In Chiang Mai, garlic growers have been told to cut back their plantation areas next year in exchange for financial assistance from the government.

More than 1,000 growers accepted a deal in May this year to sell garlic to state agencies at 18 baht a kilogramme plus a 12 baht subsidy, committing to reduce their plantation areas and to switch to other crops besides onions, red onions, lychee, longan and oranges.

These five crops also face the prospect of a critical blow from the ThailandChina FTA pact on fruits and vegetables that became effective on Oct 1, 2003.
Chiang Mai's garlic growers are among the thousands of farmers nationwide who know very well they might not be able to compete with the massive quantities of the same produce flooding in from China. In the case of garlic, Chinese prices are half those in Thailand at just 1012 baht/kg.

A garlic farmer from Mai Ai, Chiang Mai, Sanga Kantapa, said farmers have never experienced a situation quite like this and it was really tough for them to switch crops.
His view was that the subsidy plan meant the death sentence for garlic farming which had been going on for generations in the area. He wondered which crops would be next in line to share the same fate.

Thai fruit has fans in China but FTA gains took time to emerge.
An end to garlic and onion farming would not only lose farmers revenue but could wipe out specific strains of these crops from Thai soil.

Some experts have even suggested that Thai farmers continue to grow the indigenous strains but only for food security.

Poonkeite Thangsombat, president of the Thai Food Processors Association, said local garlic is tastier due to its smaller sections _ different to the larger, tasteless sections that he said were common to Chinese garlic.

"There is a market for local garlic even though it is more expensive, so we might plant it with proper plans and to meet specific demand," he said.

While garlic farmers in the North are uncertain of their fate, exporters of some fruits and vegetables are likely to be beneficiaries of the FTA pacts.

Shipments to China of some of the favourite fruits in the country _ durians, mangosteen and longan _ have surged remarkably a year after the FTA pact was implemented.

Thai longan exports to China in 2004 grew sevenfold over the previous year to more than 91,000 tonnes while exports of durians soared to 76,700 tonnes, from only 9,376 tonnes in 2003.

The two fruits accounted for up to 78% of total revenue earned from all Thai fruits exported to China in 2004, or 3.43 billion baht, up sharply from the 600 million baht the year before.

Big names like the CP Group are likely to benefit the most from the zero tariffs on fruit imports to China.

Chief of the Crop Integration Business Group of CP Group, Montri Congtrakultien, estimates fruit export revenue of the group will double this year from 100 million baht in 2004 thanks to FTA deals with China and Australia.

CP has foreseen particularly bright prospects from the zero tariffs and flexible import restrictions provided by the FTAs for some time so it has decided to grasp the opportunity by enl">Farmers Free Trade Pact Losers So Far