The cabinet on Tuesday approved an emergency 22.9 billion baht budget for fiscal 2017 to help farmers improve production in line with the sufficiency economy philosophy, initiated by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The funding targets 4.5 million farmers in 1,901 local communities and covers crop production, livestock breeding, organic fertiliser production and fishery to improve their production, reduce production costs, and increase productivity.
The government will provide 2.5 million baht in funding to each community.
Nathporn Chatusripitak, an adviser to Prime Minister's Office Minister Suvit Maesincee said the government aims to disburse half of the budget by July and the rest by August this year.
"Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered the cabinet to complete disbursement by August this year. This project will help stimulate the economy," he said.
Mr Nathporn said the government hopes the project will help enable farmers to earn higher income and create a multiplier effect within the communities.
In a related development, the cabinet yesterday approved 2.87 billion baht to promote farmers to grow organic rice and the grains that meet good agricultural practices (GAP) in 2017-21 crops.
The Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives Ministry reported that in the 2017/18 crop season, there were 1,175 farmers joining the government-initiated megafarm projects covering 1.79 million rai.
The ministry also reported the prices of paddy grown under the GAP remain close to general paddy prices. The ministry plans to introduce the project to draw farmers into growing organic paddy and GAP rice, while convincing entrepreneurs to buy organic paddy and GAP-certified paddy with higher prices.
Entrepreneurs who sign a memorandum of understanding with farmers to buy organic paddy and GAP-certified paddy will be entitled to soft loans from the banks that join the programme, while the government is committed to subsidising 3% of annual interest rates.
Entrepreneurs are required to buy GAP-certified paddy at prices 4% higher than market prices, and buy organic rice at prices 15% higher than market prices.
The Commerce Ministry will be allowed to offer 10% of the rice export quota to the EU, around 2,000 tonnes a year for entrepreneurs who export organic rice to EU.
The project aims to enable participating farmers to sell 594,000 tonnes of premium organic paddy and 10.3 million tonnes of GAP paddy over the 2017-21 crops.
According to Mr Nathporn, the cabinet yesterday also approved 1.58 billion baht for the Finance Ministry to develop welfare cards for low-income earners and requires the cards to be implemented within Oct 1.
A total 14.2 million low-income earners are registered at the ministry and are being vetted.