Thai Rice committee to seek urgent price solutions

The National Rice Policy Committee will hold an urgent meeting today seeking measures to alleviate falling rice prices that have prompted farmers to demonstrate, Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai yesterday said. Rice farmers recently marched to the ministry to protest against lower rice income. In many provinces, they are suffering from falling rice prices and have been protesting for the past month. They want the government to reinstate the pledging scheme and increase the guaranteed price from Bt10,000 a tonne to Bt12,000. However, Porntiva said the government would not put the pledging scheme back in place, because it had deteriorated the market prices. "The government may increase opportunities to purchase rice directly from farmers. It will proceed with the guaranteed-income measure, because it is the most efficient way to increase sustainable incomes for farmers, plus it supports market mechanisms," said Porntiva, adding that if the guaranteed price were set too high, it would destroy market mechanisms and cause problems for exporters. She also said the protests in some areas were not caused by falling prices, but rather by traders encouraging the protesters in a bid to pressure the government to reinstate the pledging scheme. These traders have lost revenue from the guaranteed-price project. Traders and rice millers prefer the pledging scheme because they received revenue from rice polishing and warehouse rental fees for storing government rice. The Commerce Ministry said it was able to purchase only 1,000 tonnes of rice directly from farmers over the past week. Six million tonnes of paddy rice are expected in the second crop's harvest season. In addition, ministry permanent secretary Yanyong Phuangrach said he had ordered officials to inspect the quality of the rice entering the government's buying project. The ministry has reported some traders have mixed low-quality Vietnamese rice with the Thai rice to obtain a higher selling price. Vietnamese rice is quoted at only US$365 (Bt11,900) per tonne, while Thai rice is trading at $500 a tonne. Mixing in Vietnamese rice has destroyed the quality of Thai rice, Yanyong said.