Govt budgets Bt154m to prevent a drop in the price eastern fruit.
The Commerce Ministry's farmer assistance policy committee plans to allocate Bt154.46 million to prevent a drop in the prices Eastern fruit farmers enjoy during the upcoming harvest season. Targeted fruits are rambutan, mangosteen, durian and langsat.
It will also allocate Bt42.25 million to deal with excess production of lychee in the North, by helping traders find more markets for the fruit and soft loans for processing the product.
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom said the plan aimed to shore up fruit prices in the short term during the harvest season from April to June. The government will help release products by encouraging export and promote processing that will add value to the fruits.
It will also increase distribution efficiency for supplying domestic market, which is targeted at 48,000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, Thailand will control the cross-border transport of cassava to combat smuggling from neighbouring countries to cash in on the pledging project.
Boonsong said the measure would prevent fresh cassava from neighbouring countries being combined with Thai cassava to benefit illicitly from the government’s pledging scheme.
So far, more than 2 million tonnes of fresh cassava has entered the pledging project. However, the price of cassava has not increased. The government will closely monitor cassava smuggling as it could drive down domestic prices of fresh cassava in domestic, he added.
