Govt tries to placate rubber farmers

The government is struggling to prevent simultaneous road closures by rubber farmers across the country, which look set to take place on September 3 if ongoing government efforts and offers fail to please them.
Among the government’s latest moves are a plan to request a Bt25-billion budget to help rubber farmers, and an offer to peg the prices of scrap rubber, rubber and latex at Bt40, Bt80 and Bt70 a kilo respectively.
The Cabinet is scheduled to consider the Bt25-billion project to help farmers on September 3. During the past few years, rubber prices have plunged drastically, with rubber farmers now loudly complaining that the government has ignored their plight.
As several Democrat MPs have been seen with protesting rubber farmers, there is concern that the issue will be politicised.
“Please don’t politicise people’s grievances, otherwise we won’t get proper solutions,” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said yesterday.
She insisted that her government was concerned about the rubber farmers’ plight and would address their problems.
“Please talk to us,” she said.
Separately, Deputy PM and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said that if the Bt25-billion project won the Cabinet’s green light next Tuesday, the government would spend up to Bt10 billion on lowering farmers’ rubber-production costs. Another Bt10 billion would go to soft loans for rubber-machinery improvement and Bt5 billion would fund soft loans for adding value to rubber products.

Bloody clash with police last week
PM’s deputy secretary-general Suporn Atthawong, meanwhile, rushed to Nakhon Si Thammarat yesterday to conduct talks with rubber farmers’ representatives. Angry farmers have closed off a portion of a main road in this southern province for several days. A bloody clash between protesters and police erupted last Friday.
At the negotiation table, the government side yesterday offered to peg the prices of scrap rubber, rubber and latex at Bt40, Bt80 and Bt70 a kilo respectively. The farmers’ representatives agreed to consider the offer and raise the issue with protesters.

However, protesting rubber farmers disagreed with the proposed price of rubber. They believed the rubber price should be at least Bt100 per kilo.
Suporn and his team abruptly left Tambon Na Mor Boon Administrative Organisation, where the negotiations took place, after hearing that the protesters planned to converge there. An informed source said Suporn’s team went to take refuge at a military base.

Deputy Interior Minister Pracha Prasobdee said video footage of the rubber farmers’ rally appeared to show that many of the protesters were teenagers. “This is quite strange.”
Nakhon Si Thammarat MP Witthaya Kaewparadai, a Democrat, dismissed any suggestion that the main opposition party was behind the rubber farmers’ threat to challenge the government.
“We just provide support for the rubber farmers’ demands. We are not leading them,” he said.
He said he and 50 other MPs had requested a meeting with Yingluck in the hope of discussing the rubber farmers’ problems and demands, but she simply assigned someone else to receive a letter from them.
Nakhon Ratchasima Farmers Network chairman Chuan Chimklang yesterday said more than 10,000 rubber farmers in the Northeast would gather on September 3 and close down a main road in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Sikhiu district if the government did not shore up the rubber prices.
In Trang, local rubber farmers have already announced their plan to surround the provincial hall and close main roads next Tuesday if the government fails to deliver satisfactory offers.
Meanwhile, rubber farmers in Chumphon planned to start their rally in front of the provincial hall on September 2 to pressure the government.
Opposition chief whip Jurin Laksanawisit said the Democrat Party would file an impromptu motion on the parliamentary floor this Thursday to ask Yingluck how her government planned to solve the rubber-price problems.
“We hope the prime minister will be present during the session and hear the people’s problems herself.”