Time to get moving
Re: "Govt to help farmers pay for fertiliser", (BP, June 16).
Throwing money at our farmers' problems won't even begin to fix them.
Our rice yields have not risen over the past 10 years and are less than half of Vietnam's rice yields. Low productivity is a major reason why farmers form one-third of our labour force but brought in only 9% of our GDP in 2020. If the problem was simply lack of fertiliser funding, past governments and present agriculture minister Capt Thammanat Prompow should have unclogged the bottlenecks long ago.
As a start, Capt Thammanat should urgently consult the International Rice Research Institute, in the Philippines, and implement their advice to kick-start productivity.
Get moving, Capt Thammanat.
Burin Kantabutra
What about the rest?
Re: "Global Investors", (PostBag, June 4).
Khun Burin's letter gives the answer in itself. The higher land prices would benefit the Thai owners, and the subsequent foreign owners.
What about the common Thai people who do not own land or houses? Property prices are barely affordable as they are. Higher prices would push them even higher, far above their reach.
I have limited knowledge on foreign matters. But I vaguely remember some Londoner who wrote to the Bangkok Post long ago about foreign property owners jacking up prices far above poor Britons' purchasing power.
Xisa
Change possible
Re: "Crimes ignored", (PostBag, June 20).
Michael Setter's accusation of China's draconian treatment of spiritual groups with 100 million followers is undeniably indefensible.
With due respect, one can hope for the better if the country (not the leader Xi Jinping) is less hungry. The party could then be more open-minded and less fearful of threats to national security.
China's history shows that changes are possible -- its progression from the Century of Humiliation, to communism and now semi-capitalism has brought them a certain degree of respectability. But pessimists like Michael Setter are still fixated on the belief that China won't change its attitude and as such should be forever condemned.
Songdej Praditsmanont
Alternative history
Re: "Stop making 'Munich in 1938' analogies", (Opinion, June 15).
The Munich conference was about Germany taking back German territories from the pre-WWI era which were unfairly given to Czechoslovakia.
The Sudetenland was German territory for hundreds of years. So it was to diplomatically right the situation, as Czechs mistreated the German population as second-class citizens.
The French satirist Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala likes to say the victor writes history, the loser has nothing to say. Such is the matter with Adolf Hitler being called a warmonger, a monster and more. Despite that, there are other examples of challenging opinions.
One is that of David Irving, a British author who portrayed Hitler differently in his book Hitler's War. After being elected chancellor, Hitler called for disarmament but all of his offers were rejected by Winston Churchill, right to the night before Germany decided to free the suppressed Germans in Poland.
HHB
