Subsidies unsustainable: better solutions needed!
On Friday, PBS showed on TV that the cost of cultivating one rai of rice was about Bt7,000. The average yield for one rai is something like 500 kilograms.
The guaranteed price for 500kg is Bt6,000. In other words, a loss per rai of Bt1,000. Is there something wrong with my calculation?
Anyhow, there must be some truth in my figures seeing the complaints by farmers that they can’t live on this guaranteed price. How is it possible that with a world market price of Bt11,000-12,000, rice cultivation in Thailand means losing money, while some years ago Thailand was the biggest rice exporter in the world?
When Thailand can’t compete on the world market anymore, some things have to be changed drastically.
As has been said many years already, why in heaven’s name is the introduction of high-yield rice strains hardly happening? Why in heaven’s name are a lot of rice fields only used for one harvest a year when talk about an irrigation system are indeed nothing but talk? Why not look at rice strains, like in Mali, that don’t, or hardly need water? Why in heaven’s name not stimulate the establishment of collaborations that could lower the cost by letting them own their own ploughing and harvesting machines? Why not look seriously at other cash crops? Subsidising is not sustainable for many reasons.
The government always talks of improving the standard of living of farmers but in practice hardly anything is done. Is their attention focused too much on mega-projects where money can be made or are they too busy with activities for an unnecessary change of the constitution?
Egon Wout
