Thai gov't vows to review rice price cut in wake of farmers' protest

The Thai government on Tuesday agreed to promptly review last week's decision to cut the rice price by 100 U.S. dollars a ton in response to protesting farmers.

Under pressure from the rice farmers who peacefully demonstrated outside the Government House in protest of the rice price cut from 500 U.S. dollars to 400 U.S. dollars a ton, the Pheu Thai Party-led government vowed to think twice about the issue in a week time, according to Thai Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom.

The commerce minister, who received the farmers' petition calling for the government to keep the price unchanged at 500 U.S. dollars a ton, said the National Rice Policy Committee chaired by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will reconvene shortly to review the rice price cut, which, according to the protesting farmers, will turn their agricultural occupation from gain to loss. The average cost of producing rice is said to amount to about 300 U.S. dollars a ton.

The outcome of the National Rice Policy Committee's review on the rice price, offered to farmers nationwide under the government 's rice program, will be quickly forwarded to the Yingluck cabinet later this week, Boonsong said.

The protesters, led by the Thai Farmers Association and other farmer groups mostly from the rice-growing provinces in the central and lower northern regions of the country, demanded that the government review the rice price within a week time from Tuesday.

Yingluck neither confirmed nor denied the protesting farmers' demand. She reassured that the government will see to it that the farmers will have a better living, growing rice for both export and domestic consumption.

She added that the Agriculture Ministry's Rice Department will hand out manuals for the farmers to learn how to save producing costs for their rice.