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If the government approved a total budget of Bt2.2 billion to prop up crop prices, it would lead to massive corruption through the reimbursement system, farmers warned yesterday.

Ubolsak Bualuang-ngarm, president of the Central Committee of Farmer Groups of Thailand, said allowing budget reimbursement at one time would open the way for fraud by officials rather than shore up farm prices. The government should allocate the budget in accordance with production.

Normally, the government earmarks more than 3 per cent of the total approved budget for any particular pledging programme. The money is used to subsidise the operations of each programme.

The Farmers Assistance Policy Committee on Tuesday said it would ask next week for the Cabinet's approval for the Bt2.2 billion to support the agricultural intervention programme, citing a lack of liquidity to finance farmers.

The committee reportedly has only Bt662 million left for its operations while carrying total liabilities of Bt7.45 billion.

Of the total budget request, Bt649 million was for the corn-mortgage programme and Bt1.57 billion for cassava.

The committee aims to guarantee prices of Bt8.20-Bt8.50 per kilogram for 500,000 tonnes of corn and Bt1.75 to Bt2.2 per kilogram for 5 million tonnes of cassava.

Ubolsak said the government should carefully consider allocating and paying the budget over a certain period of time. The funds should also be given to the agencies directly responsible for running the programmes.

"Approving all the budget amount will allow unscrupulous officials to exploit the government's reimbursement loopholes to pad their pockets by allowing middleman to manage the programmes instead of farmers," he said.

Deputy Commerce Minister Banyin Tangpakorn said the Farmers Assistance Policy Committee would leave the decision to the Cabinet on whether to approve the full amount of the budget for the responsible agencies to handle.