Thailand produced 8.8 million tonnes of paddy in the 2008 second crop, the highest yield in the 20 years that records have been kept, due to high prices, plantation expansion and good irrigation, a senior government official said on Monday.
Production was up from 6.7 million tonnes in June-August last year and higher than the forecast 7.6 million tonnes, Apichart Jongskul, secretary-general of the Agricultural Economics Office, told Reuters in an interview. "The harvesting season is nearly ending and this is the highest production we have ever had in 20 years as farmers rushed to grow more rice due to high prices," Apichart said, referring to the small crop usually harvested in June-August.
Adequate irrigation systems provided support to rice fields in central Thailand, where around 4-6 million tonnes of paddy are produced annually. However, Apichart said he expected a drop of around 20 percent in the 2009 second crop as falling global rice prices would discourage farmers from growing more rice.
Benchmark 100 percent B grade Thai white rice hit a record high of $1,080 per tonne in April, encouraging farmers to grow more rice to cash in, he said. But the price fell to $710 a tonne this week and was expected to drop further as fears of food shortages eased and demand faded.
"Anyway, I don't expect a sharp fall in the second crop next year. If prices fall, production should get back to normal, around 5-6 million tonnes as usual," he said. The government forecast the 2008/09 May-November main paddy crop at 23.8 million tonnes, slightly higher than last year's 23.3 million tonnes. The main crop is usually harvested in November.
Apichart said the main crop could be slightly higher than expected if there were no weather problems to cut output in the last quarter of this year. "The forecast of a 23.8 million tonne main crop was a conservative one," he said. "Production is usually higher than the forecast." Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, has shipped 6.7 million tonnes of rice so far this year and aims to ship 10 million tonnes in 2008, up from 9.5 million tonnes in 2007.
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