ABSTRACT
Title Strategy and Challenges in Rice Insurance to improve farmer welfare
Field Economics
Name Pitiphong Bisalputra Course National Defense College Class 57
Agricultural sector is an important sector to the Thai economy especially rice which
not only use for domestic consumption but also an important part of our export earnings. Thailand
is one of the largest producers of rice and producing some of the best quality rice acceptable
worldwide. However the production of rice requires water and temperate climate in order to
provide high quality yield. Recent global warming and topography resulting in natural disasters
such as flood; draught and pests have a detrimental effect to the production of rice and income of
farmers. Each year the government has to spend a substantial part of the national budget to help
farmers form these disasters. In the recent years while government aids have increase from Baht
606 per rai to Baht 2,222 per rai but the cost of rice production also increase from Baht 4,710 per
rai to Baht 5,710 per rai. Thus the aids have not been sufficient to cover the cost of production by
farmers.
Therefore in 2011 the cabinets have approved the rice insurance scheme in cooperation
with various state agencies and private sector. In the effort to study and develop rice insurance to
ensure a sustainable scheme the government subsidize part of the premium due by farmers. This
research is done to study reasons behind the lack of interest by farmers to enter into this scheme
which includes misperception of insurance concepts and premium. Most farmer still prefer
government aid rather than insurance scheme which have been developed to suit the need of
farmers in each topography since 2011. The researcher hopes that understanding and
recommendations from this study will help to ensure a sustainable crop insurance scheme to
reduce the burden of risk by rice farmer and improve their future welfare.
