20/09/2012 (The Nation) - The agricultural price index dropped by 13.11 per cent last month mainly on rubber and palm oil, the Agricultural Economics Office said yesterday. Other agricultural commodities that faced falling prices were coconuts, pigs, chickens and eggs.

Secretary-general Apichart Jong-sakul said the worsening economic crises in the United States and the European Union along with a slowdown in China had weakened demand for rubber, while more palm oil was entering the market during this year's harvest season than last year.

The market also late last month still had 20,000 tonnes left over from the palm oil imported under the government policy to solve the domestic shortage.

Coconuts are also entering the market while there are overwhelming stocks from imports to ease the domestic shortage. Pig production is showing higher yields than last year and egg production has increased after laying hens were imported in the past.

Some agricultural goods have enjoyed better prices, such as rice and maize, thanks to the government's price-pledging scheme. Other goods whose index has slipped are fruit, vegetable-oil plants and livestock.

Prices of flowers and fishery products are up.

More than 90 per cent of rice farmers have rushed to join the government's rice pledging programme, which promises to help them achieve cost reductions and higher yields, according to the office's report released yesterday.

The three-year initiative, which expires in 2014, was designed to encourage rice farmers to grow only two crops per year - the main and second crops - instead of three.

It will help reduce the risk to farmers from floods and widespread insect infestations while nourishing the ecology and soil.

The government is planning to expand the programme to more rice-growing provinces from the 10 targeted currently - Kamphaeng Phet, Phichit, Nakhon Sawan, Chai Nat, Phitsanulok, Sing Buri, Lop Buri, Angthong, Ayutthaya and Saraburi. The programme covers 892,000 rai (142,700 hectares) of rice paddies, accounting for 70.8 per cent of the targeted area of 1.26 million rai.