Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, has raised its forecast for paddy rice output from the main 2012/13 crop to 26 million tonnes from 25 million, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said on Friday. "Production rose because our high intervention price encouraged farmers to expand planting to grow more rice. They wanted to capitalise on the high prices," said Apichart Jongsakul, head of the ministry's Office of the Agriculture Economy, told Reuters.
Output is expected to peak by mid-November as farmers in several areas started harvesting since late-October, he said. The government renewed in October its rice intervention scheme to pay farmers 15,000 baht ($490) per tonne paddy, well above prices offered by local millers of around 9,000 baht.