BANGKOK, 20 June 2013 The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) is preparing to impose four measures to help rice farmers who are affected by the reduction of rice pledging price.
BAAC President Luck Wajananawat said there were about 200,000 farmers with three million tons of rice in possession who would feel the consequences of the pledging price decrease to 12,000 baht per ton and the new pledge limit of 500,000 baht per household.
The bank has, therefore, come up with four assistance measures for them, including a 20% increase in credit ceiling, interest rate cut, promotion of the Credit Card for Farmer project and crop insurance.
The BAAC president pointed out that the rice pledging scheme had improved the quality of life of the farmers as seen from their increasing combined deposit with the bank from 141 billion baht to 250 billion baht. The bank’s NPLs have also decreased by half from 8% to 4%.
