Thai farmers to get boost from 3,000 foreign investment funds

[rooster59]

Thai farmers to get boost from 3,000 foreign investment funds

By The Nation

 

Prapat Pothasuthon, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives

 

The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry has announced plans to establish 3,000 foreign investment funds to support Thai farmers and deal with food shortages.

 

 

Deputy Minister Prapat Pothasuthon said the move was in line with advice from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres that countries act immediately to shore up global food insecurity.

 

"The ministry is in talks with the Capital Trust Group and related private agencies on plans to establish 3,000 foreign funds to enhance agricultural businesses in Thailand and create food sustainability," said Prapat.

 

"This move also aims to boost [Thai] farmers’ liquidity by creating channels that connect them with institutional investors worldwide managing total assets of US$40 trillion," he added.

 

Private agencies joining the project will cooperate with the Global Blockchain Fund Platform to establish funds that attract investment from foreign investors.

 

"According to fund industries' statistics in March this year, investors have withdrawn up to Bt2.7 trillion during the Covid-19 outbreak, causing heightened concern over food shortages,” he said.

 

That concern is now drawing investors' attention to “smart farming” business funds, he added. The ministry will meanwhile continue to prioritise quality in Thai agricultural production to gain confidence among consumers, said Prapat.

"We expect that millions of farmers will benefit from this project," he said.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30390754

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-07-04

 

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[faraday]

Sounds all very rosy in the garden; but it's only about borrowing money.....from 3000 loan companies.

 

Dress it up how you want Prappy, but that's what it is.

 

 

[colinneil]

Surely not a good idea, farmers borrowing more money, crazy stunt thats all it is, crazy.

How many thousands of farmers are already deeply in debt, lending them more money, crazy.

[Trillian]

I think this is something different from what the first two posters see, it's not just lending money to farmers it's about foreign funds being allowed to invest in the agricultural sector. If a farmer has a viable business but he can't realise its full potential because he doesn't have any capital ( the article refers to it as liquidity), international investors will have a chance to look at the business and make a decision to invest or not. It's not a blanket hand out or throw away. 

[Misterwhisper]

Wonderful idea. But please also let those foreign fund investors know that around 35% of your vegetables are allegedly infested with tapeworm eggs. That will sway them.

 

[CGW]

The reference to "farmers" in Thailand always confuses me, the "traditional" western view of "farmers" and the reality in Thailand is completely different from what I see, here it seems to consist of mainly families that have a small piece of land that they plant rice on once or at best twice a year, for the majority of the year the land lays barren as there is no water to raise crops year round, if indeed the land is able to sustain any crop without huge amounts of chemicals, the soil here is not exactly fertile & the returns minimal, how is loaning these people more money going to help, their already in debt, the yield from the crops is barely at subsistence level now.

Farm land is "dirt" cheap as it cannot return a profit without intense labour, the majority of the land has no reliable source of water, will the loans change this?

[Paul DS]

8 hours ago, Trillian said:

I think this is something different from what the first two posters see, it's not just lending money to farmers it's about foreign funds being allowed to invest in the agricultural sector. If a farmer has a viable business but he can't realise its full potential because he doesn't have any capital ( the article refers to it as liquidity), international investors will have a chance to look at the business and make a decision to invest or not. It's not a blanket hand out or throw away. 

Yes, this was very successfully done in Greece about 10-15 years ago, then Greece went like Thai Airways!!

[Burma Bill]

9 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Capital Trust Group

Interesting, although worldwide, the Group's registered office is in Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London (UK) - from website.

If big deals are done, the nightingales will be singing!!!

 

 

[Trillian]

1 hour ago, Paul DS said:

Yes, this was very successfully done in Greece about 10-15 years ago, then Greece went like Thai Airways!!

Not even nearly the same thing, not at all.

[RichardColeman]

 

13 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry has announced plans to establish 3,000 foreign investment funds to support Thai farmers and deal with food shortages.

Seems odd to go off begging when you have such reserves

[digger70]

13 hours ago, colinneil said:

Surely not a good idea, farmers borrowing more money, crazy stunt thats all it is, crazy.

How many thousands of farmers are already deeply in debt, lending them more money, crazy.

No problem The Big Chief will Bail them out if they start Crying again.

[Trillian]

25 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

 

Seems odd to go off begging when you have such reserves

The foreign currency reserves belong to BOT, they cannot be used by government to spend as they wish, their primary purpose is to support trade transactions, guarantee import and export payments.

[Isaan sailor]

2 hours ago, Trillian said:

The foreign currency reserves belong to BOT, they cannot be used by government to spend as they wish, their primary purpose is to support trade transactions, guarantee import and export payments.

Interesting point. Although it begs the question: how much USD reserves does BoT really need to support trade and guarantee import and export payments?  I would venture to say they have way too much now...

Edited July 4, 2020 by Isaan sailor

[geistfunke]

17 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The ministry will meanwhile continue to prioritise quality in Thai agricultural production to gain confidence among consumers, said Prapat.

This confidence is being gambled away in many countries. Too often, contaminated Thai fruits and inedible, poisoned vegetables are discovered at the borders and imports from Thailand are prohibited. As long as in Thailand simply everything can be grown and sold uncontrolled, it is pointless.

[Anythingleft?]

Just love to see the buzz words in all of these ventures, smart farming, that in itself leads me to think that they are already doomed......

[Trillian]

4 hours ago, Isaan sailor said:

Interesting point. Although it begs the question: how much USD reserves does BoT really need to support trade and guarantee import and export payments?  I would venture to say they have way too much now...

Well they just reduced them by 900 billion Baht (or around 10%) which they loaned to government as part of the 1.9 trillion bail out package, so right  now they are probably not way too much!

 

BTW and not to be pedantic but there is a big difference, they are NOT USD reserves they are Foreign Currency Reserves. Reserves are themselves something else completely different. And Foreign Currency Reserves are held in 24 difference currencies plus gold and SDR's but are accounted for in USD, that does not mean they are held in USD - as I recall USD accounts for about 55% of total holdings which dovetails with 60% of export trade bills being settled in USD.

[Andycoops]

21 hours ago, Trillian said:

I think this is something different from what the first two posters see, it's not just lending money to farmers it's about foreign funds being allowed to invest in the agricultural sector. If a farmer has a viable business but he can't realise its full potential because he doesn't have any capital ( the article refers to it as liquidity), international investors will have a chance to look at the business and make a decision to invest or not. It's not a blanket hand out or throw away. 

And it will only benefit the largest farm businesses.

The small rural farmer will get no investment whatsoever.

Normal Thai scheme for the hi-so leaving the rest behind.

[Trillian]

9 minutes ago, Andycoops said:

And it will only benefit the largest farm businesses.

The small rural farmer will get no investment whatsoever.

Normal Thai scheme for the hi-so leaving the rest behind.

Once again that's not entirely true.

 

Individual farmers are allowed to solicit investment help and investors are permitted to invest in farms, regardless of size, it just needs to make good business sense to both parties. And typically, small farmers will form co-ops for investment purposes thus making the overall package more appealing to investors. The same principles apply to all forms of investment business, regardless of the nature of the end product.

 

Several large businesses in Thailand formed co-ops many years ago and this forms the basis of contract farming, CP Group is the largest of these. Small farmers are sub-contracted to produce crops and are given a guaranteed price for their crop, therein lies the roots of the "burning problem" in the North but that's a different subject.

 

Of course if the farmer in question only has a couple of rai that he plants rice on three times a year it can be argued that he's not really a farmer, at best he's a subsistence farmer, he grows food for his own consumption and hardly qualifies for investment assistance. If he's bigger than that and wants to remain independent of the large corporations he will have to form a co-op of like minded people in order to make the proposition of interest to the investors. But to be clear, this is not a freebie hand out, it's a two way street investment.

[bodga]

22 hours ago, faraday said:

Sounds all very rosy in the garden; but it's only about borrowing money.....from 3000 loan companies.

 

Dress it up how you want Prappy, but that's what it is.

 

 

I  dont  know  who in their  right minds  would  lend  that  money

[Trillian]

50 minutes ago, bodga said:

I  dont  know  who in their  right minds  would  lend  that  money

CP Group has an agricultural arm, they're heavily into farming, investors fall over themselves trying to invest in CP Group. And whilst that's possibly the largest example in Thailand there will be others that are much smaller concerns that will be of interest. Part of the problem here is Western posters reading the article automatically think of farmers as being the mom and pop concerns where they live the ones with a few rai who produce rice for themselves and their neighbours.....this is not about them.

[hotchilli]

On 7/4/2020 at 6:21 AM, rooster59 said:

The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry has announced plans to establish 3,000 foreign investment funds to support Thai farmers and deal with food shortages.

As the Thai government are not interested !

[Trillian]

I can't imagine why anyone would think post 18 deserves a sad emoticon, is there a part of the post that's difficult to understand, it is after all only an attempt to clarify matters?

[Trillian]

3 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

As the Thai government are not interested !

The Thai government already subsidises almost every major crop produced by Thai farmers, this in part is why the investment fund approach may be attractive to investors. Government guarantees income for growers and in some cases the price is protected of rice, rubber tapioca, corn and oil palm, this is the vast majority of crops grown by rural Thai's.

[hotchilli]

15 minutes ago, Trillian said:

The Thai government already subsidises almost every major crop produced by Thai farmers, this in part is why the investment fund approach may be attractive to investors. Government guarantees income for growers and in some cases the price is protected of rice, rubber tapioca, corn and oil palm, this is the vast majority of crops grown by rural Thai's.

That's what I meant, Thai farmers are getting help from many different avenues, the Thai government is not going to endlessly support them, now the cooperative is looking for foreign investment... 
Time Thai farmers in general got smart and produced something that can sell on it's own merits, instead of being subsidised, price fixed etc etc.

[Trillian]

Perhaps another part of the OP that is being overlooked is the fact that food scarcity is becoming an issue, in fact it's going to become a global issue hence the value of common every day agriculture starts to become precious commodities.

[faraday]

10 minutes ago, Trillian said:

Perhaps another part of the OP that is being overlooked is the fact that food scarcity is becoming an issue, in fact it's going to become a global issue hence the value of common every day agriculture starts to become precious commodities.

And that's why we're so lucky to have such a caring, sharing gubmint here.

 

[hotchilli]

14 minutes ago, Trillian said:

Perhaps another part of the OP that is being overlooked is the fact that food scarcity is becoming an issue, in fact it's going to become a global issue hence the value of common every day agriculture starts to become precious commodities.

In some countries where irrigation water is an issue [large farming areas of the USA] and where global climates are changing or land is being used for building, I agree the future is bleak for many in the agriculture business. But here in Thailand if water [which we should have plenty of] is managed properly, we have the climate and ground to grow just about anything. The problem being is Thai farmers are not evolving their techniques or crop types to make the most of everything.

[Trillian]

8 minutes ago, faraday said:

And that's why we're so lucky to have such a caring, sharing gubmint here.

 

If you mean the one that subsidies all the farmers crops, yes I agree.

 

There's a very good article on the subject of farm debt but I'm not allowed to post it, it examines where the farmers debt originates etc, google Findings ways to beat farm debt thailand.

[Trillian]

5 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

In some countries where irrigation water is an issue [large farming areas of the USA] and where global climates are changing or land is being used for building, I agree the future is bleak for many in the agriculture business. But here in Thailand if water [which we should have plenty of] is managed properly, we have the climate and ground to grow just about anything. The problem being is Thai farmers are not evolving their techniques or crop types to make the most of everything.

Thailand is one of only a handful of countries that is slated to be hit extremely hard by increased temperatures, water shortages and people migration and some of those things are happening now. I've read several such reports as a part of my job and frankly they make terrifying reading, rather than be labelled as a climate change promoter I would urge everyone to seek out and read some of them.

[hotchilli]

11 minutes ago, Trillian said:

Thailand is one of only a handful of countries that is slated to be hit extremely hard by increased temperatures, water shortages and people migration and some of those things are happening now. I've read several such reports as a part of my job and frankly they make terrifying reading, rather than be labelled as a climate change promoter I would urge everyone to seek out and read some of them.

Water shortage as in poor provincial water management, and people migration as in next generation moving to the cities to work in the service sector.