Thai farmers call on next government to address their debt crisis
Farmers are calling on the next government to help ease their debt crisis, which is caused primarily by high production costs.
Pramote Charoensilp, president of the Thai Agriculturist Association, said that most of them are landless farmers who rent small plots of land to grow rice.
“Most farmers are burdened by debt. We want the next government to solve this problem. About 4.6 million households, or 20 million people, are involved in farming, covering over 62 million rai [24.5 million acres]. They form an important economic sector of the country,” Pramote said.
He also called on the government to help farmers reduce their production expenses by cutting the cost of fertilisers, pesticides, fuel and electricity. This will make them more competitive against farmers in neighbouring countries, Pramote said.
The association’s vice president, Decha Nutalai, estimated that over 90% of Thai farmers are indebted.
“We want the new government to tackle this problem and come up with ways to help farmers lessen or remove their debt burden,” he said.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, there are about 8 million farming households and 4.6 million of them grow rice, helping Thailand to become a leading rice exporter.
A survey by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce found that about 70% of Thai farming households have debts ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 baht each, according to Assoc Prof Aat Pisanwanich, director of the university’s Centre for International Trade Studies.
“Most of the debts were incurred over the past five years. Before that, the amount of debt farmers had was not high,” he said.
Thai farmers are among the poorest in Southeast Asia, and their relative poverty is not new, the professor said. He cited a study conducted in 2012, which found that the average annual income of Thai farmers is 29,035 baht, compared to an equivalent of 29,278 baht for Myanmar farmers and 54,218 baht for Vietnamese farmers.
Assoc Prof Somporn Isvilanonda, a senior scholar at the Knowledge Network Institute of Thailand, said that Thai farmers face risks from natural disasters, climate change, pests, and fluctuations in farm produce prices. These factors have led to high debts for many farming families, Somporn said.
“An urgent agenda for the next government is to turn the supply chain of important cash crops into a value chain. Biotechnology should be adopted along with digital and green technologies to create innovations and help farmers upgrade their products and increase their income,” he said.
