BANGKOK, 7 June 2015 – President of a rice farmers’ network Weera Rungrueng believes that the government can help increase the price of rice by a thousand baht per ton.
He told the media that rice prices have fallen hard, due to the officials’ discouragement from off-season farming, droughts, and the Commerce Ministry’s plan to release one million tons of rice in its third auction scheduled for the middle of this month.
Mr. Weera was however convinced that the administration would be able to increase the price of rice by a thousand baht per ton, referring to Deputy Prime Minister for economic affairs M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakula’s statement given to the media earlier. In order to achieve that feat, Mr. Weera said cooperation from all sides was needed.
The network president is also concerned about the 17 million tons of stockpiled rice, which are low-quality grains and not suitable for exporting or selling through government-to-government deals. He said exporting them would negatively affect the confidence of foreign buyers in Thai rice.
The rice farmers’ network representative was of the opinion that the current rice price crisis would not affect the Kingdom’s top rice exporter title, as the nation only exports new and high-quality rice.
