Farmers in Thailand have urged the country’s Agriculture Ministry to create rice zones so that better breeds can be developed, as the government’s high subsidies have emboldened farmers to ignore quality and concentrate on quantity instead, critics say.
“The government should draw up zones and fix the proper type of rice for each zone to serve the market’s need and ensure high prices,” Prasit Booncheoy, president of the Thai Farmers Association, said recently.
After the government announced a price subsidy for all rice farmers, they have done everything to boost harvests as much as they can to maximize their benefits from the price pledging programme, which is designed to accept all grains offered.
There are also many factors of this scheme that damage rice quality, its critics complain. The rice held in mills or warehouses under the pledging programme is not well taken care of, they say.
The government has subsidised at least two types of rice, so the rice types that come under one roof can be mixed, they
argue. Any delay in the rice-development plan will cause Thailand to lose competitiveness to Cambodia and Vietnam when rice can flow freely in the Asean Economic Community, Prasit said.
Kriengsak Tapananont, secretary-general of the Thai Rice Millers Association, said the rice-zoning plan
would help millers solve the problem of mixed rice quality. Millers have limited storage area but have to serve huge rice stocks under the government’s pledging programme, so it is inevitable that different grades of rice would be mixed.
“The zoning plan, which promotes strains based on market needs, would encourage millers to concentrate more on rice quality,” he said. However, farmers and other parties are still confused about
the pledging scheme, which has many problems such as the participation of rice producers in the programme, rice circumvention among registered farmers, delay of documents, and rice quality, he added.