Thai rubber growers pressure for higher prices

PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN, THAILAND, December 10 (TNA) - Rubber growers in the Thai South have discussed their movements to pressure the government for a much higher rubber price. Representatives of rubber growers in the Thai South met in Ban Thammarat in Bang Saphan District of the upper southern Prachuap Khiri Khan on Wednesday afternoon, demanding that the government offer the 1,000-baht-per-rai cultivation subsidy to rubber growers who have no land right documents, as 80 per cent of rubber growers in Bang Saphan and Bang Saphan Noi Districts grow rubber trees on public land. The rubber growers also called for long-term assistance for such landless farmers. Prachuap Khiri Khan Governor Veera Sriwattanatrakul told journalists that the 1,000-baht-per-rai subsidy would reach 5,672 households of registered rubber growers in the province in the near future and the government has also arranged a soft loan of 100,000 baht for each rubber-growing household to invest in side jobs. About 800 small-scaled rubber growers in Prachuap Khiri Khan will receive the soft loan, with 2 per cent interest rate, worth altogether about 80 million baht from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC). Meanwhile, Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Amnuay Patise told reporters, after his meeting with rubber growers’ representatives to discuss the problem of the low rubber price, that the government has planned to purchase more local rubber to raise its price from 52 to 60 baht per kilogram, but the government could not accept the rubber farmers’ demand to raise the rubber price on the domestic market to 80 baht per kilogram. A representative of rubber growers vowed, however, unless the government raised the rubber price to 80 baht within this year, local rubber farmers would rally and place their demands with the government again. The meeting, nonetheless, agreed with more rubber export efforts and an idea to increase the local use of rubber for road construction, for instance, so that the rubber price will increase. (TNA)