(Photo Chudate Seehawong)CHAI NAT - The government’s rice crop insurance scheme kicked off quietly on Monday with farmers saying they have little information about it and see it as a waste of scarce money. The scheme allows farmers to insure first crop rice for the 2017 harvest against losses incurred by six natural disasters - flood, drought, storm, cold, hail or fire - and also againt pests and disease. However, many rice farmers say they have to little information about the insurance scheme to make a decision to buy it, while others just think the money would not be well spent. Preecha Puangnoiprapa, director of Chai Nat office of state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), said farmers should take out crop insurance. According to the Office of Agricultural Economics, there are 58.7 million rai of rice fields across the country.

Source: Bangkok Post July 03, 2017 05:48 UTC