PM tasks Cabinet with asking public to delay rice farming due to water shortage

BANGKOK, 16 June 2015 (NNT) – Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed all officials at the Cabinet meeting to help tackle the drought crisis and seek public cooperation in postponing the planting of in-season crops.

Deputy Government Spokesperson Maj Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd reported the results of the weekly Cabinet meeting, saying Prime Minister Prayut emphasized to his subordinates that although the rainy season has arrived, Thailand is still faced with severe drought conditions in many areas.

He pointed out that the amount of water reserves is now critically low since little rain has occurred above the dams while farmers also failed to heed the government’s suggestion against the cultivation off-season crops during the dry season.

Therefore, the premier assigned all units to establish coordination with the governor of each province in order to create an understanding with local agriculturists regarding the severity of the situation and encourage them to delay their in-season planting.

Prime Minister Prayut also recommended the use of groundwater to alleviate the drought crisis, adding that the rate of usage must not exceed 60 percent of the existing reserves in order to not affect the ground surface.


-- NNT 2015-06-16

Do these requests involve financial incentives, or more intangible incentives?

Rice farmers hope the Junta will crackdown on planting rice now by giving them more subsidies. Thus far they have gotten subsidies for

- land ownership

- equipment purchases

- fertilizers

- mill discounts

- low interest loans w/o collateral

Once an opponent of populist policies who wanted a constitutional ban on them, Prayut now believes that there can be "good" populist policies and "bad" populist policies. Coincidentally, all his populist policies are considered "good."

Judging from the prices achieved at the recent auction, there is no point in planting rice anyway, but it is just SO traditional. The water excuse avoids the issue nicely. And people are so happy -----

If is far cheaper to sit the season out than to invest in all it takes to put in a crop and have it fail for lack of water. The weather will greatly be affected by the return and strengthening of El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event. Dallas got more than 47.5 cm and completely broke a 7 year drought in just the month of May. The same El Nino causes Thailand to be dryer than usual. This El Nino is expected to last into 2016. Now would be a good time to look at alternatives to rice. Haven't a lot of Thai gone to work in the gardens of Israel, over the years, and learned their methods of farming a dry region?

.