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Most Thai rice farmers are used to producing rice for a living on a permanent basis and cannot turn to doing any occupation other than the rice-growing business, said a leading farmer on Monday.
Thai Rice Farmers Association president Vichian Puanglamjeak was responding to the military-led government's policy to reduce quantitative production of rice in all regions of Thailand and to prevent oversupply and price slumps in both domestic and world markets. But the association's chief told Xinhua that millions of farmers nationwide will not quit the rice farming as it is already their permanent career. Neither will they turn to other agricultural occupations, albeit otherwise endorsed by the government under non-elected Premier Prayuth Chan-ocha, according to the association's leader.
"We farm rice as a lifetime occupation passed along from our forebears. We do not know how to do any job other than rice farming, at which we are adeptly capable," Vichian said.
"If we turned to growing soybeans, for instance, we might unknowingly make a surplus of soybeans in the market. Its price would certainly plummet and we would undoubtedly suffer a loss. That being said, what's the essential difference between growing rice and producing an alternative crop?" he said.
Instead of pressing the farmers in all parts of the country to cut their rice output and turn to other crops, the government should find ways and means to secure new rice markets and diversify rice products so that oversupply of rice will not occur in the future,"said Vichian.
Premier Prayuth earlier declared his government policy would be to stop subsidizing the farmers, as had been the case with a populist rice program of the previous government, to reduce the acreages of rice farms and to set up the "zoning" of them nationwide.
Besides the rice farmers, the premier also plans to cut rubber plantations in all regions of the country for price-bolstering reasons.
In order to prompt the rice farmers to reduce production volumes, the government will give cash as a compensation grant to an estimated 1.9 million families of farmers who currently possess a maximum of six acres of farmland each and to some 660, 000 other families who currently own more than six acres each.
Those who have a maximum of six acres will be given 33.3 U.S. dollars for every 0.4 acre of their farm and those who have more than six acres will be given a maximum of 500 dollars.
They are meant either to cut their quantitative production of rice or entirely give up their rice-growing business and turn to other crops such as sugarcane, tapioca and maize, or to do other jobs, according to the government policy, primarily designed to slash a yearly volume of Thai rice, which has reportedly amounted to about 25 million tons.
But Vichian expressed his strong objection to such a government policy.
"Even if the rice prices increased in the domestic market due to a remarkable drop in production volumes, it would not necessarily assure that the rice prices in the world market would accordingly go up," he told Xinhua.
He added that the money which the government will shortly begin to hand out to the farmers will be far from enough to make ends meet, let alone to repay their debts owed to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, local savings cooperatives and loan sharks.
"The rice prices have considerably lowered in the domestic market and the farmers have sold much less than 500 dollars a ton. We already earned less from the sales of our rice and we might earn even less than now if our production volume was slashed under such government policy.
"Who should be held responsible for such predictable losses, which would very likely put us in more trouble?" he asked rhetorically.
