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| Commerce Min: Businessmen Behind Farmers Protest |
| UPDATE : 9 March 2010 |
The Commerce Minister revealed that rice traders are behind some of the farmers' gatherings calling for the rice pledging scheme to be reintroduced. She also stressed that the government is doing its best to tackle the price drop.
Commerce Minister Porntiwa Nakasai revealed that some rice traders are encouraging farmers to hold demonstrations, pressuring the government to set up a pledging scheme in place of the ongoing income-guarantee program.
Rice traders or middlemen are known to have lost benefit in switching from the rice-pledging program to the price guarantee program.
She said some of the dealers hoarded rice, but found it difficult to make any profit because of the price drop.
However, Porntiwa acknowledged that only a few groups of protesting farmers have business backups.
The Commerce Minister went on to state that 30 outlets are being launched in the provinces most affected by the price drop, in order to buy rice directly from farmers.
Porntiwa also said she plans to propose to the Cabinet that the program's certificate be issued directly by her Ministry to applicants to streamline the process.
Meanwhile, Commerce Ministry Permanent-Secretary, Yanyong Puangraj attributed the decline in rice prices to the Vietnamese Dong's weakening, which is detrimental to Thai rice exports as well as the poor quality of the recent lots of Thai rice.
The quality drop was caused by an early harvest as well as the mixing of Thai rice with low quality produce from Vietnam and Cambodia by some traders, who wanted to make easy profit.
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