How Thailand supports rice storage by cooperatives

Thailand is one of the three largest rice exporting countries in the world, alongside India and Vietnam. In 2024, Thailand exported 9.95 million tons of rice, ranking second after India. The Thai rice industry has many similarities with the Vietnamese rice industry, such as large production volumes, and the main producers are small-scale farmers. Like Vietnam, the Thai rice market has faced many difficulties when the export market experiences unfavorable fluctuations, leading to a sharp drop in domestic rice prices. In response to this situation, over the years, Thailand has implemented a rice stockpiling policy. The special aspect of this policy is that Thailand focuses on investing and providing support for agricultural cooperatives to carry out rice stockpiling. Associate Professor Tran Minh Hai, Vice President of the School of Public Policy and Rural Development (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), stated that to stabilize the domestic rice market, from 2011 to the ...