Some rice millers have allegedly cheated on a government bank by reselling their entitled rice under an official price-pledging scheme.

According to Supat Eawchai of the Bank for Agriculture & Agricultural Cooperatives, the dishonest millers of the lower-northeastern region have talked some farmers into abetting in their profiteering scams. The resold rice brought 15,000 to 16,000 baht a ton as officially pledged under the government's price-pledging progrm, though the millers' paddy was not entitled to it.

Those millers reportedly had bought up large volumes of rice from the farmers at prices far lower than the government-pledged prices, stored them and then hired some of the farmers to resell it to the BAAC.

Hundreds of those farmers were believed to have been paid 10,000 baht each to collude with the rogue millers, including those in Nakorn Ratchasima, Buriram, Surin, Ubon Ratchatani, Yasotorn and Amnart Charoen, the BAAC official said.

An estimated one million tons of rice from the annual crop were speculated to be sold by farmers in all parts of the country under the current price-pledging program which will last until the end of this month.

The dishonest millers and farmers will not only be blacklisted by the BAAC and denied future entry to the price-pledging program but will be faced with fraud charges in court, he added.

An estimated 6.4 million tons of the annual crop's rice have been purchased for about 100 billion baht from some one million farmers nationwide since last Oct.

Another one million tons of rice are expected to be sold by the farmers until the end of this month, which marks the end of the current price-pledging program for the annual crop season.

The BAAC has planned to buy some eight million tons of an extra crop for about 120 billion baht, beginning from early next month.

The government bank will buy a maximum of 500,000 baht in rice from each of the farmers for the upcoming extra- crop season in bid to contain the reported cheating scams.

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