Lowest rice prices in 10 years force farmers to seek new sales ideas
FARMERS ARE struggling to survive the lowest rice prices in a decade. For many, profits from selling paddy to rice millers are not sufficient to pay their debts and income from directly retailing their produce to consumers is unreliable.
This harvest season has seen the lowest prices in the last 10 years with jasmine paddy sold for about Bt5 per kilogram. Farmers have complained that profits for selling paddy this year were not enough to pay off debts incurred to sow the crop. Rice millers have also said they could not pay higher prices to farmers because the global price had fallen so low.