Bangkok  - Thailand, the world's leading rice exporter, on Tuesday approved a 10-billion-baht (317.5-million-dollar) budget to encourage farmers to grow more crops and stop them from converting land into non-agricultural use such as gold courses.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Somsak Prissananantakul said the budget would be spent over two years and was part of Thailand's response to the world food crisis brought on by the rapid rise in grain prices this year in tandem with oil prices.

Some of the budget will be used to prevent agricultural land from being diverted to non-agricultural uses, such as golf courses, factories and residential communities, Somsak told the state-run Thai News Agency (TNA).

Owners of the existing farmland, covering about 20 million hectares nationwide, would be encouraged to grow more crops including palm, cassava and crops for alternative energy production, Somsak said.

Some economists have blamed the rapid increase in food prices this year on farmers switching from food crops to alternative-energy crops, although the link is still debated.

The Thai government will encourage rice farmers to to expand the country's rice farm coverage from 8.8 million hectares at present to 9.2 million hectares by improving irrigation systems.

Thailand has been the world's largest rice exporter since the mid-1960s, exporting an average of 8 million tons of milled rice annually. (dpa)