The cabinet has ignored the protests of rice farmers and approved a crop price guarantee pilot project which pledges a set price for 200,000 tonnes of Hom Mali rice in the coming harvest season.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the cabinet also agreed to accelerate a feasibility study into expanding the crop intervention scheme to cover other agricultural products.

The study will be conducted by the Finance and Commerce ministries to provide information about the benefits or disadvantages of various crop price intervention schemes. The information will be used when a decision is made on the best scheme for each product.

The government recently proposed a plan to replace the conventional crop mortgage scheme with a price guarantee.

Unlike the crop mortgage scheme in which the benefits are limited to groups of farmers and traders with access to mortgage quotas, the price guarantee scheme will give all farmers an equal chance to sell their products at a set price, Mr Abhisit said.

Under the mortgage scheme, quotas determining the amount of rice allowed into the scheme are set depending on crop areas nationwide.

If the quota in a farmer's area is full, or his province is not granted a quota, then he misses out on price pledging measures.

Support for the mortgage scheme is still strong. Hundreds of rice farmers have rejected the government's plan and demanded it increase the mortgage quota and extend the programme.

Wichian Puanglamjiak, vice-chairman of the Thai Rice Farmers Association, said farmers from 40 provinces would descend on Bangkok next week to protest against the government's decision to scrap the rice mortgage scheme.

He was disappointed the cabinet had decided not to discuss the farmers' calls at its meeting, forwarding them instead to the National Rice Policy Committee. The committee will meet tomorrow to decide whether to extend the rice mortgage scheme and increase the mortgage quota as requested by farmers.

About 500 farmers in Chiang Mai and 300 farmers in Chiang Rai yesterday staged street protests against the government's decision.

They said the price guarantee scheme would force them to sell their produce at a much lower price than under the mortgage programme.

Source: Bangkok Post