The Ministry of Commerce is moving ahead with its plan to convince more farmers sell rice online as an alternative outlet for rice sales.
It expects that no less than 120 tons will be sold by this method.
Minister for Commerce Aphiradee Tantraporn revealed today that she had delegated the Department of International Trade Promotion and the Department of Business Development with the responsibility of handling the ‘Thai Smart Farmers Promotion’ campaign.
The campaign is to provide support to farmers to sell rice via the Thairice.com website which will serve as the central market place for E-commerce for agricultural products.
The main task will be to attract more and more farmers to join in the program so that they can be accessed with greater ease by consumers.
So far, 2 tons of rice has been sold online.
Malee Choke-Lamlert, the director-general of the Department of International Trade Promotion meanwhile revealed that a public relations campaign will be launched to make sure that the public is made aware of this avenue of purchase. She also revealed that at present, more than 70 groups of farmers have shown interest in the program and she expects that online rice sales will account for around 120 tons in the first 4 months.
Numerically, this will amount to approximately 6 million baht in sales.
A number of businesses such as DHL E-Commerce Co. have given their consent to provide logistic support and a comprehensive service program starting with order cataloging up to the actual delivery to the doors of consumers.
Delivery will be free-of-charge and all the proceeds will go to farmers without any deductions for expenditures.
