Thai Farm Debt Crisis Tests Anutin's Government
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- Thailand's farm debt crisis has deepened as the Iran war drove retail diesel prices up more than 60% at peak and fertiliser costs up more than 30%, while Thai rice export prices hit an 18-year low in 2025 amid competition from India.
- PM Anutin Charnvirakul, who won a landslide on rural backing, is watching support collapse: a Suan Dusit University poll found 57% of respondents had little or no expectation of his government in May, a sharp reversal from 68% optimism in March.
- Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas has labelled the situation a 'cost-of-living crisis', with overall Thai household debt at 86.7% of GDP — among the highest in Asia — blunting the impact of any stimulus.
- Anutin's government rolled out a 176 billion baht (S$6.88 billion) consumer subsidy as part of a wider 400 billion baht borrowing decree, but the decree faces a legal challenge from opposition parties.
- The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives holds 3.73 million farm borrowers, more than half of whom are locked in a 'debt trap' they are unlikely to escape before retirement, according to the central bank's research institute.
- 64-year-old rice farmer Phayong Saengthong of Ayutthaya now owes more than one million baht and added 200,000 baht in losses from his latest harvest, relying on supplier credit to keep planting.
- Targeted rice-farmer subsidies of about 1,000 baht per rai are insufficient to cover rising fertiliser and fuel costs, according to Thai Agriculturists Association president Pramote Charoensilp, who plans to push for stronger support at a June 11 national rice policy board meeting.
Why it matters: Anutin's government has a narrowing fiscal window: household debt sits at 86.7% of GDP, inflation is projected to breach the Bank of Thailand's 1–3% target in 2026, and 57% of polled Thais already disapprove — a flip from 68% optimism in March. The rural voters who delivered his landslide are the same ones absorbing the Iran war's fuel and fertiliser cost shock, with 78% of respondents calling for urgent action on living costs.
