About half of Thai farmers paid under rice-pledging scheme

BANGKOK, May 2 (TNA) - About half, or 785,000 Thai farmers, have received money, totaling 97 billion baht, paid under the government's rice-pledging scheme by the end of April 2014. Supat Eauchai, Executive Vice President of state-run Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), told journalsits of the information on Friday, saying that about another half, or 800,000 farmers,who have sold rice to the official rice-pledging scheme have not yet received money. But Supat affirmed that BAAC has continued paying money to farmers joining the programme daily, at 500 million baht-one billion baht a day, noting that most of the money handed to farmers over the past few weeks was from the Rice Farmers’ Fund. For farmers who have not yet received money from their rice sold to the programme and are encountering financial problem, about 470,000 of them, Supat revealed that BAAC has extended the settlement of their debts with the bank by another six months with a combined principal of 61 billion baht. According to the BAAC vice president, in order to assist farmers, BAAC has also come up with a new lending programme in which it charges 7 per cent interest annually, with more than 130,000 farmers having requested for a combined loan of 9 billion baht so far. The BAAC vice president expected that the caretaker government, through the Ministry of Commerce, should be able to pay back some 20 billion baht, borrowed from BAAC on March 18, 2014 to pay to farmers joining the rice-pledging scheme, in mid-May 2014 as promised. (TNA)