This article aims to appraise part of the farm policies that the Prayut Chan-o-cha government implemented from July 2019-July 2022.
The analysis is based on part of the Prayut government's three reports on farm policy. Essentially, these reports provide details on assistance to farmers and farm innovation development; both aspects are part of the Prayut administration's 12 urgent issues. Agricultural development was part of the government's economic development and competitiveness policy.
It should be noted that the reports only gave the number of farmers taking part in state projects. Regrettably, it stopped short of evaluating the outcome of these polices and impacts, such as changes to farmers' gross income.
The reports are peppered with development indices, referred by international organisations, in a number of sectors. It cannot go without saying that these international indices are not used as indicators to measure the impact of polices and action plans.
SUBSIDIES
The Prayut government's farm policy prioritized six farmer assistance projects. Five of which are price subsidies given to five cash crops. The sixth is the project for the support and management of rice quality development.
The price guarantee project has advantages as follows:
Financial subsidies were allocated to more than 7.1 million farmers at a rate of 1,223 baht compensation each. Altogether, the project spent 88.4 billion baht in the 2019-2020 crop year. Rice farmers were the largest group of recipients, totalling 4.68 million in 2022-2023, up from 4.48 million the previous year. Financial subsidies finally exceeded 70.6 billion baht.
In terms of cash remittance, there was no money loss or any errors in cash transferring. Money was transferred from the central government to recipients' accounts at the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC).
Because there was no price interference, the project therefore had no fraud, unlike the scandalous rice-pledging scheme. When market prices were higher than guaranteed prices, the government did not have to compensate, as evident in the case of oil palm planters during 2021-2022 and oil palm, maize and cassava planters the following year. Such subsidies can make farmers idle, without driving forces to make them adjust or switch to other crops that may give better income.
There were some problems in the implementation. To start with, the number of registered farmers exceeded the initial target. This was because of the eligibility criteria that allowed farmers who possessed 14-30 rai, depending on rice varieties, to register for grants.
As a result, a family holding over 20 rai of land split land ownership among family members, so more than one were eligible for registration. Also, some farmers used land for other purposes like residential and gardening land for registration. Such irregularities were rampant in the absence of tight scrutiny. In fact, the Rice Policy Committee headed by the prime minister spotted the problems. But there was no correction, therefore tax money was shamefully wasted.
In addition, redundancy was found in two farmer assistance projects: the income guarantee project which was allocated 86.16 billion baht in 2021-2022; and the project on supporting and managing farm product development which received 54.15 billion baht.
The former which had already included production cost and profits, was an initiative of the Democrat Party, the latter which belonged to the Palang Pracharat Party saw an extra 1,000 baht per rai grant to farmers. Despite redundancy, the government insisted it had to pursue both projects, as they were flagship policies of the two parties. Under coalition governments, members of the coalition still need to realize their election campaign promises at the expense of taxpayers' money.
While the Prayut government spent heavily on farm subsidies for five cash crops, it did not book the expense in the national budget, otherwise that would become public debt which is a breach of financial discipline.
It got away with a trick -- instructing the BAAC to advance the money in a separate account, which was not classified as government loans from the bank, despite the fact it would have to allocate a budget to pay back the amount, plus interest. In other words, this is hidden public debt.
COMPETITIVENESS
In terms of capacity boosting, there are three projects based on a policy to improve farmers' competitiveness which recorded some progress.
1) The Young Smart Farmers project provides training and network building for over 18,200 farmers. The outcome remains unclear.
2) The Aggregation of Small Farmers project that encourages farmers to form groups so that they can benefit from the economies of scale. One setback of this project is some farmers' groups did not use large machinery.
3) The Agri-map project that aims to give farmers access to digital data. Due to technical complications, farmers' views are still limited, only 767,698.
Some policies did not show progress at all. A glaring example is rice development. Even though Thailand is major rice exporting nation, local farmers still use smuggled seeds on soft cooking rice varieties to compete with the Vietnamese strains.
The Rice Department produced seeds for local soft rice, but it remains unpopular. Rice farmers in the Chao Phraya River Basin prefer the Vietnamese strains that were smuggled into the system as they give higher yields (1.1-1.2 tonnes per rai). More importantly, Vietnamese rice is the short-duration type -- 90 days -- which is good for second-crop rice planting in flood-risk areas.
WEATHER AND FARM-WASTE BURNING
Additionally, the country is fighting a losing battle with PM2.5 dust. In his first year as head of an elected government, Gen Prayut put the PM2.5 air pollution problem on the national agenda. A working group tasked with finding solutions to forest fires and opening burning was formed in 2021 by the Office of the PM policy administration.
The reports pinpointed farm-waste burning as the main cause of the smog in the farming sector, followed by maize and sugarcane. Sugarcane sector nevertheless is perceived as main culprit in farm waste burning -- not rice farming.
One report, which named the provinces with the largest areas of opening burning, proposed short- and long-term solutions, including closer cooperation with neighboring countries on this tough issue.
Unfortunately, those recommendations were not implemented and the problems intensified, so much so, that Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai became the world's worst most-polluted cities in April this year.
The public sector in both provinces put the government to task, calling for aggressive anti-dust measures. In addition, a group of academics took Gen Prayut and the National Environmental Committee to court for failing to use their authority in accordance with Section 9 of the National Environmental Promotion and Prevention Act, in tackling the smog in time until the problem became a serious threat to public health.
Finally, forest versus people conflicts remain unsolved. The Prayut government launched the National Park Act and Forest Reserve and Wildlife Protection Act with a view to solving conflicts between state agencies and forest dwellers, and also helping landless villagers.
The laws had a provision requiring state agencies to launch a natural resources conservation project which includes cooperation with local people.
But until now, nothing has been done while the provision has expired.
Nipon Poapongsakorn, PhD, is a Director for Economic Transformation Study and Modern Agriculture Policy at Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI). Policy analyses from the TDRI appear in the Bangkok Post on alternate Wednesdays.