Government told to quickly come to farmers’ rescue

[snoop1130]

Government told to quickly come to farmers’ rescue

 

 

Former Democrat MP Warong Detkitpirom urged the government to quickly come to the rescue of rice farmers who are now suffering from sharp drop in rice prices.

 

The whistle-blower who exposed the alleged massive corruption in Yingluck government’s rice pledging scheme suggested the government to pay the rice farmers the difference between the selling rice price and the cost price to solve their liquidity problem as the top priority.

 

Dr Warong said he was confident that the handouts by the government this time would not provoke public protests if the money has actually reached the needy farmers.

 

He said the handouts must be followed by medium-term measures to be worked out quickly so they can be implemented without much delay. One of the measures, he suggested, is for farmers not to sell their paddies directly to the millers but that they must form into groups and mill the paddies themselves and sell milled rice with the government helping by instructing all governmental agencies and organizations to buy milled rice from farmer groups or farmer cooperatives.

 

Full Story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/government-told-to-quickly-come-to-farmers-rescue/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2016-10-28

[ratcatcher]

There's nothing Warong with that idea is there?  Has this been tried before? Give it a go!

[jadee]

A similar story is in the Bangkok Post right now, farmers are selling up as they are selling rice paddy for less than their break-even price. Selling up is the right thing to do. Government help just prolongs this process and delays the inevitable. As many people said back in 2011, Yingluck's scheme should have been directed towards helping farmers diversify and improve efficiency. If the government does help again, it should be directed towards those ends.  

[worgeordie]

The retail price of Rice is still very expensive,wonder when the price

will fall,if ever.the Farmers may not be making any profit,but someone is.

regards Worgeordie

[maoro2013]

10 hours ago, worgeordie said:

The retail price of Rice is still very expensive,wonder when the price

will fall,if ever.the Farmers may not be making any profit,but someone is.

regards Worgeordie

Well the rich middlemen are not missing out.

[Brer Fox]

But wait! Government help is already coming. Only the other day some government nerdy backroom boffin declared that corn was to be the salvation of rice growers and they could make buckets of money by planting it. He had the proof as his heavily fertilized, insectisized and watered trial plot provided proof to his claim. 

Mr Somchai Charnnarongkul predicted  "yields of 900-1,000 kgs per rai which is translated into 2,000-4,000 baht profit per rai".

Just wait till the government introduces the sugar tax and then watch as another primary production sector is destroyed.

 

 

[chainarong]

11 hours ago, jadee said:

A similar story is in the Bangkok Post right now, farmers are selling up as they are selling rice paddy for less than their break-even price. Selling up is the right thing to do. Government help just prolongs this process and delays the inevitable. As many people said back in 2011, Yingluck's scheme should have been directed towards helping farmers diversify and improve efficiency. If the government does help again, it should be directed towards those ends.  

Your Idea is very sound and  should be put to the parliament,  err sorry there is no parliament...............................

[chainarong]

11 hours ago, worgeordie said:

The retail price of Rice is still very expensive,wonder when the price

will fall,if ever.the Farmers may not be making any profit,but someone is.

regards Worgeordie

I think that maybe a world wide problem worgeordie,  the dairy farmers  in West Oz are dropping their milk into the drains and contracts canceled , in East Oz  there is a shortage, it seems to be the producer of any product from land in any part of the world, always get's it in the rear.

[chainarong]

If rice farmers are selling up it will end up in tears, to diversify an industry  is a timely project and would take a decade for something to happen, not putting too fine a line on the subject , if the Junta had paid more attention to the plight of the  rice farmers instead of blindly going after Former Elected Prime Minister Yingluck  and others they may have been in a better position than now, bearing in mind , the Junta has had two half years to do something , well done.................................................

[Srikcir]

50 minutes ago, Brer Fox said:

Government help is already coming.

Thailand will temporarily stop holding state rice auctions to avoid oversupplying the market ahead of the annual crop harvest in November, the country's rice committee said on Wednesday.

http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFL3N1BQ28H  

 

 

[yellowboat]

12 hours ago, jadee said:

A similar story is in the Bangkok Post right now, farmers are selling up as they are selling rice paddy for less than their break-even price. Selling up is the right thing to do. Government help just prolongs this process and delays the inevitable. As many people said back in 2011, Yingluck's scheme should have been directed towards helping farmers diversify and improve efficiency. If the government does help again, it should be directed towards those ends.  

Diversification does seem to be lacking.  Was told by a cake shop that all their flower was imported.  Asked why it could not be bought locally, the reply was "Thais grow rice". 

[RichardColeman]

Potatoes up 25% my local Big C - change crop ! 

[KhaoNiaw]

37 minutes ago, chainarong said:

If rice farmers are selling up it will end up in tears, to diversify an industry  is a timely project and would take a decade for something to happen, not putting too fine a line on the subject , if the Junta had paid more attention to the plight of the  rice farmers instead of blindly going after Former Elected Prime Minister Yingluck  and others they may have been in a better position than now, bearing in mind , the Junta has had two half years to do something , well done.................................................

 

True and the same can be said for any government, military or civilian, over the last three decades. Occasional lip service to land reform, diversifying and development of more efficient methods...But then nothing beyond the handouts, loans and bailouts.  It's one of the problems holding the country back and one that nobody has ever seriously tried or had the will to resolve.

[silent]

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

Diversification does seem to be lacking.  Was told by a cake shop that all their flower was imported.  Asked why it could not be bought locally, the reply was "Thais grow rice". 

Maybe they should have ago at wheat

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/why-so-many-farmers-miss-the-wheat-board/article21810531/

[robblok]

2 hours ago, Srikcir said:

Thailand will temporarily stop holding state rice auctions to avoid oversupplying the market ahead of the annual crop harvest in November, the country's rice committee said on Wednesday.

http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFL3N1BQ28H  

 

 

There would be no oversupply and prices would be higher if not for...............

 

Well done YL besides spending loads of money you killed the farmers too. Everything got more expensive when the rice program started.. the money ended up with the middle men.. not the farmers and now the price is low they have not cut those higher prices. 

 

It was so predictable one of the side effects of the program. 

 

As I said in an other topic... cooperatives were the way to go.. it works good in other countries.

[Grubster]

15 hours ago, jadee said:

A similar story is in the Bangkok Post right now, farmers are selling up as they are selling rice paddy for less than their break-even price. Selling up is the right thing to do. Government help just prolongs this process and delays the inevitable. As many people said back in 2011, Yingluck's scheme should have been directed towards helping farmers diversify and improve efficiency. If the government does help again, it should be directed towards those ends.  

Perhaps you weren't here when farmers were encouraged to plant rubber trees, and palm oil nut trees, leading into that disaster. Have you some miracle crop in mind? It looks to me like diversify means losing the farm and migrating to the city slums to work minimum wage jobs. While other countries are helping their farmers, this one seems to care less.

[Srikcir]

3 hours ago, robblok said:

cooperatives were the way to go

It makes no difference if the selling price can't make a profit.

If the government is going to subsidize the profit in order for farmers to increase the oversupply, might as well just make direct cash payments to the farmers for the profit margin as Prayut and Abhisit have done and not sell rice. Call it a welfare grant.

[robblok]

12 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

It makes no difference if the selling price can't make a profit.

If the government is going to subsidize the profit in order for farmers to increase the oversupply, might as well just make direct cash payments to the farmers for the profit margin as Prayut and Abhisit have done and not sell rice. Call it a welfare grant.

 

Direct payments to the farmers are of course 10 times better than the rice program. I agree there. But given that rice is still quite expensive and the middleman is taking the cut a cooperative would take care of that and give the farmers more of the cut instead of the traders. 

 

But if rice is not viable long term.. just quit growing it. No need for a government to subsidize a thing that never can make a profit. 

 

But you skilfully avoided the negatives i mentioned of the rice scam.. in the end land rent.. fertilizer and all became more expensive and the farmers got a smaller cut. Gone was the rice program but the prices of those things stayed the same.. all thanks to the well thought out program of YL. 

[scorecard]

19 hours ago, jadee said:

A similar story is in the Bangkok Post right now, farmers are selling up as they are selling rice paddy for less than their break-even price. Selling up is the right thing to do. Government help just prolongs this process and delays the inevitable. As many people said back in 2011, Yingluck's scheme should have been directed towards helping farmers diversify and improve efficiency. If the government does help again, it should be directed towards those ends.  

 

Further:

 

- IMHO properly constructed subsidies to ensure that food prices to the general public are reasonable is good policy.

 

- On the other hand the industry urgently needs major reconstruction to help small scale farmers get into another income scenario and therefore create big modern low cost farms, but of course always very wary of the big guys trampling all over the small guys.

 

- Plus, the small farmers (and more) have become so used to handouts they now believe they have a right to more handouts and more freebies. At the same time in many cases their business knowledge is close to zero and they believe the gov't / any gov't can just print more money. A long way to go. 

[Eric Loh]

21 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

There's nothing Warong with that idea is there?  Has this been tried before? Give it a go!

 

Unfortunately the Warong's idea is just band-aid and just a temporary or short-term relief. The problem is structural and would need a paradigm shift of enormous magnitude to solve this perennial problem. We may be seeing the last generation of rice farmers as the next generation is not keen to follow their parent hardship foot-steps. Farm lands are shinking as farmers give up or sell their land for development to golf courses or mo baan. The classes for agriculture subjects at Kasesart U are getting lesser students. Perhaps in the future, rice farms will be owned by big foreign corporations who can invest in mechanization and technology. The once proud land owner farmers may end up working for these corporations. That will be sad but if the government don't have the fortitude to solve the problems, maybe that will be better solution. 

[Jonmarleesco]

Perhaps time to retrain many of the farmers instead of handing them yet more public money.

[Jonmarleesco]

10 hours ago, yellowboat said:

Diversification does seem to be lacking.  Was told by a cake shop that all their flower was imported.  Asked why it could not be bought locally, the reply was "Thais grow rice". 

The flour too, no doubt.

[Jonmarleesco]

10 hours ago, chainarong said:

If rice farmers are selling up it will end up in tears, to diversify an industry  is a timely project and would take a decade for something to happen, not putting too fine a line on the subject , if the Junta had paid more attention to the plight of the  rice farmers instead of blindly going after Former Elected Prime Minister Yingluck  and others they may have been in a better position than now, bearing in mind , the Junta has had two half years to do something , well done.................................................

And numerous governments before have had even longer. You can't blame this on the junta, alone.

[jerojero]

Yes! Farmers, you have been told the solution! Form groups by yourselves and mill your own rice. No matter none of you know a darn thing about running a mill, nor how the H. you are supposed to buy or build one. Now, get milling! Because the government is instructing agencies to buy your milled rice. And the Government, this government, is always right! Now see....aren't you so happy now, farmers. What a great government!

[Srikcir]

10 hours ago, Jonmarleesco said:

"Thais grow rice"

Remember what Prayut said in October 2014?

"We should preserver Thai culture of eating rice instead of teaching Thais to eat bread ... I would like to promote Thais to eat rice and would like the entire global populations to eat rice,"

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/767364-prayut-says-thais-should-prefer-rice-over-bread/?page=1

 

Now Prayut blames rice farmers for following his inspiration.