The floods that have been ravaging the Chao Phraya River basin for four months have caused damages worth 72 billion baht to Thailand's agricultural sector and trimmed its growth forecast to only 1% from 3% projected earlier.

The country's worst flooding in several decades has also taken away the opportunity for Thai farmers to benefit from rising farm prices, especially of rice, said Apichart Jongskul, secretary-general of the Office of Agricultural Economics.

"If it wasn't for the floods, farmers should have earned more income this year due to high offer prices under the rice pledging programme and strong prices of many crops in the first three quarters," he said.

In the first half of this year, strong prices of crops such as rubber, oil palm, sugarcane and cassava drove the growth of Thailand's farm economy over the period to expand by 7.3% year-on-year, the highest rate in 10 years.

The bullish performance led the OAE to raise its annual growth projection to between 4.3% and 5.3%, up from a range of 1.4% to 2.4% earlier. However, the slow global economy and flooding in July later forced the agency to cut its growth forecast to 3% in August.

The latest survey of the agency found that up to 1.4 million farmers have been affected by flash floods that have devastated over 30 provinces since July.

Of the total, 1.1 million are rice farmers and the rest deal with livestock, fishery and other crops.

The Agricultural Extension Department reported that 9.01 million rai of rice paddies across the country have been flooded over the past three months. It said 7.21 million rai were in critical condition, with damages up to 51 billion baht.

"The recovery of many farmlands may take longer. It might not be possible for many farmers to resume next year as their houses were also heavily damaged," said Mr Apichart.

The floods will also affect the farm economy next year unless farmers are in areas that are well-irrigated or have sufficient water to resume growing the second crop as fast as possible.

On the bright side, the floods will lead to significant changes in risk management to more effectively deal with natural disasters and harsh conditions.

He said water experts from outside the public sector should join the committee that manages water from dams and reservoirs nationwide.

Currently, the committee's members are all government officials from the Royal Irrigation Department, the Royal Thai Navy's Hydrographic Department, the Meteorological Department and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat). Moreover, they only meet on a fixed schedule, leaving the decisions to manage water from dams largely in the hands of Egat and the Royal Irrigation Department.

Critics said that despite abnormally frequent storms and monsoons this year, mismanagement in releasing water from major dams, especially the Bhumibol and the Sirikit dams, was widely blamed for the disaster.

The meddling of politicians by diverting water flows to allow farmers in certain provinces to finish harvesting paddy is believed to have made the situation even worse.

Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut admitted to Parliament last week that he had asked officials to delay releasing water from the Bhumibol dam because rice farmers in the central plains were about to harvest.

The central plains are where the second-crop rice is grown, covering 3.8 million of the 9.8 million rai of fields in the country that have sufficient water to support the second crop.

"Even as these provinces such as Suphan Buri produce strong yields, it's not worthwhile given the massive losses inflicted by such manipulation," the source said.

Meanwhile, Mr Apichart said relief packages to help affected farmers resume operations quickly are on the drawing board. They include free essentials such as rice seeds, three-year debt moratorium for farm cooperatives and improvements to infrastructure.

The assistance is part of the compensation approved by the government at the rates of 2,222 baht a rai for damaged rice farms, 3,350 baht a rai for field crops such as maize, and 5,098 baht a rai of orchards.

Source: Bangkok Post