1 million tonnes, non-Thai rice
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Part of Thailand's loss (of around 220 billion baht so far) - through the Yingluck government's rice price pledging scheme - seems to have benefited farmers and rice traders in our neighbouring countries. And about 1 million tonnes of expensively bought r
These observations are from Reuters in its July 14, 2013 article: “Insight: Smuggling rice to Thailand – like coals to Newcastle”.
According to Reuters, the equivalent of 750,000 tonnes of milled rice (or more than 1 million tonnes of paddy) has been smuggled into Thailand from Cambodia and Burma in the past year.
Most of this smuggled rice is the broken type that Thai millers and traders use to blend with full-grain Thai rice – to bring more profits.
Hence, is it safe to say that about 1 million tons of rice in the government’s storage is not Thai rice?
And this entire shenanigans is at the cost of Thai taxpayers?
Vint Chavala
Lamphun
