Activist defends rice venture as 'just making a living'

[Lite Beer]

Activist Sombat suspends packed rice sale

BANGKOK: -- Activist Sombat Boonngamanong, editor of online Laijud magazine, announced on his Facebook wall Saturday that he decided to stop selling his 5-kilogramme packs of Laijud brand jasmine rice for a while to upgrade his product quality.

He made the announcement after the junta has threatened actions against him, regarding his rice sell as a political ploy. Somsak has sold the packed rice apparently to prove that the government could buy rice from farmers at the rate of Bt15,000 per tonne.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Activist-sombat-suspends-packed-rice-sale-30258277.html

-- The Nation 2015-04-19

[Anthony5]

Looks like he didn't consider the offer for a free holiday in a attitude adjustment summer camp.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Anthony5

[issanaus]

I hope he was not selling rice from the Yingluck stockpile - cause he would need to upgrade his product

[SABloke]

"Somsak has sold the packed rice apparently to prove that the government could buy rice from farmers at the rate of Bt15,000 per tonne."

Well this kind of fuels the "political" debate of his venture doesn't it? Also, Sombat, is not very transparent in how he tried to prove his point: He says to his followers. "You see, I can buy rice for 15000 so the government can to!". He ''forgets" to mention, however, that he then retails the rice himself (somethign which is possible on a small scale, but the government sells wholesale) So unlesss the government retails all the rice it buys (let's open 1000 government supermarkets to make this possible) he's comparing apples to pears. He also "forgets" to mention that the rice he was paying 15000 for was not necessarily the same grade that the government was paying for. So if he wants to really prove his point, he must buy the rice for 15000 and then try sell it to a distributer/retailer - how succesful do we think that would be?

[2fishin2]

Who cares if it political or not? Its his money and as long as what he is doing isnt criminal and within laws then why in he hell would a PM of any country care? Arent there more pressing issue for a "leader" to be worried about? This country is a <deleted> joke! Now the junta is going to invoke 44 on him.

[issanaus]

"Somsak has sold the packed rice apparently to prove that the government could buy rice from farmers at the rate of Bt15,000 per tonne."

Well this kind of fuels the "political" debate of his venture doesn't it? Also, Sombat, is not very transparent in how he tried to prove his point: He says to his followers. "You see, I can buy rice for 15000 so the government can to!". He ''forgets" to mention, however, that he then retails the rice himself (somethign which is possible on a small scale, but the government sells wholesale) So unlesss the government retails all the rice it buys (let's open 1000 government supermarkets to make this possible) he's comparing apples to pears. He also "forgets" to mention that the rice he was paying 15000 for was not necessarily the same grade that the government was paying for. So if he wants to really prove his point, he must buy the rice for 15000 and then try sell it to a distributer/retailer - how succesful do we think that would be?

I guess that you are trying to be nice or you would have mentioned exports and international market; cost of transportation, storage and administration ......

But lets put all of that to one side and assume that he proved that it was possible to run the scheme at Bt15000 / tonne - in which case why did it lose so much taxpayers money?

[CWMcMurray]

I can see why this man is a threat. He has a social conscious; something the current regime hasn’t displayed. He is aware and mindful of the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. His deeds as listed below are honourable, unless he has a very dark side to him. Support for a political party may not count?

Sombat also sounds as though he could run and get into parliament in a high position.

Sombat Boonngamanong and a group of his friends formed the ‘Mirror Arts Foundation’ in 1991, he established an NGO – the ‘Mirror Foundation’ in 1999. Its first office was opened at Ban Huey Khom, a set of villages in Thailand’s northern province of Chiang Rai.

Through this foundation and his team of volunteers, began helping the rural hill tribe communities in areas of citizenship, drug abuse, forced labour, sexual exploitation of women and children, education, and promotion of civil rights. His first project was of designing a new educational system that would address the local needs of the rural communities which had little or no access to formal education.

He subsequently used the internet to gather around 100 volunteer teachers, doctors, nurses, and engineers etc. to teach the poor tribal children. Sombat also dealt with one of the biggest crisis of rural Thailand: Poverty. For this, he channelled the women towards handicrafts making activities and these were then marketed locally and again due to internet-internationally.

Sombat’s project to help street children and combat trafficking dealt with creating awareness amongst the public about child trafficking and beggar operations.

Another project led by Sombat, was the setting up of tsunami volunteer centre (2004) through which volunteers helped the victims in repairing and building houses, clearing rubbish, running English language camps for children, training villagers in small scale jobs such as making furniture and other crafts.

The Mirror Foundation employs full time and part time volunteers and has received funding from various institutions like International Labour Organization, Asia and Rockefeller foundations, the Singapore International Foundation, Samsung, Save the Children and Microsoft.

These types of deeds warm my heart. People doing this type of work are real saints. And for this the General wants to send him to Goal, remove his wealth?

Sounds like a right bastard....

I'm not generally a fan of the Reds , but the above are good things...

Also don't have a problem with what he is doing with the rice....

As just proves that their is no reason for the government to be involved in the rice business...as the private sector can come up with a far better solution

No losses, everyone making money... No corruption...

[Thai at Heart]

Amazing that buying rice like this is enough to get a headline. Much sensitive are we?

[Srikcir]

To the Junta-led it is a political statement to make a profit and it is political statement to make a loss. No wonder the Junta's economic policies have failed the nation.

[Chant Forever]

If the current relation with the U.S. gets worse, we may even see the political motivated sales of Chicken McNuggets and french fries banned.

Was this sourced from not the nation ?

[kennw]

If the guy was sincere he would just sell his rice and not try to make a political point about it because his argument is so flawed. Sure you can sell small quantities to local markets but that is not the problem Thailand faces with it's huge deteorating stocks, he should not try to mislead the poor farmers they have already been subjected too much of that.

[metisdead]

An inflammatory baiting post has been removed.

[kimamey]

I can see why this man is a threat. He has a social conscious; something the current regime hasnt displayed. He is aware and mindful of the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. His deeds as listed below are honourable, unless he has a very dark side to him. Support for a political party may not count?

Sombat also sounds as though he could run and get into parliament in a high position.

Sombat Boonngamanong and a group of his friends formed the Mirror Arts Foundation in 1991, he established an NGO the Mirror Foundation in 1999. Its first office was opened at Ban Huey Khom, a set of villages in Thailands northern province of Chiang Rai.

Through this foundation and his team of volunteers, began helping the rural hill tribe communities in areas of citizenship, drug abuse, forced labour, sexual exploitation of women and children, education, and promotion of civil rights. His first project was of designing a new educational system that would address the local needs of the rural communities which had little or no access to formal education.

He subsequently used the internet to gather around 100 volunteer teachers, doctors, nurses, and engineers etc. to teach the poor tribal children. Sombat also dealt with one of the biggest crisis of rural Thailand: Poverty. For this, he channelled the women towards handicrafts making activities and these were then marketed locally and again due to internet-internationally.

Sombats project to help street children and combat trafficking dealt with creating awareness amongst the public about child trafficking and beggar operations.

Another project led by Sombat, was the setting up of tsunami volunteer centre (2004) through which volunteers helped the victims in repairing and building houses, clearing rubbish, running English language camps for children, training villagers in small scale jobs such as making furniture and other crafts.

The Mirror Foundation employs full time and part time volunteers and has received funding from various institutions like International Labour Organization, Asia and Rockefeller foundations, the Singapore International Foundation, Samsung, Save the Children and Microsoft.

These types of deeds warm my heart. People doing this type of work are real saints. And for this the General wants to send him to Goal, remove his wealth?

Seems a pretty good guy.

Leaving aside the ethics of it for a moment if the next election can be run without any participation from the Shinawatra family, the PTP, or whatever takes its place will have to think for itself and hopefully the more genuine people will stand a chance of making a difference to the lives of normal people without getting drawn into more narrow concerns. I've always said there must be some decent moderate Thais in there somewhere. Of you could find similar people in other parties as well then things could get better.

Whatever the long term prospects for this enterprise this would appear to be the type of person the PM should be encouraging.

[Gunna]

Some simple maths shows this is just a stunt

Jasmine/Hom mali for export sells at around US$1,000 per tonne, = 31,000bt

Sombats rice sales 200 x 5 kg bags @ 200 = 40,000bt

This guy is making 8% selling locally = 3,200bt

so his net cost = 36,800bt

And he has very little in the way of transport, storage and marketing costs.

But if he had to export this rice which is what happens to millions of tons of it he would be losing at least 5,800bt per tonne

Multiply this by a few million tons and and he will have lost many Billions of baht

Now you can see why PTP economic idiots can never be in charge of selling rice ever again

[kimamey]

Some simple maths shows this is just a stunt

Jasmine/Hom mali for export sells at around US$1,000 per tonne, = 31,000bt

Sombats rice sales 200 x 5 kg bags @ 200 = 40,000bt

This guy is making 8% selling locally = 3,200bt

so his net cost = 36,800bt

And he has very little in the way of transport, storage and marketing costs.

But if he had to export this rice which is what happens to millions of tons of it he would be losing at least 5,800bt per tonne

Multiply this by a few million tons and and he will have lost many Billions of baht

Now you can see why PTP economic idiots can never be in charge of selling rice ever again

One big difference between what he's doing and what the last government wanted to do is that he's selling his rice. The idea behind the rice scheme was that they didn't sell it but stored it at great cost hoping the price would rise. Also he's buying rice he needs to match what he's selling rather than taking whatever can be grown which encourages more rice to be grown that isn't needed..

[smileydude]

From one vantage point it can be said that the military are nit picking or bullying people who disagree with them.

From another it can be seen as a strategy to contain and control regardless of public opinion.

Its pretty obvious that Sombat is not just trying to make a living but instead trying to send a message that buying rice at a price higher then the market rates is fine as long as your helping farmers. He equates farmers = poor but the problem with that logic is not all farmers are poor nor are all poor farmers so while you may be getting the popularity votes you want from this policy your not really solving the problem of income disparity.

The rice pledging scheme was undeniably an economic disaster for the country.

If you want to help the poor and lessen the income gap between the haves and have-nots most economies rely on mechanisms such as minimizing jobless rates and increasing minimum wages and/or the median household income. Problem is Thailand is still what the WEF Global Competitive Index calls a group 3 country that relies heavily on labor intensive manufacturing where investors would just leave in droves if we say bumped wages to 360/day. We are not a group 5 country where R&D has pushed us to be highly innovative to the point that high minimum wages can be justified.

Sombat may have good intentions towards the underpriveleged and the poor but he needs to do his homework and come up with more economically sustainable ideas instead of such simple minded activism.

Edited April 20, 2015 by smileydude