Although many of us do not think about it, the growing rice is actually a very complicated process that involves back breaking work. Rice is actually one of Thailand’s major exports; however, most of the farmers that actually grow the rice are living in poverty. Many of them are in debt because of the volatile nature of the rains in Thailand ad because of the lack of irrigation that they need to grow their rice. On top of this is the shady government policy called the rice mortgage scheme. Originally created to help out the poor farmers, this policy is supposed to help farmers ride out price volatility by allowing them to sell their rice to the government at a guaranteed price. However, this policy turned out only helping the rich farmers that had irrigation. Everyone else could not produce enough rice to have a surplus to sell to the government. It is suspected that this policy is heavily corrupted and that many government officials have ties with it and are benefited by its existence. Finally not trusting the government anymore, many of the farmers have taken in into their hands to fix this issue.
Being an Indian, rice is an important part of my everyday diet; however, I have never really thought about that rice had ended up on my plate. The story of these poor farmers is definitely not something that comes up in the news that often, but it is an important one. Because they have no voice with the government they are struggling everyday to grow there rice, and make a profit for themselves. The recent coups in the government are probably not helping their situation, and they are often overlooked because of the larger, much more successful rice producers that overshadow them.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8130187.stm>
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