Only Bt420 million has been allocated to the Bt20-billion scheme so far, making it difficult for Songserm Dhurakit Kasettakorn Thai, the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) firm established by a Cabinet resolution to run the three-year project, to do its job.

So far this year, only 2,000 cows have been distributed to farmers, although the initial goal was to supply farmers with 500,000 cows, said Luck Wajananawat, deputy manager of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.

SPV director Chaowarin Sailasaid said the Bt420 million had been given to provincial governors to select and buy 30,000 young cows for the scheme, with the SPV set to take charge of distribution later.

The SPV has proposed to the Finance Ministry that the government secure the firm a Bt5-billion loan from a financial institution to run the project. The next cabinet will have to decide if the government will guarantee the loan, Chaowarin said.

Visits to many provinces by SPV officials found that many farmers thought the cows would be given to them for free. When told the cows were only given on loan and that they would have to follow the SPV's rules, more than 50 per cent of the applicants pulled out of the scheme, Chaowarin said.

He said it would be difficult to distribute 500,000 cows as targeted this year, with 20 per cent to 30 per cent of that figure being a more realistic target.

Another problem was that only a small number of farmers were interested in selling cows to the scheme, partly because they wanted to wait and get a higher profit as the scheme's purchase price - about Bt1 to Bt2 per kilo higher than the market price - was not so attractive.

Since October the scheme has supplied only about 2,000 cows to farmers, leaving a whopping 498,000 cows to be distributed before the project's first year ends in September, the source said.

For the time being, the SPV could not say whether the project will continue under the next government because, with the Bt420 million to buy the first 30,000 cows having run out, the SPV will have to seek a loan guarantee from the government, the source said.

Panoen Boonyeun, an official at the Livestock Development Office's Region 4, which covers 10 provinces in the upper Northeast, said caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's stepping down would not affect the scheme because it was a national plan to be continued by the Agriculture Ministry - should sufficient funds allow it.

Panoen said he had heard that, before the project was launched, some farmers had cornered the market on cows in a bid to profit from the scheme. The scheme can pay a maximum of Bt11,000 per cow, but ranchers are insisting that an eight- to 12-month-old cow would fetch more than that if they continued to raise them, so they weren't particularly interested in selling cattle to the scheme at that price, he said.

Before accepting a pair of cows to raise, a farming family must pay a Bt150 transport fee, a Bt450 insurance fee and a Bt900 management fee to the SPV, Panoen said. This - especially the transport fee - has raised questions among operating officials because, if cows are bought and delivered in bulk to several families in the same tambon or village, why should the transport fee remain as high as Bt150 per pair of cattle?

"The SPV or the government should help shoulder this trivial expense for farmers and set new criteria, because several conditions [of participating in the scheme] are rather unclear," Panoen said.

Farmer Suree Kenanant, 43, of Khon Kaen's Mancha Khiri district, who received a pair of cows from the scheme in February, estimated that after the cows were given back to the SPV and the original cost of the cow is subtracted, she would make about Bt10,000 profit per cow.

But that Bt10,000 would be reduced by the SPV administration fees, she said, leaving about Bt7,000 to Bt7,500 - which works out to a paltry Bt416 a month - for the farmers who spend 18 months raising the cows. Taking into consideration expenses on animal feed over the period, the farmer could even come out worse off, she reckoned.

"As the villagers [mistakenly] understood it, the government would give away the cows for free to qualified farmers and when the cows had calves we could share them. That sounded more like an advanced and sustainable long-term solution," she said. "Then we found out that the cows were to be loaned to us - we hardly want the cows because, if they die, will we have to find replacement cows? Will we have to refund the scheme? We still don't understand all the conditions."

Charan Chantalakhana, a professor of animal science at Kasetsart University, urged officials not to implement the project hastily because it could yield negative results. Livestock officials and villagers should be trained in artificial insemination, while hay and other animal feed should be prepared to support the project, Charan said. Also, a viable market for the beef must be ensured, he said.

To ensure that "those who seriously raise cows will benefit, even though the [current] government will no longer be around, the Agriculture Ministry must continue to take it seriously so that it yields good results," he said.

Mayuree Akkarabal,

Anan Paengnoy

The Nation