The government will put its utmost effort into systematically solving the problems besetting the agricultural sector, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Wednesday.

The prime minister said in his speech to mark the Royal Ploughing Ceremony Day on Thursday that farmers are very important for the country, and are major food producers for Thai people and the rest of the world.

“As the planet has only limited farmland, while the world population is increasing, the demand for food will increase. And our farmers can play crucial role on this,” Mr Abhisit said.

If Thailand has a strong agricultural sector and a recognised agricultural institution ready to move the country to sustainability in development, farming would remain a strong fundamental of Thai society.

"It is the government’s duty to help strengthen the agricultural sector," he added.

He admitted that the farmers had suffered from the impact of the global economic crisis over the past year. The government had tried to help by reducing farm expenditure.

For the medium and long-term, Mr Abhisit said, the government had implemented policies on farm income guarantees and agricultural product price stabilisation, and was making one million rai of state land available for landless farmers to rent at a low  rate.

Even though the hardship of farmers had been eased this year on the back of a recovery in the global and Thai economies, several problems still existed - including the current drought and low rice prices, he said.

“To deal with the low rice price problem, the government has come up with the farm income guarantee scheme. The government is confident that this scheme is the right way to help solve the problem,” the premier said.

The next things the government would do for farmers included farm insurance, agricultural career development, farming under the sufficiency economy philosophy, solving rural debt problems and the establishment of a national farmers council, he said.

Deputy Prime Minister for economic matters Trairong Suwannakhiri said the Rice Policy Committee has approved a budget of 436.8 million baht to help 200,000 rice farmers who suffered from low market prices against high reference prices from March 15 to April 25 this year.

The Commerce Ministry and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) will assist the affected farmers immediately, Mr Trairong said.

He said the Rice Policy Committee had also approved the royal rice project to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the official coronation of His Majesty the King.

The project will distribute 60 million bags of rice to poor people nationwide. The Rice Policy Committee, the Commerce Ministry and the Interior Ministry will supervise the project.

Source: Bangkok Post