Thai Rice Farmers criticize new credit cards

Thailand's Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) says it will hand out two million more credit cards to farmers next year to help them buy fuel, seed, fertilizer and other essential items.  That comes on top of the 800,000 cards already issued this year.  Bank officials say they hope to get a card into every one of the country's 5.8 million farming households, a move that would make the agriculture sector the kingdom's largest credit card holder.

BAAC officials say the cards will offer farmers credit at rates lower than what they currently get from suppliers.  But the head of Thailand's Rice Farmers Associationn worries that the opposite will happen, and farmers will be lured into heavier loads of debt. Last year's flooding left Thai farmers in the deepest debt in years. Forty-percent of the rice land under cultivation is already being worked by tenant farmers; increasing debt loads could force more farmers to sell their land in order to pay creditors.