After the FTA Fund allocated a budget to help shallot and garlic farmers for more than four years, it is expected that the sales of those crops will increase, allowing farmers to compete with overseas products.

Duangporn Rodphaya, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, said that the FTA Fund could support and lead to the innovation of garlic products, as the crop could be produced as powdered garlic and black garlic – offering consumers heath benefits given the products’ lower levels of cholesterol and anti-oxidants.

The products are in high demand in many markets. Japan, South Korea, and China have placed many orders for the products due to the health benefits and the fact they can be categorised as a food supplement.

The FTA Fund could also result in garlic, shallot, and onion farmers in Chiang Mai and Lampoon provinces increasing their yields per rai to complete with products from other countries, especially those from China, which have lower production costs.

It is hoped the average yield per rai for Thai garlic farmers will increase from three tonnes per rai to five tonnes.

For this year, the FTA Fund has been approved to help farmers and local enterprises in the pharmaceutical industry as well as enterprises dealing with electric appliances and packaging.

The fund has allocated a combined budget of Bt19 million for this.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry will develop a business-matching activity for rice exporters to meet rice traders from overseas in a bid to ensure rice products will be absorbed into the market amid high supplies of rice in the harvest season.

Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa, director-general of the Internal Trade Department, said the activity would be set up in November, and many international rice traders and Thai traders would meet to establish rice-trading deals.

The move will cover white rice, Hom Mali rice, and rice products.

The government will also conduct a business-matching initiative for Thai and international traders for cassava, especially traders from China, South Korea, Japan, and India.

In another effort to help rice farmers, the Commerce Ministry will launch a mobile application to assist farmers reserve harvesters for the upcoming harvest season, which beings in November.

The application is part of the government’s plan to help farmers adopt new technology to reduce production costs.