Farmers threaten to stop growing rice

The general public are now concentrating on the red-shirts rally and seem to have forgotten that  farmers are facing many difficulties, Mr Wichian said.

The government has its special team to settle the country's economic problems, but the farmers found that their previous call for assistance received no response, he said.

“We have asked the government to set its guaranteed price for rice at a minimum of 12,000 baht a tonne, but there was no action from the state,” he said.

He claimed that Deputy Prime Minister for economic matters Trairong Suwankiri had done nothing to help poor farmers. As a result, the rice price had fallen to only 6,500 baht a tonne.

Once the red-shirts stop their rally, the farmers will immediately resume agitating for help from the government, said Mr Wichian.

“There will be meetings to clearly map out the movement plan and the level of the demonstration in the event  the government ignores the farmers’ demands,” he said.

One option already agreed to by several groups would be proposed to a meeting of farmers for approval soon -- that farmers across the country stop growing rice for sale for one or two years. They would grow only enough rice to feed their families.

In addition, Mr Wichian said, the farmers would refuse to make any debt repayments to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.

“After that we would wait to see what action the government takes. We have to do it this way as there is no other way left to us,” he said.

More importantly, the farmers would not vote for any Democrat Party candidates at the next polls, he said.

Source Bangkok Post