Inspired Thinking

[Soupdragon]

PM says Thais should eat less to help farmers

(BangkokPost.com) - Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has asked Thais to consume less rice for the benefit of Thai farmers at a time of rising rice prices.

Speaking during his weekly programme aired on television and broadcast on the radio, the premier described the rice situation as something that will go according to supply and demand, but said farmers could sell their rice stocks at more than double the usual price to importers and encouraged Thais to make a sacrifice by eating less rice.

According to Mr Samak, the government is currently negotiating with neighbouring countries to import cheap fertiliser to help cut the cost of production for paddy farmers. He also vowed to crack down on those responsible for producing counterfeit fertiliser


Asking the population to give up their staple diet so others can profit. What is the man thinking. Oh and don't buy faulty shite.

Maybe they should eat more fish instead.

Toxic snack

More than 140 people were rushed to local hospitals with food poisoning after eating fish balls apparently made from the puffer fish in Ban Luang district of this northern province on Friday.

The villagers ate the fish balls in a soup offered at the funeral of Kham Sudsom on Friday evening at a house belonging to Daoloy Mongkol in tambon Ban Fah.

[ATMwalking]

Just reading the first line was enough. Sometimes I can only hope it was a poor translation.

Why not just have the government pay the farmers market value so they can work more land and have a decent life? Why not have the government better guard the huge stores of rice that they control?

Thais don't ask if you are hungry. they ask if you are hungry for rice of if you have eaten rice yet. Rice is so core to life here.

Last I heard they were still shutting down rice fields because it wasn't profitable enough. Clearly the market economy is not at work here.

If thais could get access to the record high prices, you'd have thais running to the fields and planting rice..

[LivinLOS]

Or how about the government not steal 200,000 tonnes of rice that was... er... 'lost' !!!

[Minder]

Originally Posted by ATMwalking

.....
Thais don't ask if you are hungry. they ask if you are hungry for rice of if you have eaten rice yet. Rice is so core to life here...

The PM's previous life was clearly in a Burlesque Theatre

Patient "Doctor it hurts when I breathe."
Doctor "Then don't breathe."

Apparently the rice price has trebled lately - the Vietnamese had a bad harvest (some kind of bug?) and this helped push up prices. Last week the supermarket at Central Bangna was limiting rice purchases to 3 bags (no mention of size) per family according to signs in Thai and English at the check-outs. It was certainly a huge topic of conversation with the in-laws over Songkran. I doubt that a price increase in anything else (including motor fuel) would have such a flow on affect price wise.
Enjoy.

[ATMwalking]

Originally Posted by ATMwalking

If thais could get access to the record high prices, you'd have thais running to the fields and planting rice..

Plus you saw my other post about the government now stepping in and paying market rates for rice. http://www.phuket-info.com/forums/ne...t-farmers.html

Well now here you go:

A higher minimum wage is seen as necessary for manufacturers to prevent labourers from migrating back home to take advantage of the current boom in agricultural goods prices, business leaders say.

Bangkok Post : Business news

This is creating an interesting set of problems.

[marc26]

Originally Posted by ATMwalking

If thais could get access to the record high prices, you'd have thais running to the fields and planting rice..

last i heard, from the vil;lage, they were throwing parties because they were selling their rice at all time highs

[pablo]

GF's mom just sold a few "bags" at 20thb per kilo. Last year, they had to wait for the price to rise to 8thb per kilo.

As she says, "Everybody want to work the farms, now...get more rice." 55555