Phichit, Roi Et, Si Sa Khet, Sukhothai, and Buriram have committed suicide from severe depression after rice payments were not paid.

Some victims had bought pickup truck, farm tractor and fertilizers to do farming. But after payment was defaulted, they could not pay car companies for the farm tractors, trucks which they bought on hire-purchase. Some firms even threatened to seize their vehicles, thus putting them in extreme distress and decided to end their lives.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/farmer-hangs/


-- Thai PBS 2014-02-12

[AleG]

As usual, in Thailands kow tow history, the elites screw the little people.

But this time it's the LEGENDARY FRIEND of the little people VISIBLY doing the screwing.

It's been going on all long like that, but not in a way the poor were able to see,

now like a redheaded step child in a dark haired family, it's there on full display for all too see.

Who's your daddy? It ain't that Kuhn T.

A message from Thaksin to the rice farmers:

[than]

And Yingluck do nothing for farmer, let us in distress because she neglected then....

She must be pursue for murder

[AleG]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

That's it. Well done. Blame the victims.

+1

Yes many lack formal education including rational and logical thinking, but unfortunately believed the utter bullshit they were given. If you were in their shoes, in many case subsistent farmers and you were given this wonderful spiel from "the government" who are there to look after the people of Thailand - why would you perceive that anything was other as presented, I doubt it.

The blame is squarely at the feet of the YL government, dress it up, spin it as much as you like, blame everyone else but this doesn't change the facts in anyway.

A quibble, farmers at subsistence level, the poorest of the poorest and the most in need of assistance didn't get a single satang from this scheme. Only farmers that sold surplus rice to the government through mills did... up to some point at least.

[ratcatcher]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

The problem is in the past, when financial times were better, they were told the same thing and they got paid.

The government Ponzi Scheme could still work. But as with ALL Ponzi Schemes someone gets screwed in the end.

So they believed it, This time it has gone tits up, as it always was expected to do in the eyes of

people who understood the whole scheme in relation to the current situation.

So the ones who were hoodwinked are getting it in the neck.

It's not a ponzi scheme, it's a rice subsidy and a rice reserve. With floods and shortages in other places, you need a rice reserve and you need to keep farmers farming so we're not dependant on imports.

Just how much rice do you think Thailand needs in storage to cover floods and shortages. Rice, unlike fine wine and some women, does not get better with age.

Thailand has never been nor ever will be dependent on imports of rice.

Basically, they can't sell the damned stuff and will be hard pressed to pay the farmers.

[animatic]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

The problem is in the past, when financial times were better, they were told the same thing and they got paid.

The government Ponzi Scheme could still work. But as with ALL Ponzi Schemes someone gets screwed in the end.

So they believed it, This time it has gone tits up, as it always was expected to do in the eyes of

people who understood the whole scheme in relation to the current situation.

So the ones who were hoodwinked are getting it in the neck.

It's not a ponzi scheme, it's a rice subsidy and a rice reserve. With floods and shortages in other places, you need a rice reserve and you need to keep farmers farming so we're not dependant on imports.

...Keep telling yourself that,

Then at least one person might believe it.

There was no need of a rice reserve with a surplus every year.

Subsidy yes, but far beyond the possibility of making it continuous and sustainable,

and then taking money's from new rice investors to pay off the last ones is a Ponzi Scheme.

You can try and fudge the wording all you want,

but if it looks and quacks like a duck, it will never be anything but a duck.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Skywalker69]

As usual, in Thailands kow tow history, the elites screw the little people.

But this time it's the LEGENDARY FRIEND of the little people VISIBLY doing the screwing.

It's been going on all long like that, but not in a way the poor were able to see,

now like a redheaded step child in a dark haired family, it's there on full display for all too see.

Who's your daddy? It ain't that Kuhn T.

A message from Thaksin to the rice farmers:

A stage full of monkeys!!!

[Scamper]

The personal, daily, tragic stories behind the rice scheme are heart-breaking. They are the consequence of what the administration has done. They are the end result. This is beyond politics. It is a question of morality.

[Artisi]

I know many farmers lack much formal education but to believe in a scheme that offered to pay them 50% more than the market price for their rice was ever going to be more than a scam was being naive in the extreme. They should have just sold their rice to the brokers at the market price at harvest time.

The problem is in the past, when financial times were better, they were told the same thing and they got paid.

The government Ponzi Scheme could still work. But as with ALL Ponzi Schemes someone gets screwed in the end.

So they believed it, This time it has gone tits up, as it always was expected to do in the eyes of

people who understood the whole scheme in relation to the current situation.

So the ones who were hoodwinked are getting it in the neck.

It's not a ponzi scheme, it's a rice subsidy and a rice reserve. With floods and shortages in other places, you need a rice reserve and you need to keep farmers farming so we're not dependant on imports.

Just how much rice do you think Thailand needs in storage to cover floods and shortages. Rice, unlike fine wine and some women, does not get better with age.

Thailand has never been nor ever will be dependent on imports of rice.

Basically, they can't sell the damned stuff and will be hard pressed to pay the farmers.

Have looked at your signature many many times and always thought there was something wrong with it, the penny finally dropped to day, the word caddie is misspelt - it should be spelt cur.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Artisi