BANGKOK, Feb 13 – The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) has extended a debt moratorium to 342,879 farmers or about 88.88 per cent of all eligible participants with debts together totalling some Bt43 billion.
BAAC Assistant Manager Boonthai Kaewkhantee said the number of farmers currently eligible to seek delayed payment for their debts—a debt moratorium–amounts to 567,331 with total debts amounting to some Bt70.6 billion.
To assist low-income farmers with debts less than Bt500,000, the project, which began in Dec 2011, was extended to April 15 from the Feb 15 date set to end earlier.
Mr Boonthai said that there are still 181,545 bank customers who have not yet applied to join the project or have not yet received assistance, with debts amounting to more than Bt22 billion.
The bank will ask for more voluntary participants and will extend the application period for the 2011 debt moratorium project in line with the government’s policies.
Regarding rehabilitation and occupational development for participating farmers, the BAAC will do that through prototype communities adopting the His Majesty the King’s self-sufficiency
economy philosophy and he monarch’s new theory agriculture and the BAAC’s 3500 learning centres.
The development is aimed at helping farmers to depend upon themselves in a sustainable manner based on the self-sufficiency economy model.
The bank targets to train at least 70 per cent of all participating farmers with the budget of Bt1.1 billion in three years from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2015.
