Reports of thieves have growers alarmed as grain price soars in world markets
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 31 Mar 08;
BANGKOK - FOR the first time ever in memory, some Thai farmers are staying up at night to watch their fields - worried that thieves will raid their standing crops or loot their stored rice.
Since the middle of the month, rumours of rice being stolen have spread across the fields in provinces from Lop Buri to Sing Buri and Ang Thong.
Although the rumours have yet to be confirmed, there is one reported case of a farmer in Ayutthaya province, near the capital Bangkok, who was robbed of 20 sacks of rice seeds worth 8,000 baht (S$350), which he had stocked ready for planting.
In response, the province's police chief has recommended that farmers work in shifts to guard their fields at night.
'I'm so scared now that thieves will steal my rice. If they really do that, it is like they are killing me because everything in my life - my money, my efforts and my hopes - have been put into it,' said farmer Somnuek Meechana, whose rice fields are almost ready for harvest, the Bangkok Post reported.
The rumours are as unprecedented as the soaring price of rice in the world markets.
The grain's price has risen to record-high levels across the world - including in rice bowl countries such as Thailand, where premium Thai rice has spiralled in price from about 9,600 baht a tonne last December to 10,500 baht a tonne today.
In January in the Philippines, a standard sack of rice was selling for 720 pesos (S$24). By this month, it had risen to 1,100 pesos.
Several rice producers and exporters in Asia have already curbed or halted exports to safeguard domestic supplies, mindful that rice is a politically sensitive commodity.
In recent weeks Cambodia and China have suspended their rice exports while India has stopped exporting its non-basmati varieties.
Meanwhile, importers, worried about shortages, have cut tariffs on rice.
Indonesia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and South Korea have already dropped or reduced import tariffs on the grain.
The Philippines has signed a deal with Vietnam to import 1.5 million tonnes of rice.
Manila is trying to crack down on hoarders who are making the crisis worse by stockpiling rice until prices climb even further.
At the weekend, the Philippines' National Food Authority in Central Visayas suspended the operations of at least six retailers in Cebu for violations ranging from unreasonable depletion of stocks to non-display and refusal to sell rice even though they had enough stocks.
Asia is not the only region affected by a rise in food prices spawned not just by a shortage of rice, but of wheat as well.
From Africa to the United States, the cost of food has been rising. Egypt - the world's highest consumer of bread - has banned rice exports for six months on the back of worries over wheat.
The drivers of the price rises are a complex range of local and global factors including adverse weather; yields reaching a plateau; the higher cost of fertiliser; the high price of fuel; the policy neglect and decline of the agricultural sector in general; and the conversion of vast areas of farmland into areas for livestock industry and biofuels production.
