“Why do you still want to grow a lot of rice paddy when there would be losses [resulting from doing that]?” the premier quipped during a meeting with Suthep Kongmak, president of the Thai rice growers’ association.
Prayut said every stakeholder had to grasp the situation in regard to the country’s rice production properly, so that problems can be resolved effectively. The government needed to implement both short- and long-term measures to help farmers hit by the slump in prices, which have plunged to a 10-year low.
The prevailing market price is now only Bt6,000 to Bt7,000 per tonne, which is less than the average cost of production.
Suthep yesterday led a group of association members to thank the government for moves to intervene in the market to shore up prices.
The prime minister said the programmes announced recently, worth nearly Bt60 billion, were aimed at helping farmers to keep their crop in barns for household consumption, as well as delaying the sales of their paddy until market prices rise again.
Speaking on behalf of rice farmers and millers around the country, Suthep said his group was satisfied with the Cabinet’s solution to boost the plunging price of Hom Mali paddy. But he also urged the government to expand assistance schemes for farmers in regions outside the North and the Northeast.

‘Make farmers stronger’
After, Prayut said: “We intend to solve farmers’ problems at their root cause. Many factors are involved such as rice quality, floods and drought, high production costs, so we need to help farmers adapt to changes, so that they are stronger. We’ve implemented urgent measures and will provide funding to lower the costs of production. After all, we’re not telling farmers to stop growing rice, but they have to adapt to the new conditions.
“In the end, government assistance programmes alone do not solve the problems at their root cause, so we have to implement longer-term measures to make farmers stronger, even though it will take another 10 to 20 years for these measures to bear fruit,” he said.
On water resources, Prayut, who is scheduled to visit Pathum Thani this Friday to observe water management for consumption and agricultural purposes, said: “The problem is water is still not accessible by all sectors, especially the agricultural sector, as not all areas have an irrigation system.”
Meanwhile, Justice Minsiter Paiboon Koomchaya said more than 6,000 individuals would face investigation into their roles in the massive financial losses stemming from the previous government’s rice-pledging scheme. Some of these individuals, including former ministers, bureaucrats, and executives of private companies, could face civil liability lawsuits, like the one former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been hit with.
The government is seeking Bt30 billion in compensation from Yingluck for negligence in her official oversight of the scheme for allegedly ignoring warnings of rampant graft in the scheme, which cost the state over Bt500 billion over two to three years.

Amnesty International (AI) on Monday urged Thai authorities to drop charges against human rights lawyer Sirikan Charoensiri, who faces prosecution after providing legal assistance to anti-junta student activists.
The AI also urged authorities to protect the independence and freedom of lawyers, end the repression of peaceful dissidents, and respect and protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
In October, Sirikan was charged with sedition under the Penal Code’s Article 116 and with illegal political assembly in violation of the National Council for Peace and Order’s order banning political gatherings of more than four people.
She also faces criminal charges filed in May for allegedly failing to comply with official orders and for concealing evidence, following her refusal to consent to police requests to carry out a warrantless search of her car after her activist clients were detained for engaging in an alleged political gathering.
As she made a legal complaint alleging official misconduct relating to the incident, Sirikan was also accused of filing a false report to police.
Sirikan, of the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, represents the student-based New Democratic Movement, which has held peaceful assemblies in opposition to the junta. Some of its members have been arrested.

NLA president Pornpetch Wichitcholchai labelled as rushed the 60-day time frame prescribed in the 2014 interim charter to deliberate on the organic laws.
It is crucial that the NLA members put extra effort into the process to meet the deadline for deliberating on the laws, he said.
NLA members will need to go on a retreat to get the job done, with special attention paid to deliberating on the four organic laws essential for organising the national election set for next year under the government’s road map, he added.
As part of yesterday’s seminar, NLA vice president Surachai Liengboonlertchai prepped legislators on the procedures for the legislation of the organic laws. He laid out the NLA’s method to work on the laws, with 10 committees to be formed to look at each of the 10 laws.
Each committee will comprise 30 to 35 members, a fifth of whom will be representatives from the governmental, private, and civil society sectors, Surachai added.
He said that during the retreat trip the committees would listen to all the proposed amendments to ensure continuity of the work and meeting the deadline.
The NLA vice president also explained that passing the organic laws was a different process to passing other legislation. To pass each reading, it requires a majority of the members, at least 126 out of 250, to agree on the amendment when other laws require only the majority of those present at the meeting, he said. If anyone were absent, it would be deemed that they were against the motion, Surachai said.
He said that after the NLA approved the organic laws, they would be forwarded to the Constitutional Court, the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) as well as relevant independent agencies.
If these parties saw any contradictions to the constitution in the passed organic laws, a committee of 11 – comprised of five members of the NLA, five CDC members and a chairman from a related organisation – would be formed to give recommendations to the NLA.
He said vetoing a recommendation required two-thirds of all the NLA members to vote against it. If that did not happen, the NLA would have accepted the recommendation and the organic law should be amended accordingly.

Thaweesak Suthokwathin said the committee, chaired by |NLA vice chairman Surachai Liengboonlertchai, would supervise the vetting of the four bills so that they could be examined in harmony. The four bills relate to political parties, House of Representatives members, the Election Commission and senators.

The Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) has been working on the first two bills and is expected to forward them to the NLA shortly after the constitution’s likely promulgation in the next 90 days. However, the NLA feared it would not have enough time as it would have only 60 days to vet each bill.

The NLA wished to start work on them along with the CDC straight away, Thaweesak said. Surachai would brief them on the spirit of each bill for understanding among the members, Thaweesak said. The NLA is also planning to hold a legal camp for NLA members so that they will have time to concentrate on vetting the bills.

NRSA vice chair Alongkorn Ponlaboot said clashes could spin into political assaults. He urged both sides to tone down their activities so that the mood of the royal mourning period would not be spoiled.

Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is among the first MPs who stepped out to help farmers sell rice after prices slumped over recent weeks. On Saturday, she led some Pheu Thai executives to sell rice outside a shopping mall in Samut Prakan, the second time she had done so. A week ago, Yingluck sold 10 tonnes of jasmine rice bought from farmers within an hour outside the Fashion Island shopping mall. The action drew swift criticism from opposition figures including the Democrats’ former MPs.

‘Helping farmers can be done without media stunts’

Alongkorn said he felt uncomfortable with the ongoing “stunts” – and the return assaults they could provoke from opponents. He urged participants to compose themselves, saying they were previously all high-profile politicians or political office holders. Before getting involved they should understand the public mood and manner.

Alongkorn said selling of rice with the aim of helping farmers could be done without any media stunts if they wished to really help without any expectation of favours in return. Other agencies had been doing this, but not politicians, he said.

“What ordinary people do to help the farmers is volunteering without announcing what they do. It’s what is called ‘volunteering’ which would involve no competition and assaults against one another,” Alongkorn said.