Fruit growers in the East hit by low produce prices will be the next to get help from the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).
Assistant army chief and deputy chief of the NCPO's economic affairs team, Chatchai Sarikallaya, met a committee on policy guidelines and measures to help fruit growers on Saturday, NCPO spokesman Capt Yongyuth Maiyalap said yesterday.
The meeting, chaired by Gen Chatchai, resolved to have the Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives Ministry implement a plan to increase distribution efficiency and promote fruit processing.
The committee approved a budget of 50.93 million baht for the plan.
Under the plan, 46.29 million baht will be allocated under the fruit distribution measure that covers 27,870 tonnes of fruit.
Of the budget, 39.75 milion baht will go on distributing products outside production areas.
The ministry has set a target of 15,900 tonnes of fruit for distribution. It will provide subsidies of 2.50 baht a kilogramme for transportation and production management costs.
Another 6.54 million baht will be set aside to boost liquidity regarding the sales of fruit. The budget will cover 11,970 tonnes of fruit.
Loans charging interest of 3% at the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives will be offered to fruit farmers.
Gen Chatchai's committee has asked a provincial-level committee working on measures to solve fruit problems to work out guidelines to shore up fruit prices with the benefits going to fruit farmers, Capt Yongyuth said.
Fruit growers will sell their products at fair prices in accordance with production costs.
The rest of the budget will be allocated for a fruit processing promotion measure, to add more value to the produce, with a target of 850 tonnes of fruit to be processed.
Under this measure, the ministry has set a target to process 500 tonnes of mangosteen and rambutan in Trat to add market value.
Loans charging 3% interest will be offered to growers. Another 350 tonnes of raw materials will be procured for fruit processing.
The panel also decided to waive fines for fruit farmers in Chiang Mai who owed money under an oven procurement project for lychee processing in 1997.
The fines came to 26,631.53 baht.
Gen Chatchai said the NCPO has clear-cut measures to help farmers ease their burdens. The measures were aimed at reducing production costs and increasing productivity to reduce farmers' expenses and boost their incomes.