Bangkok (VNA) – The Government of Thailand will build 1,000 large-scale ricefarms in 2017.
Theprogramme aims to reduce production cost, enhance efficiency andcompetitiveness of Thai rice in the international market.
InSeptember 2016, the country’s Ministries of Commerce, Internal Affairs,Agriculture and Cooperatives signed a cooperation agreement to implement theprogramme.
DeputyMinister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Chutima Bunyapraphasara said theprogramme will be implemented in three models depending on geographicallocations and participants’ demand.
Model2.0 will be the traditional rice farming with effective management andmarketing. Model 3.0 will apply technology and grow rice with good quality tosupply for the manufacturing industry, while model 4.0 will use advancedtechnology to reduce production cost. The Thai Government plans to call for investmentin developing the model 4.0.
Theprogramme, worth 87 million USD, was initiated in 2016, under which farmers areencouraged to contribute their land for building large-scale rice farms.Participating farmers will receive a loan up to five million THB (141,725) at apreferential rate of 0.01 percent from the Bank for Agriculture andAgricultural Cooperatives (BAAC).
In2016, the programme was implemented on 150,400 hectares, with the participationof 63,000 farmers.
In2017, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand plans to get9,000 more farmers involved in the programme and 17,600 hectares.-VNA
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A Thai farmers harvest rice (Photo: Thai Visa) 
