Efficient Farm Subsidies

[somo]

Just been reading a thread in the news section

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/735353-ncpo-may-offer-rice-farmers-subsidy-of-bt1700-per-rai-in-three-way-meet-today/

Seems to me the people here would have an insight into what is needed without getting into the politics of the thing.

Many nations subsidies their farmers and I feel Thailand should also as so many of their citizens are involved in farming and are poor. The problem is how to deliver help efficiently and encourage people to stay in the villages producing food. All schemes tried so far seem to have been corrupted and achieved very little so my question is do farmers here have any good ideas as to how help can be delivered to farmers.

One idea that occurs to me is to strongly subsidize the price of fertilizer both chemical and organic. That way no cash is being handed out/stolen but farmers will make more profit.

Ideas please.

[cdmtdm]

i disagree with any subsidy in any country for agriculture .... in this country if they invested in infrastructure to supply water via canals ( as an example) to farms, then they will not be dependent purely on one crop per year ... forget building better roads and bridges for 5 years and invest in the real heart of the kingdom ..Farming!! the chemical companies must be rolling around on the floor in fits after being asked to lower the price .....never going to happen !! provide the farmers with long term sustainable solutions , follow the Kings plan for agriculture in this country and it will take care of itself ..... i think removing the fatcat middlemen should be the first step ...

[jumbo]

i disagree with any subsidy in any country for agriculture .... in this country if they invested in infrastructure to supply water via canals ( as an example) to farms, then they will not be dependent purely on one crop per year ... forget building better roads and bridges for 5 years and invest in the real heart of the kingdom ..Farming!! the chemical companies must be rolling around on the floor in fits after being asked to lower the price .....never going to happen !! provide the farmers with long term sustainable solutions , follow the Kings plan for agriculture in this country and it will take care of itself ..... i think removing the fatcat middlemen should be the first step ...

Not much investment needed to get that done, prisoners enough at hand to do the digging....

Thailand also has unemployment allowance, another group that can work for pay...

farmers have nothing to do better part of the year, let them invest in their own future by putting some back into it

[Issangeorge]

<

i disagree with any subsidy in any country for agriculture .... in this country if they invested in infrastructure to supply water via canals ( as an example) to farms, then they will not be dependent purely on one crop per year ... forget building better roads and bridges for 5 years and invest in the real heart of the kingdom ..Farming!! the chemical companies must be rolling around on the floor in fits after being asked to lower the price .....never going to happen !! provide the farmers with long term sustainable solutions , follow the Kings plan for agriculture in this country and it will take care of itself ..... i think removing the fatcat middlemen should be the first step ...

The problem with your solution is you need a water supply to irrigate. Our area has a pretty good irrigation system and a large portion of the rice paddies are under irrigation, however the last two years the reservoir that feeds the irrigation system has been quite low and there has only been enough water to flood the fields for the July rice planting. There has been no water to plant a second crop of any sort.

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[somo]

i disagree with any subsidy in any country for agriculture .... in this country if they invested in infrastructure to supply water via canals ( as an example) to farms, then they will not be dependent purely on one crop per year ... forget building better roads and bridges for 5 years and invest in the real heart of the kingdom ..Farming!! the chemical companies must be rolling around on the floor in fits after being asked to lower the price .....never going to happen !! provide the farmers with long term sustainable solutions , follow the Kings plan for agriculture in this country and it will take care of itself ..... i think removing the fatcat middlemen should be the first step ...

You can disagree but the fact is subsidies are a part of life in most countries (over 50 billion Euro/year in the EU and more in the USA) so telling Thai farmers to sink or swim is not a very helpful. Without help they will sink! Jumbo sounds like a nutcase right wing US radio host so can safely ignore him.

I am not suggesting fertilizer companies take a hit and cut prices but that the government subsidise say 50% of the price. There would be no money transfers involved at lower levels so no corruption there. Harvests would rise and farmers make a better living. Money well spent and no one skimming. There may be a case for limiting the benefit to those with say 50 rai or less but that is a technicality easily overcome.

I agree that gov. should invest in infrastructure and that is essential but also long term. Help is also needed short term.

[cdmtdm]

<

i disagree with any subsidy in any country for agriculture .... in this country if they invested in infrastructure to supply water via canals ( as an example) to farms, then they will not be dependent purely on one crop per year ... forget building better roads and bridges for 5 years and invest in the real heart of the kingdom ..Farming!! the chemical companies must be rolling around on the floor in fits after being asked to lower the price .....never going to happen !! provide the farmers with long term sustainable solutions , follow the Kings plan for agriculture in this country and it will take care of itself ..... i think removing the fatcat middlemen should be the first step ...

The problem with your solution is you need a water supply to irrigate. Our area has a pretty good irrigation system and a large portion of the rice paddies are under irrigation, however the last two years the reservoir that feeds the irrigation system has been quite low and there has only been enough water to flood the fields for the July rice planting. There has been no water to plant a second crop of any sort.

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i am sure the solution to that is available, it just takes a govt with longterm vision, to allocate money and rectify it via better infrastructure

[cdmtdm]

i disagree with any subsidy in any country for agriculture .... in this country if they invested in infrastructure to supply water via canals ( as an example) to farms, then they will not be dependent purely on one crop per year ... forget building better roads and bridges for 5 years and invest in the real heart of the kingdom ..Farming!! the chemical companies must be rolling around on the floor in fits after being asked to lower the price .....never going to happen !! provide the farmers with long term sustainable solutions , follow the Kings plan for agriculture in this country and it will take care of itself ..... i think removing the fatcat middlemen should be the first step ...

You can disagree but the fact is subsidies are a part of life in most countries (over 50 billion Euro/year in the EU and more in the USA) so telling Thai farmers to sink or swim is not a very helpful. Without help they will sink! Jumbo sounds like a nutcase right wing US radio host so can safely ignore him.

I am not suggesting fertilizer companies take a hit and cut prices but that the government subsidise say 50% of the price. There would be no money transfers involved at lower levels so no corruption there. Harvests would rise and farmers make a better living. Money well spent and no one skimming. There may be a case for limiting the benefit to those with say 50 rai or less but that is a technicality easily overcome.

I agree that gov. should invest in infrastructure and that is essential but also long term. Help is also needed short term.

just allocating subsidies to fertilizers does not make a long term solution , having more irrigated land to be able to rotate crops is a long term solution ... so short term pain will see long term gain ... the only people getting fat out of farm subsidies are the Chem companies , they are driving commodity prices ....

[Jotham79]

Under Thaksin, several reservoirs were built in my area and some of the roads (and the one to my farm) were improved. After Yingluck took over irrigation ditches have been constructed and power was run most of the way from the main road to my farm. They don't supply year round water, but enough for a second crop. The farmers don't seem to be doing that bad and that carries on to the whole agriculture sector. This is one or the reasons that Thaksin and Yingluck enjoy a certain amount of support. I think the farmers in my area figure he is corrupt, but so are all the others and at least they get a little something out of it. This isn't meant as an endorsement, just shedding some light on the benefits of infrastructure.

[billd766]

Under Thaksin, several reservoirs were built in my area and some of the roads (and the one to my farm) were improved. After Yingluck took over irrigation ditches have been constructed and power was run most of the way from the main road to my farm. They don't supply year round water, but enough for a second crop. The farmers don't seem to be doing that bad and that carries on to the whole agriculture sector. This is one or the reasons that Thaksin and Yingluck enjoy a certain amount of support. I think the farmers in my area figure he is corrupt, but so are all the others and at least they get a little something out of it. This isn't meant as an endorsement, just shedding some light on the benefits of infrastructure.

Where I live in rural Thailand the government water supply runs out completely for one or two months a year and that means NO water at all. The local amphur uses the 15,000 litre fire engine to deliver water to the houses where it is stored in 1,500 litre concrete ongs for normal use. It doesn't get used for farming 2 rice crops per year as around here there is only the single crop. The klong across the road from us is now about 1.5 metres wide ans 25 cm deep. The nearest river is the Ping and is about 40 km away.

However the province was not always in favour of Thaksin/Yingluck/ and the TRT/PPP/PTP and so did not "benefit" to the same extent as some of the North or Isaan provinces.

[Issangeorge]

Under Thaksin, several reservoirs were built in my area and some of the roads (and the one to my farm) were improved. After Yingluck took over irrigation ditches have been constructed and power was run most of the way from the main road to my farm. They don't supply year round water, but enough for a second crop. The farmers don't seem to be doing that bad and that carries on to the whole agriculture sector. This is one or the reasons that Thaksin and Yingluck enjoy a certain amount of support. I think the farmers in my area figure he is corrupt, but so are all the others and at least they get a little something out of it. This isn't meant as an endorsement, just shedding some light on the benefits of infrastructure.

I'm not saying this happened, but Thaksin took over just after the 1997 constitution came into effect. Under that constitution local governments got money for local development (nothing to do with Thaksin, but his political machine took full advantage of the situation and made it seem that he was doing this). A lot of the local reservoirs were financed by local TAOs and PAOs which came about because of the 1997 constitution, because Thaksin came to power just as these organizations were coming into being a lot of people gave him credit for them, when in fact he had nothing to do with them and tried to limit their budgets.

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[cooked]

Our main problem is a lack of water also. Two harvests a year? We only get one. My wife tells me that there were once two years in succession without sufficient rain, so no income, everybody went to Bangkok (which is why so many ladies from Buriram.... oh, never mind) to work and quite a few didn't come back.

Going a bit further, I am all for projects that help communities and am not really in favour of subsidies that are aimed at individual farmers. Better roads, waste disposal, water, maybe diesel costs, fair markets, cheap loans.... hard working farmers profit the most from such measures, subsidising individuals leads to corruption and favouritism.

[Thai at Heart]

At the end of it they shouldn't chase to subsidise export of rice. Its nuts.

Grow what u need and pay the farmers a good price. Finished

[Jotham79]

Under Thaksin, several reservoirs were built in my area and some of the roads (and the one to my farm) were improved. After Yingluck took over irrigation ditches have been constructed and power was run most of the way from the main road to my farm. They don't supply year round water, but enough for a second crop. The farmers don't seem to be doing that bad and that carries on to the whole agriculture sector. This is one or the reasons that Thaksin and Yingluck enjoy a certain amount of support. I think the farmers in my area figure he is corrupt, but so are all the others and at least they get a little something out of it. This isn't meant as an endorsement, just shedding some light on the benefits of infrastructure.

I'm not saying this happened, but Thaksin took over just after the 1997 constitution came into effect. Under that constitution local governments got money for local development (nothing to do with Thaksin, but his political machine took full advantage of the situation and made it seem that he was doing this). A lot of the local reservoirs were financed by local TAOs and PAOs which came about because of the 1997 constitution, because Thaksin came to power just as these organizations were coming into being a lot of people gave him credit for them, when in fact he had nothing to do with them and tried to limit their budgets.

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Maybe it was just a coincidence, but there was a lot of money spent on roads, reservoirs, power lines.....ect in our area under Thaksin then almost none at all until Yingluck. It will be interesting to see what happens the next few years. One thing is for certain and that is reservoirs, power lines and roads really help a lot of the farmers and in turn all the auxiliary businesses.

On a different note there are folks around that provide seed and fertilizer up front if you sign up to have them combine your crop. If there is a markup on this stuff I haven't found it yet. They do get 700 baht a rai to pick it and they haul it away to the buyer and we get the advertised rate. I'll try to find out more this time as I will be home when they pick.

[Issangeorge]

In my area right after Yingluck was elected, I'm talking days, they started work on a local road. There is no way the road had anything to do with Yingluck or the central government, it was a Tao road, but it would not surprise me if the Tao held back construction until Yingluck got in so she would get the credit. In our area a lot of people believed that any work that was being done was being paid for by Thaksin, he had/has a fantastic propaganda machine in the North East.

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