Thai government's subsidy for rice farmers set to end Nov 30

BANGKOK, October 20 (TNA) - The Thai government has begun paying a subsidy of 1,000 baht per rai (2.5 rais = 1 acre) to local rice farmers nationwide, with the payment expected to be completed by the end of next month. Luck Wajananawat, President of state-run Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), told journalists on Monday that the Cabinet has approved the 1,000 baht-per rai subsidy (1 rai = 1,600 square meters) to Thai rice farmers who are each set to be eligible for the official financial assistance at the maximum of 15,000 baht or 15 rais to help them cope with low rice prices currently. Luck said his bank will hand out a total of about 40 billion baht to 3.49 million households of rice growers in the 2014/2015 crop season nationwide. According to the BAAC president, the subsidy payment started on October 20 in first eight provinces, where farmers’ registrations have been ready, including Phitsanulok, Phichit, Kamphaeng Phet, Lop Buri, Khon Kaen, Si Sa Ket, Surin, and Maha Sarakham, and it is expected to be completed nationwide by November 30, 2014. Meanwhile, the subsidy payment started lively, for example, at a BAAC branch in Pho Thale District of Phichit Province in the Lower Thai North, where over 1,300 farmers were set to receive the subsidy, worth altogether 18 million baht, on October 20 alone. In Kamphaeng Phet Province, also in the Lower Thai North, where a total of about 46,000 rice growers were registered, 2,990 of them were set to get the subsidy, worth altogether 42 million baht, on the first day. Seventeen BAAC branches in the province will transfer the money directly to the accounts of all the local eligible farmers within November 10. In Khon Kaen Province in the Thai Northeast, where about 166,000 families of rice growers are eligible to obtain the subsidy worth altogether 2.34 billion baht, Monday's subsidy was handed out at BAAC's Nong Rua Branch. (TNA)