Rice farmers will ask for 10,000 baht for a tonne for paddy, a level they find profitable, while a survey shows the farm sector is facing an acute labour shortage.

They also want 11,000 baht a tonne for Pathum Thani paddy and 15,000 baht for the hom mali variety.

Representatives of five farmers' groups will meet with a Commerce Ministry panel on Friday to discuss rice problems.

"These prices are appropriate as they allow us to earn some profits," Rawee Rungruang, chairman of the Thai Farmers Network, told Thairath Online early on Friday.

Since the government's farm policy involving zoning, farm-essentials cost reduction and productivity upgrade takes time to materialise, the farmers are looking for a short-term relief for the current crop season.

The farming cost is now 5,000 baht on average for one rai, which yields 750kg, so they need to farm on three rai to get two tonnes.

Since paddy now fetches 8,000 baht a tonne, the farmers get 16,000 baht for three rai, or a little over 300 baht a rai, which is inadequate, Mr Rawee said.

And if the grain has too much moisture, the prices will be even lower, he added.

For the upcoming season, the Commerce Ministry plans to help by organising paddy markets, asking millers to pay 100-200 baht above market prices to build stocks while giving them a special interest rate as compensation and encouraging farmers to build their own stocks to avoid concurrent post-harvest sales which put pressure on the prices.

Kampanat Pensupar, a deputy dean of Kasetsart University's Economic Faculty, said Thailand's farm sector was facing a critical labour shortage.

A survey found 85% of the subjects did not want their children to work in the sector.

This is in line with the average 5-10% decline in the number of students in the agriculture field, he said.

"The results are the high average age of farmers and a labour shortage, which together have caused the sector to lag far behind the manufacturing sector in terms of productivity.

"The farm sector's productivity index is a mere 0.8 compared to 6.6 in the services sector," he said.

But before the sector's productivity can be improved, the prevailing labour shortage needs to be addressed first, most likely by legitimising more migrant workers, he said.

"In the longer term, the government needs to determine how much more labour the sector needs. Too much will affect productivity,"

Poomsak Rasri, director of the Agricultural Economic Operation Centre under the Office of Agricultural Economics, said there were 16 million farm workers in Thailand.

He estimated a 3% annual increase in the sector's labour pool, or half a million a year, was reasonable.

Migrant workers alone could not meet the shortfall as they prefer the industrial sector.

He proposed solutions such as streamlining labour laws to accommodate migrant workers, opening more one-stop service centres for migrant workers' registration, providing more welfare and incentives and bringing in migrant workers from other countries.

Source: Bangkok Post