Ministry eyes new farming technology
The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives will find farm machine and innovation technology to help 1.7 million farmers likely to be affected by the ban on three toxic farm chemicals.
However, it is also mulling whether it can help them offset higher harvesting costs, estimated to rise 10-fold after the ban takes effect next month. Alongkorn Ponlaboot, adviser to the agriculture minister, said yesterday the ministry will focus on helping farmers reduce production costs.
He said various departments have been told to prepare farm machines and innovations to help to farmers make the transition the ban takes effect on Dec 1. The ministry, he said, will focus on farmers harvesting major six economic crops — cassava, maize, palm, sugar cane, fruit and rubber — as they are the group which relied mostly on the chemicals, and so might see their production costs increase.
The Office of Agricultural Economics and Department of Agriculture will also study the cost of harvesting these six crops after the ban takes effect.
Earlier, the Department of Agriculture, a state agency under the ministry which fiercely opposed the ban, claimed harvesting costs will increase 10 times.
According to the study, the cost of cassava harvesting could rise to 1,200 baht per rai as farmers would need to hire workers for manual weed removing, and 550 baht per rai for using machines to eradicate the weeds.
Usually, the cost of removing weeds is only 150 baht per rai, thanks to the paraquat and glyphosate farm chemicals.
In addition, Mr Alongkorn said the Agriculture Ministry is working with the Commerce Ministry to control the price of alternative herbicides and insecticides, a major factor that can help farmers reduce harvest cost.
“We are working to find solutions to help farmers during the transition. Nevertheless, we cannot guarantee that these measures can help keep costs to the previous level before the ban effect,” said Mr Alongkorn.
After the ban, Thailand will not allow any shipments of product contaminated with those chemicals — a change which the US might regard as a non-tariff barrier.