The commerce ministry says it will use
diplomacy to export 400,000 tonnes of rice to China via land and sea routes.Khin
Maung Lwin, assistant permanent secretary at the ministry, said: “Exports of
rice and corn to China are illegal.”It has been a year since China allowed
Myanmar to export 100,000 tonnes of rice under a quota system.The ministry is
making efforts to send an additional quota of 400,000 tonnes of rice to China,
equally split via land and sea.“We are trying to inform China about the quota
on rice exports through diplomatic channels. China is very sensitive about rice
quotas,” he added.
Discussions are due soon with China's Yunnan
province. Until October 14 this fiscal year, the country earned over US$145
million from exports of rice to 33 countries. More than 85 per cent of exports
went to China, according to the Customs Department.The country generated over
US$123 million from rice exports to China, US$7 million via sea routes and more
than US$115 million through border trade.
The price of milled Hom Mali rice for the month of December as
quoted by rice exporters at 15,800 baht per tonne or 8,000 baht per tonne of
paddy which is the lowest in a decade.The price of Hom Mali rice for
2016-17 crop is steadily plunging because potential buyers have suppressed rice
prices in the wake of bumper harvests in most rice-producing countries.Export
price for milled Hom Mali rice for the month of December was quoted below
US$500 or US$490 per tonne which is regarded as the lowest level in ten years.
http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/hom-mali-rice-price-plunges-to-the-lowest-in-ten-years/
FILE - Terraced rice paddy fields are seen during the harvest
season in Hoang Su Phi, north of Hanoi, Vietnam, Sept. 18, 2015.
Vietnam’s government is banking
on agricultural reforms in its main rice producing region to meet the
challenges posed by climate change and disrupted water flow on the Mekong
River.The reforms aim to produce higher quality climate-adapted rice, and boost
alternative crops to ensure sustainability in the Mekong Delta, home to 18
million of Vietnam’s 94 million people.
The region, which produces more
than half of Vietnam’s rice and feeds over 145 million people in Asia, covers
13 provinces in Vietnam’s south where the river flows into the South China Sea.
The Mekong, with its source in
the Tibetan plateau, runs 4,300 kilometers through six countries from China,
Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before reaching Vietnam.
Climate change
Heightened concerns over the
Delta’s future followed an extreme drought this year that resulted in sharply
higher salinity levels intruding into the delta. Rice production fell 1.1
million tons according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO).
Sydney University professor
Philip Hirsch says climate change’s impact is evident due to more extreme
weather.
“Climate change, sea level rise
in particular, but also increasing frequency of storms has implications for the
Delta. One of the big concerns is the amount of salt water and the distance the
salt water moves up various Mekong tributaries into the delta, which again
threatens the viability of rice farming,” said Hirsch, a member of the
university’s school of geo-sciences.
Workers carry bags of rice off a
conveyor belt to stack in trucks, Tien Giang, Vietnam, September 14, 2012. (D.
Schearf/VOA)
CLUES
International scientists are
working with their Vietnam colleagues through CLUES – or climate change
affecting land use in the Mekong Delta – to find solutions to the rising
problems.
A CLUES project coordinator Dr N.D. Phong, in a promotional
video, said key issues the Delta faces include rising salt and fresh water
levels, higher temperatures, rising greenhouse gases and a higher population.
CLUES scientists are developing
rice varieties able to cope with rising salinity when water levels are too high
or dry conditions, aimed at sustainable solutions for all delta rice production
regions.
ACIAR
Australia’s Center for
International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) is assisting Vietnam to improve
rice production inefficiencies.
ACIAR scientists say Vietnamese
rice farmers have successfully adapted to changes over the past 30 years. But
the outlook is still concerning.
“Recent and [future] forecasts of
agro-hydrological changes threaten the viability of these farming and social
systems and food security within South East Asia,” an ACIAR research report
said.
Leocadio Sebastian, Vietnam-based
regional program leader South East Asia for the International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI) says Vietnam’s strategy is to raise farm incomes and boost
rice quality by creating a distinctive Vietnamese rice brand.
Sebastian says IRRI and the
Vietnamese government aim to restructure the rice sector from three rice crops
a year to two crops, but grow a higher value grain.
“That means you have other crops
when faced by rising salinity that are more adapted to these kind of
conditions. And then in areas where it’s really not possible anymore to plant
rice – where it is very salty – salinity will be very high in the future they
can move to either aquaculture or other crops during the period,” Sebastian
said.
“That is the strategy – the
compelling thing that is driving them up faster – they have to position the
Vietnam rice to a higher quality and higher priced level so that the farmers
now and in the future can have a better income from rice production,” he told
VOA.
FILE - Laborers gather rice
grains for stacking, Tien Giang, Vietnam, September 14, 2012. (D. Schearf/VOA)
Hydropower dams
But scientists say Vietnam’s
delta also faces the threat from increasing numbers of hydropower dams being
built on Mekong River mainstream, especially China, as well as Laos and
Cambodia.
Chris Barlow, an ACIAR fisheries
expert, says the mainstream dams will have a profound impact on the lower
Mekong regions.
“China has completed three large
dams on the Mekong and a further five are being built or being planned. These
dams have major impacts on hydrology and completely block fish migration in the
Upper Mekong,” Barlow said in a paper highlighting the conflicting agendas
between hydro power and fisheries.
Plans for hydro-power in lower
Mekong – nine high level dams in Laos, with two underway – the Xayaburi and Don
Sahong – and two in Cambodia point to “severe impacts” on fisheries yield and
food security, he said.
Scientists say the dams will
prevent vital sediment from reaching the Delta, alter flow regimes, lower water
temperatures of dam outlets and create still water environments upstream of dam
walls.
Barlow says while there may be
economic gains from hydro-power, “On the debit side, the fishery and other
ecosystem services provided by the river will be permanently degraded.”
Sediment
The Mekong Delta relies on silt
flowing downstream. But silt levels reaching the region have fallen
dramatically due to the construction of dams.
Le Anh Tuan, deputy head of the
Institute of Climate Change Research at Can Tho University, told Vietnamese
media that damming and reduced silt deposits threatened the Delta’s future.
Sydney University’s Hirsch says
Vietnam’s government need to be “more assertive” with members of the
intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC) to “try and put a brake on the
very rapid pattern of hydrological development in the upstream countries.”
But Hirsch fears the Delta
Region’s most productive years may have been before damming on the river began.
In the early 1990’s, Vietnam,
through major reforms, moved from being a major global rice importer to being
the world’s second largest exporter.
“This is also a time when the entire length of the Mekong River
ran freely. Once China started to dam its section of the Mekong and much more
recently, Laos… This is the start of the long decline and potential disaster
environmental and also food security disaster of the Mekong Delta,” Hirsch said
http://www.voanews.com/a/vietnam-rice-industry-faces-threat-from-climate-change-mekong-dams/3574158.html
‘Wal-Mart Model’ could help
advance rice breeding
Dr. Susan McCouch says scientists
are discovering a tremendous amount of information about plants, such as rice.
But that pales in comparison with what companies like Wal-Mart are discovering
about their customers.McCouch says programs such as the “Wal-Mart model,” which
collects more data on shopping trends in hours than scientists have collected
about the rice plant in decades, could help channel that information into new
break-throughs in rice breeding.
Her comments in this last of a
three-part series summed up the direction she hopes entities such as the LSU
AgCenter’s H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station can take rice breeding
developments in the coming years. They came at the 100-plus-year-old research
facility’s annual field day near Crowley, La.
http://deltafarmpress.com/rice/wal-mart-model-could-help-advance-rice-breeding
10/31/2016 Farm
Bureau Market Report
Rice
High
Low
Long Grain Cash Bids
- - -
- - -
Long Grain New Crop
- - -
- - -
Futures:
ROUGH RICE
High
Low
Last
Change
Nov '16
988.0
978.0
985.5
-1.5
Jan '17
1027.0
1006.5
1015.0
-0.5
Mar '17
1053.0
1033.0
1040.5
-1.0
May '17
1064.5
-1.0
Jul '17
1083.0
-1.0
Sep '17
1091.5
-1.0
Nov '17
1091.5
-1.0
Rice Comment
Rice futures were lower again today with November testing
support around $9.80. Weekly export sales improved last week, with a total of
79,000 tons sold to foreign buyers. The crop is 97% harvested at this point,
with most of what remains to be harvested in California.
Return of the Rice Queen
ARLINGTON, VA -- USA Rice is pleased to welcome Lydia Holmes
back to USA Rice as the new Regulatory Affairs Manager. Lydia originally
worked for the Government Affairs team at USA Rice while studying for her
master's degree in Public Administration at George Washington University (GWU). After graduating
from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2014, Lydia immediately headed to
Washington, DC, to pursue a career navigating the alphabet soup of governmental
regulatory affairs. She followed her initial stint at USA Rice with jobs
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), and the GWU Regulatory Studies Center where she compared the
legislative regulatory burden on the agricultural sector of the EU to that of
the U.S. Lydia is the daughter of Brenda and Byron Holmes, and
grew up on their rice farm in Forrest City, Arkansas. She is a former
Miss Arkansas Rice and we have the photo to prove it.
Can rice importation end next
year?
Adeola Adenikinju (Professor of Economics,
University of Ibadan)
There are a number of issues that we have to
look at if we want to stop the importation of rice. One, what is the proportion
of the rice we are eating locally now? Two, what is on the ground to enable us
to close that gap between the rice we are importing and what we are consuming?
We need not to just have a plan to cultivate
and harvest, we also need to have successive plans and build capacities. We
need to have a marketing system that ensures sustainability.We need to have the
quantity of local rice that matches imported rice. The quantity must also be
commensurate. Now, can we do all of that within two years? My answer is that I
doubt it. Most of our farmers will tell you that much of the support needed
from the government is not got on time. This is a strategic programme in which
we have to look at the whole value chain.
Another area is the issue of credit being
available and the issue of rice seedlings to be used by the farmers. The
government should also be looking at incentives for farmers and managing agricultural
transportation.Efforts of growing rice production must also be entrepreneurial.
People can put their money into it and they can expect profit. The Federal
Government has to provide incentives to producers. They have to ensure that
access to credit is made a lot easier. They also have to provide an
agricultural extension service.
The process should not be allowed to be
hijacked by importers. The government must come up with predictable policies.
People should rest assured that they could set up a rice-processing mill and
expect to make profit. Therefore, there must be a clear-cut commitment on the
part of the government.Charles Ugwuh (Chairman, Tara Agro Rice Millers)
Stoppage of rice importation can be done. We
must not keep opening the doors to import rice. If we do that, we will kill
local investments. Once we determine that we are going to grow our own
capacity, we must close the doors and allow the indigenous farmers to grow.They
will make mistakes and also correct their mistakes. They will achieve a fairly
stable price and make rice available in the market place. If we are in a hurry
to get comfort and bring rice from Thailand, Brazil and other countries, we
will not be able to grow our own rice.
The government needs to use fiscal and tariff measures,
and control importation or stop it completely. Our local people will then seize
the opportunity to grow rice locally.Nigerians are growing rice now more than
ever. People are investing heavily in rice production. Kebbi farmers earlier in
the year made a lot of money when scarcity of rice was recorded.
Therefore, we must allow farmers, investors and
rice millers to expand their capacities. We have all the ecology to do that
more than any other part of the world.Nigeria has a very good soil, which aids
massive rice production. My answer is yes. We can use fiscal policy measures
and import bans to prevent competition and locally grow rice sufficiently.
Wale Oyekoya (Director, Bama Farms, Lagos
State)
It is possible to stop rice importation by next
year if the Federal Government takes decisive steps. Too much importation is
one of the reasons why we are even in a recession, whereby we are spending over
N1bn every day on the importation of rice into the country.With what we are
seeing, there is a very good picture coming from states producing rice locally
like Kebbi, Ebonyi, Adamawa, Niger and others. I believe stopping importation
of rice is possible if the government can sustain the present momentum.Our
problem has been policy somersault, whereby the government changes from policy
to policy. For example, the authorities of the Nigeria Customs Service need to
get stakeholders involved on this. The government needs to come up with
farmer-oriented policies to achieve the stoppage of importation.
Definitely, it is achievable if the state and
local governments also carry out their own responsibilities. One of the steps
to be taken by the federal and state governments to make this work for the
Nigerian farmers includes encouraging farmers financially.Much of the money
into agriculture goes to state-controlled farms, while subsistent farmers are
neglected. So, the federal and state governments have to channel the money
appropriately. They must procure equipment for mechanised farming.Farmers
should also not be subjected to producing without creating ready markets to
take their produce. So, the government needs to focus on this. Farmers need to
be given improved seedlings, fertilisers and other necessities. This will help
our economy and also provide more job opportunities. I believe rice importation
can stop by next year if all these things are done.
Professor Kolawole Adebayo (Federal University
of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State)
Technically, it is feasible to stop rice
importation. What do you require to produce a good crop of rice? You need good
land. You need good varieties. Luckily, we have the ‘Ofada’ and ‘Abakaliki’
rice, which are very popular varieties.To start with, we need dedicated farmers
and Nigeria has them. There are only a few things that are missing presently,
which if fixed, then we can really put our minds off importation.One, we need
an agricultural extension service. What we have now is already collapsing. The
job of the extension service is to train farmers on how to go about rice
production. This service is available in our research institutes and in
universities. The knowledge has to leave the institutes and universities and go
to the farmers who need it.
In every state in Nigeria, you have the
Agriculture Development Programme. It was established in the 1980s through a
World Bank-assisted scheme. Many of the good hands, who left the programme,
need to be replaced. We also need to be target-driven. We have 180m Nigerians
who feed on rice practically every day.If we allot a quarter of a kilo to
everybody per day, that gives you the idea of the area of land that should be
committed to rice production.Two, there should be investments in transport
infrastructure. We know that many of our rural roads are bad. If we produce
rice and we cannot move them out of the farms, it is also a problem.The third
area is storage. Once we produce the rice, we need to be able to store it, so
that we can have rice all year. So, we need storage facilities to make this
achievable.
Akai Egwuonwu (Chief Executive Officer, Stine
Industries/rice producer in Anambra State)
It is feasible and achievable for Nigeria to
stop the importation of rice. With the level of cultivation we did this year
and with the farmers, who sold very well, Nigeria is on track. This will
encourage more farmers to go into it.As long as there is more rice cultivated,
we can achieve it. So far, the price of rice has not gone up locally. If you go
to every market, it is the same. But, there is a big cartel that has so much
money and is sabotaging the efforts to stop rice importation. It is not true as
they claim that we cannot stop importing rice.
What the government needs to do is to create an
enabling environment for the farmers and the millers. This will help to
stabilise the industry. An average miller should know what the government is
planning and the borders should not be porous.
Therefore, there must be constant consultation
and the government should not just come up with policies without adequate
consultation. In the meantime, the government needs to create such an
atmosphere where there would be monitoring. A lot also has to be done on power
generation. Rice millers are beset with the problem of power generation.
Contact: editor@punchng.com
https://www.niyitabiti.net/2016/11/can-rice-importation-end-next-year/
California Rice Grower Feeds
Minds Also
By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director
By now, growers have harvested much of northern California’s
rice. Most of it is already in the rice mill. While prices were low this year,
production has been very good, according to Matthew Sligar, a third-generation rice grower in Gridley , up in Butte County. Matthew Sligar, “How Rice is Harvested.”“Yes, we just got done with rice
harvest. We are chopping the rice straw that is left in the fields. We’re
disking it in to aid in decomposition,” Sligar said.“Then we flood the fields
with about 4 to 6 inches of water, creating a natural habitat for migratory
birds. We just let the field sit over the winter so the straw decomposes. We
work it back up in the spring.”
Northern California rice growers
dedicate the winter months, and even the early season months when fields are
first flooded, to help migratory birds whose original habitat has been
taken over by cities and expanding neighborhoods.Birds by the millions –
including ducks, geese and shorebirds – rest, feed and rear their young in rice
fields during their annual migrations. “Our fields turn white like snow
from the down floating feathers left behind by birds,” Sligar said.
Matthew
Sligar, California Rice Grower and Blogger
And yet, due to global
oversupply, rice prices are trending lower this season. “We had to put our
rice into a marketing pool because we wanted to guarantee a home for it,”
Sligar said. “We did not want to gamble on the cash market. We haven’t seen the
returns yet; however, I got a great yield, and I hear most of Northern
California got extremely good yields.”“Hopefully, that will make up for some of
the low price, and we might make some money. When you get a good year, you’ve
got to save that money for bad years like this year, just make it through to
next year,” Sligar said.Besides farming rice, Sligar is a cyclist and
a social media blogger. He produces great videos on all segments of the rice
industry.
“That’s one reason why I started Rice Farming TV because whenever I’d be at a restaurant or some spot
socializing, someone will say, ‘What do you do?’ I tell them that I farm rice.
‘Rice? Where do you live?’ I say, ‘I live in California.’ They don’t know that
rice is grown in California, but it’s the best,” Sligar said.
Click below to view Sligar’s video, “How Rice is Harvested!
http://californiaagtoday.com/california-rice-grower/
Govt to act tough on overloaded goods vehicles
November 01 2016
Bhubaneswar:
After opening a helpline for complaints against public carriages overloading
passengers, the state government will now tighten its noose around goods
vehicles, especially trucks carrying freight much beyond their capacity as well
as companies which encourage such acts. The move follows a series of big road
accidents in the recent past in which almost 60 people have died.According to a
study, the state witnesses close to 12 deaths in road accidents every day.
Overloaded goods vehicles are believed to be a major reason behind road
mishaps.According to the state transport commissioner and state transport
authority (STA), their flying squads have found carriages carrying overload to
the extent of 10-25tonnes than the permissible gross vehicle weight.
The transport department claims most of the
overloaded vehicles move through Angul, Dhenkanal, Talcher, Sambalpur, Bargarh,
Sundergarh, Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Keonjhar, Chandikhole and Jajpur.To tackle
the menace, enforcement officers will be deployed near source points or loading
points like rice mills, industries, factories and mines to conduct surprise
raids and prevent movement of overloaded goods carriages.The first phase
enforcement will be from November 1 to November 30 and all RTOs will submit
report at the end of the drive. Action will be taken against goods carriages
owners and drivers as per the Motor Vehicles Act.
Industries promoting overloading will also be
taken to task, transport department officials said. “In some cases industries
and rice millers are imposing conditions upon goods carriages owners that they
will allow overloading to the willing truckers,” a transport department letter
says.The state transport commissioner said in such cases, the onus will also be
on the company or its concerned employees.Accordingly, the RTOs have been asked
to lodge FIRs immediately against the director, manager, secretary or other
officers of the concerned company for commission of offence.Action will be
taken against the guilty as per the ‘offence by the companies’ provisions under
the MV Act, officials said.Meanwhile, a meeting on road safety chaired by state
transport minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi will be held today at the state
secretaria
Thailand offers $1 bln loan to
struggling jasmine rice farmers
Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:43am GMT
BANGKOK Oct 31 (Reuters) - Thailand's rice
management committee said on Monday it will offer loans worth $1 billion to
jasmine rice farmers struggling with falling prices, on a condition that they
store the grain for six months to slow down market supply.
Prices
for jasmine rice, Thailand's highest quality rice, have tumbled to their lowest
level in years, leaving the military government scrambling to appease the
country's farmers.The 35.8 billion baht ($1.02 billion) loan scheme, which will
be implemented by Thailand's state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural
Cooperatives (BAAC), is aimed at curbing an oversupply of jasmine rice in the
market and stabilising prices, said Commerce Minister Apiradee Tantraporn."If
we can push up prices of jasmine rice, prices of other rice varieties will go
up too," Apiradee told reporters in a news conference in Bangkok on
Monday.
The
loans will be provided to 2 million farm households to hold on to their jasmine
rice stocks for six months, said Supat Eawchai, the bank's assistant manager.The
government will follow up with other measures to help improve rice prices,
Apiradee said.Prices for Thai 100 percent jasmine rice were quoted at $725 per
tonne, FOB Bangkok, on Friday. RI-THFRA1ST-A
It
was the lowest since hitting $710 a tonne in January 2008, according to Reuters
data.Thai jasmine rice made up 25 percent of Thailand's total rice exports from
January to August this year, according to data from the Thai Rice Exporters
Association.The commerce ministry said this month its rice export push for the
last quarter of 2016 will help support Thai rice prices during the annual
harvest period. ($1 = 35.00 baht) (Reporting by Pracha Hariraksapitak and
Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Christian
Schmollinger)
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4N1D12Q2
Regime pushes ahead with rice scheme
Prayut says politicians behind falling prices
The National Rice Policy
Committee on Monday approved a subsidy programme for rice farmers following a
fall in rice prices while Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha accused some
politicians of colluding with rice millers in pushing prices down.The measures,
including a pledging-like scheme, for growers of Hom Mali rice, are aimed at
encouraging farmers to delay selling of paddy while prices are low.
Business
is brisk at this Rangsit market rice kiosk, but farmers are crying foul over
the slump in prices, and the prime minister sees a conspiracy by politicians.
(Photo by Tanaphon Ongarttrakul)
According
to the committee, of the 11,525-baht subsidy, 8,730 baht will be paid to
farmers for storing their paddy in barns for a certain period of time.Rice price subsidy set at B11,525 a tonne
Rice exports rose 10% in September
Rice is loaded on a truck at a warehouse for
delivery and export. Thailand shipped 790,000 tonnes of rice overseas in
September, a growth of 9.9% year-on-year, lifting total exports of the grain
for the first nine months of 2016 to 6.85 million tonnes.Charoen Laothamatas,
president of Thai Rice Exporters Association, said exports in September were
worth 12 billion baht, up 3.4%. For the nine-month period, rice exports rose
3.7% in volume compared to the same period last year, but the value increased
by only 1.6% to 108 billion baht.
He said September exports jumped from the
delivery of both old and new-harvest rice to buyers in Africa, as African
countries have resumed purchasing rice to add to their diminishing stocks.
Exports of parboiled rice to African markets
totalled 255,000 tonnes in September, up 103% from August. Benin was the
largest buyer, taking 177,000 tonnes of parboiled rice.The export of white rice
to African and Asian countries also rose by 22% in the month to 371,000
tonnes. However, exports of Jasmine
fragrant rice dropped by 13% to 158,000 tonnes.Mr Charoen said he expected rice
exports would total 700,000-800,000 tonnes for October, with deliveries to China and continuous sales to African
buyers.
As of Oct 25, the export price of 5% white rice
from Vietnam and India stood at US$350 a tonne and $345 from Pakistan. Thai
rice of the same quality was quoted at $369 a tonne on Oct 26, according to the
Thai Rice Exporters Association.
Rice farmers despair amid low prices
31 Oct 2016 at 04:30
NEWSPAPER SECTION: NEWS | WRITER: POST
REPORTERS
No way out: Just as the rice harvest begins,
farmers are caught in a trap, facing the lowest prices of the century, with
worldwide demand still falling. (File photo)
Kneeling and sobbing before a top commerce
ministry official, a Phichit farmer appealed to the government Sunday to help
growers suffering from the fall in rice prices to 5,000 baht a tonne, the
lowest level in decades.Sanit Kaho, a 63-year-old farmer, held the legs of
permanent secretary for commerce Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa, who visited Wangkrod
Tai Tambon Administration Organisation (TAO) in Muang district to meet local
authorities, farmers and rice millers to discuss ways to deal with the tumbling
price of paddy.The farmer said she wanted the prime minister to help. She can't
afford to sell her Hom Mali rice now due to current prices, adding that mills
are offering just 5,000 baht per tonne.
The crop will be ready to harvest this week,
though farmers will not be able to survive with this price, she said.According
to Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn, a new scheme will be proposed at a
meeting today held by the national rice policy committee.The scheme sets out a
pledging price of no less than 10,000 baht a tonne for Thai Hom Mali paddy.The
measure is expected to be forwarded to the cabinet tomorrow for approval and
will take immediate effect as one measure to help farmers.Ms Sanit said most of
Phichit farmers do not have their own barns and usually sell their rice
immediately after harvesting it.
The government should come up with ways to
address this problem, she said.Mana Wuthiyakorn, head of the rice farmer
network in Bang Mun Nak district, said the government should buy Hom Mali rice
directly from farmers at 10,000 baht per tonne, insisting farmers would
shoulder the cost of rice production.He asked Ms Wiboonlasana to relay the
concerns to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.He said farmers in the province's
three districts are due to harvest their rice this week, but prices are still
falling due to manipulation by middlemen and millers.
He said his group will close the Bang
Moon-Tapan Hin road if nothing is done to solve the problem.Mingkwan Pook-eiam,
head of an unofficial rice milling club in Phichit, said it is impossible to
force millers to buy rice from farmers at 10,000 baht per tonne as exporters
buy rice from the millers at lower prices, adding the government should hold
talks with exporters to find ways to deal with the issue.Ms Wiboonlasana said
falling global rice prices are to blame for the problem, noting that many
rice-growing countries are undercutting Thailand.
As part of the scheme up for approval, the government
is planning to set a quota of 50,000 tonnes at US$600 (about 21,000 baht) to
countries and exporters interested in buying Thai rice, a measure that should
shore up prices, says Ms Wiboonslasana.The government will launch campaigns to
boost domestic demand in rice, such as holding farmers markets specialising in
rice, and seek more foreign markets, she said.Government spokesman Sansern
Kaewkamnerd insisted the government wants to solve the problem of falling rice
prices in a sustainable way, while educating farmers and the public that
domestic prices are determined by global pressures.
