Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has expressed concerns over 1.6 million indebted farmers nationwide and ordered urgent solutions to the problem. He emphasized that the farmers should be saved from losing their farmland.
Deputy Government Spokesman Maj. Gen. Sansern Kaeokamnerd said the PM was worried about the debt problem of Thai farmers after he learned that there were more than 1.6 million of them with a combined debt of around 388 billion baht or about 237,000 baht per person on average. Gen. Prayut said there must be measures to prevent them from losing their farmland and instructed relevant government units to make sure that the farmers’ debt problems would be solved at the root cause level.
The PM also urged the government units to launch assistance measures such as projects on vocational rehabilitation, business networking, development of model communities for self-managed production and registration of farmers with informal debt.
More than 105,000 farmers with informal debt with a combined debt of 11 billion baht have registered with the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. The Government Savings Bank has registered 4,450 others whose debt totals 542 million baht.
