Govt move to slash rice production hailed

Thai Agriculturalists Association president Suthep Kongmark said rice farmers had agreed to cut rice production by about 5 million tonnes this year.

The move followed a meeting of the Commerce Ministry’s working committee to formulate a national rice strategy.

Despite the decision to cut production, rice farmers still expect the government to provide clear-cut measures to support farmers in the cultivation of other economic crops in a bid to reduce the hit from the drought. 

They also want the interest rate for loans reduced and production costs slashed.

Normally, Thailand grows between 30 million and 33 million tonnes of paddy rice each year. But that has led to an oversupply, with about 10 million tonnes used for domestic supply and about 10 million tonnes exported.

“Despite the low rice price currently, rice farmers understand the market situation and are ready to adjust their plans to ensure sustainable development,” Suthep said, emphasising that farmers will not call for a government subsidy. Chutima Bunyapraphasara, permanent secretary of the Commerce Ministry, said the rice working committee gathered the opinions of all concerned enterprises, including rice farmers, millers, traders, exporters, and government officials.

Chutima said the findings of the meeting would soon be proposed to the Agriculture Ministry for the devising of an action plan.

She said rice production was set to be reduced to 25 million tonnes for the current harvest season (2016-17) in an effort to keep the rice price from dropping further.

She said the price of white paddy rice domestically was expected to remain between Bt7,500 and Bt8,000 a tonne in the current harvest season.

The government plans to come up with additional measures to help rice farmers reduce production costs and support them in the growing of other economic crops.

It also said that it would set up zoning areas for rice cultivation and draw up a marketing plan to help sell rice and other economic crops rice farmers took up.

Charoen Laothammatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said exporters agreed with the government’s plan to reduce rice supply so that the price would be stable.

He said that with high remaining stockpiles, reducing output to 25 million tonnes would balance support for domestic consumption and overseas exports.

Charoen added that this year the government should be able to release about 5 million tonnes of milled rice from its stocks, which now had about 13 million tonnes.