FTA fund for shallot farmers
The Free Trade Agreement Fund has recently approved a Bt160-million budget to help shallot farmers cope with tougher competition under trade liberalisation.
Surasak Riangkrul, deputy director-|general of the Commerce Ministry’s Foreign Trade Department, said yesterday that |the scheme was part of the government’s measures to help support agricultural production and ensure competitiveness for Thai farmers.
The move came after farmers called for the government to help them remain competitive in the industry as cheap red onions from China and India flooded into the market under free-trade pacts.
Farmers in Si Sa Ket, which accounts for 60 per cent of the nation’s shallot harvest, drafted the development plan asking for help from the government under the FTA Fund.
The programme will help develop quality plantations and encourage farmers to adopt good agricultural practices to ensure food safety in vegetables for export.
The research-and-development focus will be on increasing yields and quality for stocking as well as processing shallots into value-added products.
A marketing strategy will be formulated for shallot trading in the country and |overseas.
Although Thai shallots have been included in FTAs with China and India, the product has brighter prospects to be sold to other free-trade partners including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Japan.
The fund will help farmers increase value and export frozen or dried shallots to those markets, Surasak said.
Shallot exports should increase in many countries in Asean, in particular Muslim countries, as many Muslims use shallots in their cooking, he said.
