The government is confident its policy on rice price support will effectively help farmers while rice millers' association asks the state to raise the rice procurement price.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the government's farm price guarantee program is in progress with its details being revised.
Abhisit said several measures will be imposed to keep the rice price stable, including rice deposit, rice procurement and loan support for rice millers.
He insisted the program's budget will not be used extravagantly.
In a related development, the Thai Rice Mills Association is preparing to submit its recommendations on the state's rice purchasing scheme.
Association president Charnchai Rakthananon said rice procurement based on the Commerce Ministry's announced price will not help shore up the market price for rice.
He added that conversely, it wastes the state's budget.
Instead of alloting a total budget of 50 billion baht to subsidize farmers by 1,500 to 2,000 baht per ton of rice, he said such a budget can purchase rice up to 7 million tons.
Charnchai said the government should set the rice procurement price itself and the price should be higher than the market price but lower than the farm guarantee price to help reduce subsidies to the farm price guarantee program.
The Commerce Ministry has reported that criteria for seeking rice millers to join the 2-million ton paddy purchase program are already completed and the ministry will assign the Public Warehouse Organization to select the millers before the project kicks off on November 9.
