Thai farmers to protest against falling rubber prices

SONGKHLA, THAILAND, April 27 (TNA) - Rubber farmers from 14 southern Thai provinces will submit a letter to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra next week, demanding a change of ministers tasked with overseeing rubber issues. Preecha Sukkasem, leader of a network of rubber growers in Thailand's southern Songkhla province, told reporters Saturday that despite having spent a budget of some 30 billion baht, the government has failed to prevent the rubber prices from further falling, as the prices have already dropped from 100 baht per kilogramme to 70 baht per kilogramme. Preecha said that local rubber farmers also want the Thai premier to appoint experts to urgently solve the problem of the falling rubber prices, which has caused them heavy losses, and that they plan to hand a letter to senators and opposition MPs as well to ask them to help solve the problem. The rubber network in the Thai South vowed to step up their protest if the government failed to give them a response within 15 days. Meanwhile, Vichit Chatphaisit, Governor of Rayong province in the Thai East, met with members of the provincial agricultural outputs distribution committee to discuss ways to assist local farmers who have been affected by low prices of agricultural products, namely fruits, caused by the oversupply of the local farm produce. Rayong expects to produce 73,000 tonnes of durian, 17,000 tonnes of mangosteen, 15,000 tonnes of rambutan and 4,000 tonnes of langsat this year. (TNA)