Rice scheme must be depoliticised and tackled head-on

It doesn’t matter how much longer the current political crisis lingers as far as the Yingluck government’s controversial rice scheme is concerned.

The trouble on the streets is masking another even more pressing issue.

Information provided by the opposition Democrats during the censure debate is damning and, due to the fact the government failed to adequately respond to it, questions about the rice policy may outlast an event that looks highly important but is in fact not as significant.

Will the Pheu Thai powers-that-be manage to hold on or come back after a new election? That is the question of the hour. After two days of censure debate, though, the future of ruling politicians should be something secondary. Thailand needs to take a long hard look at its so-called backbone – the farmers – and decide what to do.

Is the rice price-pledging policy a good one? Is it just a good concept with no way to effectively implement it? Or is it simply a bad scheme that destroys market mechanisms, undermines Thai farmers’ competitiveness and breeds massive graft as claimed by the Democrats? These are the key questions that must be seriously addressed.

The opposition was armed with warnings from left and right, including well-known economists known to be sympathetic to the government. Shown were figures of a staggering financial burden born by the government, although the administration stated the Democrats were exaggerating. Cases of corruption were presented, to which the government virtually failed to respond. Disheartening facts were heard, including Thailand’s loss of its long-held top spot as rice exporter.

The importance of being the world’s biggest rice exporter might be debatable. The Yingluck government might argue that some factors over the past few years were beyond its control, and that the farmers’ “immediate survival” was more crucial than sitting atop the export ranking. Yet the whole issue is not just about continuing to be the largest rice exporter.

Farmers constitute the largest sector of the Thai population, so the key question must be what the rice-pledging programme is doing to them.

The government wants to continue the rice policy, despite the opposition’s claims that the “populist” scheme has been sucking the state coffers dry. Whatever the real reason, the determination to continue is worrisome. If the government fears losing face or popularity among farmers dependent on the rice programme, it’s tantamount to tying the long-term future of the state finances to a highly dubious political agenda. If the government honestly believes that rice price pledging is good, an immediate rethink looks unlikely.

There were signs the government wanted to back away from the policy, or at least scale it down. But politics came into play and the most ambitious pledges to the farmers were maintained. Payment has not been smooth lately, though, with the opposition alleging that only a few of the farmers who “sold” their rice to the government lately have been fully paid.

The Pheu Thai Party must depoliticise the rice scheme. Cancelling it, of course, will subject the ruling camp to boos and jeers, but such political contempt must not factor in the decision-making process which involves the future of Thailand’s millions of farmers.

A thorough, independent and neutral study must be conducted on how the scheme affects innovation and competitiveness of Thai farmers. After all, their plight or well-being is something much more real than the “survival” of those politicians who initiated and are implementing the rice scheme.