BANGKOK, June 4 – More Thai farmers were found burdened by debt in terms of the number of households and amount of debt, according to Kasetsart University’s Office of Agricultural Economic Forecast Centre.
The Centre reported that a survey of the household debt situation of farming households in 2014 found that 78 per cent of a total of 5.7 million farming families are now in debt, an increase from 51 per cent recorded in 1996.
The Centre said that the amount of debts also expanded as well, increasing from Bt24,672 per family on average in 1996, to Bt76,697 per family on average in 2014.
The southern region has the most number of farming families in debt, followed by the central, northeastern, and northern regions, said the Centre. The major reasons for the farmers falling into debt were easier access to loan facilities, inflation and higher prices of goods.
The Centre, however, stressed that the overdue payment to farmers under the rice pledging scheme would help create more cash flow within the domestic economy over the short term and would help reduce the burden of debt for families by about Bt4,000 on average, or lowering a total of Bt6.57 billion from debt in the agriculture sector.
