By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE RICE DEPARTMENT PLANS to promote cultivation of a flood-resistant rice genus in provincial low-lying terrains in effort to contain the farmers’ repeated damage and losses due to flooding.
The amylose-rich rice genus which the Rice Department will extensively promote among a total of 172 rice genuses will be distributed by the agency to rice farmers in varied parts of the country, according to deputy government spokesperson Kenika Unchit.
Being similar to Sao Hai rice genus largely grown in the yearly-inundated central region, the amylose-rich rice genus is highly resistant to flash floods or stagnant flooding, bacterial leaf blight diseases and brown planthoppers, and additionally is aromatic while yielding an average of 1.2 tonnes of rice per rai of land, Kenika said.
The newly-promoted rice genus, seedlings of which will be handed out to farmers in low-lying terrains where flash floods could probably be a repeated, seasonal phenomenon, can produce crops with qualities competitively suitable for export apart from those of other rice genuses, she said.
Thailand is forecast to produce an estimated 25.7 million tonnes of rice for 2023/2024 season with some 18.2 million tonnes being bound for domestic consumption and some 7.5 million tonnes destined for export to world markets. That compared to a total of 8.5 million tonnes of export volume reported for 2022/2023 season.
Meanwhile, another 115,000 households of rice farmers in all regions of the country have been recently granted a government subsidy.
The Bank for Agriculture & Agricultural Cooperatives’ deputy manager Kasap Ngernruang confirmed that the 115,000 households of rice farmers have been provided a maximum of 20,000 baht in government subsidy over the weekend.
Each of the rice farmers’ households is entitled to 1,000 baht in subsidy per rai of their farmland and a maximum of 20 rai is eligible under the government’s financial support measure to alleviate their increased production cost for fertilisers and pesticides, among others.
A total of 4.68 million households of rice farmers in all parts of the country have been so far granted a combined 54.33 billion baht in government subsidy, including the latest batch of rice farmers’ households being given a combined 868 million baht in such supplementary funding over the weekend, he said.
BAAC branches had transferred the subsidy money to most of the recipient farmers’ households last month.
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Top and Front Page: Rice farmers working on their paddy fields. Photos: Thai Rath
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