11 million rai of land are to be reclaimed for redistribution to farmers

The Office of Land Reform for Agriculture has been told by the Agriculture and Agricutural Cooperatives Ministry to seize back some five million rai of sor por kor land which were illegally occupied by non-farmers, said deputy permanent secretary for agriculture Mr Chavalit Chukachorn during the weekend.

In addition, the Forest Department will try to reclaim about six million rai of degraded forest reserves which were illegally encroached and turned into rubber plantations.

All the 11 million rai of illegally occupied land which are now under process of being taken back from their illegal owners will be redistributed to local communities for management and then allocated to the landless poor farmers to make a living under a new land distribution scheme recently endorsed by the National Land Policy Committee headed by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha.

Mr Chavalit disclosed that altogether 30 million rai of land had been distributed to landless farmers for cultivation and five million of them have fallen into the hands of non-farmers who were not supposed to own or exploit the land.

He said that some 300,000 landless farmers had registered with the previous government to apply for land for cultivation.

Thai PBS

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