The national rice policy committee yesterday decided to leave the price of pledged price unchanged at 15,000 baht per tonne.

At that price the government needs more than 100 billion baht to pay for the next round of grain purchases in its rice-pledging scheme.

About 7 million tonnes of paddy is expected to be pledged in the second round, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said yesterday following a committee meeting.

Mr Boonsong insisted the government would not exceed its loan target of 500 billion baht to fund the scheme.

He earlier said the government had sold a portion of the pledged rice in the previous round and returned about 66 billion baht to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives (BAAC).

The BAAC had advanced funds to farmers to cover the costs of their pledged rice.

By the end of this year the government expects to return an additional 150-160 billion baht to the BAAC after selling more pledged rice.

About 220 billion baht in total would be returned to the BAAC before the end of this year, he said.

The policy committee also agreed to impose an additional condition to prohibit rice grown for less than a hundred days from being pledged, he said.

The requirement was imposed to improve the quality of the pledged rice by excluding rice grown and harvested in a shorter period than usual, he said.

The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry was expected to issue a rice pledging certificate to all eligible farmers by Friday when the second round of pledging begins, Mr Boonsong said.

As for the off-season rice harvest, the ministry should finalise its plan to impose zoning restrictions on growing rice in the next two months, he said.

The ministry wanted to place restrictions on certain zones that are not suitable for growing off-season rice, such as areas where drought loomed, he said.

Products from these particular zones would probably not be included in the government's pledging scheme.

Source: Bangkok post