Farmers cast votes to elect NFC members

BANGKOK, March 4 (TNA) - Farmers throughout the country went to cast their votes Sunday to elect 20 members who would sit on the vacant seats of the Farmer’s Reconstruction and Development Fund Committee. Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Theera Wongsamut inspected a polling booth at a temple in Ban Phaeo district of Samut Sakhon province, one of 5,400 booths nationwide. The polling booth is ranked among the top booths with the highest number of eligible farmers casting their votes in the previous two elections for members of the Farmer’s Reconstruction and Development Fund Committee. Theera urged farmers to exercise their voting rights as those elected farmers would join committee members appointed by the government and academics in solving farmers’ problems and to also lay out policies aimed at improving farmers’ skills. However, Theera said he expected about 30 per cent or 1.77 million out of the total farmers eligible to cast votes would exercise voting rights. On plans to tackle drought problem, he said the Royal Irrigation Department recently dispatched 400 water pumps to help people facing water shortage crux. Also, 495 water trucks plus 1,000 water pumps have been kept in reserve and are on standby to help people, he added. (TNA)