Why politicians keep talking about farmers' poverty

Study after study has been conducted by the country’s top academics. No aspect, it seems, of the farmers’ problems has been left unturned. But for the average farmer, it seems that the more things change, the more they remain exactly the same.

Do we know the root causes of our farmers’ poverty? Apichart Chongsakul, secretary-general of the Office of Agricultural Economics, has come up with a comprehensive wrap-up of the reasons behind the Thai farmer’s plight. 

It all stems from the state of monopoly in the whole agricultural process – from the market for production factors such as chemical fertilisers, insecticides and seeds all the way to the final sale of paddy.

When the rice price rises, fertilisers in turn get more expensive, for whatever reason. The prices of insecticide also go up when farmers just begin to enjoy a higher level of income in any particular season. That means despite better paddy prices, farmers don’t usually end up earning more.

What’s worse, when they sell their paddy to rice mills, what the farmer gets is usually a depressed price that is much lower than the market price. The reason is simple: he just isn’t in a position to bargain with the rice-mill operator.

As a result, the farmer doesn’t benefit from the difference between the price of paddy and milled rice.

As Apichart – who takes a close-up look at the end-to-end cycle of a farmer’s life – concludes: “Even if the price of rice shoots up to Bt20,000 per ton, the farmer doesn’t stand to gain in any significant way.”

Doesn’t the government realise that the state of monopoly at every stage of the rice farming process is the core reason behind the failure to boost our farmers’ livelihoods.

Of course, every past government is well aware of the existence of this state of affairs. But the lack of political will and the corrupt practices inherent in the paddy subsidy and price guarantee schemes have contributed to the inevitable and continuing failure.

Farmers get lots of attention from politicians – not because politicians are serious about plucking them out of their long-entrenched poverty, once and for all – but because they form a bloc of votes that can easily sway election results. 

Worse, the paddy subsidy policy adopted by the most “caring” and “populist” governments – past or present – offers a channel through which politicians and their associates can siphon off people’s tax money into their own pockets. 

An attempt to provide reasonably priced fertiliser to farmers, aimed at breaking the private sector’s monopoly in this field, has failed miserably. A state enterprise called the National Fertiliser Corporation was set up years ago for that very purpose. It was soon clear that while the objective might have been praiseworthy, the implementation, not unexpectedly, got bogged down in bureaucracy. Its demise didn’t come as a surprise to anyone in the business.

And if Thailand’s paddy yield per rai has been lower than other rice-producing countries, despite the fact that we are the world’s leading rice exporter, the main reason is the lack of sufficiently irrigated areas. (Compare Thailand’s figure of 25 per cent in this, to Vietnam’s 85 per cent.) 

Do the authorities realise this? It’s the obvious case that has been cited by every study into the issue. But when it comes to tacking the problem seriously, no government has so far shown any vision or any ability to get down to finding solutions to produce tangible results.

Cynics might say that politicians want to make sure that farmers remain poor so that they can be easily exploited every time an election comes around. 

You don’t want to believe such a depressing theory because if you do, it means you have given up on both democracy and the future of this country.