Mark1971

Sorry about the duplicate posts.

Mods please delete the duplicates if possible.

There was talk on thai news last night rubber bieng 60 per kilo but oil is due to rise so should increase prices.Hmmm dont hold your breath.Not surprised if next year it drops further.60 per kilo will make it difficult for some farms with less output to keep a worker.40% will just not enough for them to survive on.

Time will tell.Brest of luck to all in this difficult time.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Did it mention what type of rubber? RSS, USS, Fresh? Maybe Kee Yang! Just about to buy another 60 rai but not feeling very confident about the income.

Greg

You are right to be concerned about the ability of a new investment in a Thai Rubber plantation delivering a good level of income in the future.

Rubber prices will be depressed for many years to come.

Modern clones with double the latex yield & the massive expansion of planting in non traditional rubber areas of SE Asia are game changers.

People may say that the rubber price moves with the price of oil.

However the price of rubber could easily decouple from the price of oil, due to the game changers mentioned above.

This decoupling has already happened to Natural gas in the US, due to the invention of shale gas hydraulic fracking, which changed the game.

If you add in the recent inflation in land and labour costs in Thailand, you would be wise to rethink your idea.

There was talk on thai news last night rubber bieng 60 per kilo but oil is due to rise so should increase prices.Hmmm dont hold your breath.Not surprised if next year it drops further.60 per kilo will make it difficult for some farms with less output to keep a worker.40% will just not enough for them to survive on.

Time will tell.Brest of luck to all in this difficult time.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Did it mention what type of rubber? RSS, USS, Fresh? Maybe Kee Yang! Just about to buy another 60 rai but not feeling very confident about the income.

Greg

You are right to be concerned about the ability of a new investment in a Thai Rubber plantation delivering a good level of income in the future.

Rubber prices will be depressed for many years to come.

Modern clones with double the latex yield & the massive expansion of planting in non traditional rubber areas of SE Asia are game changers.

People may say that the rubber price moves with the price of oil.

However the price of rubber could easily decouple from the price of oil, due to the game changers mentioned above.

This decoupling has already happened to Natural gas in the US, due to the invention of shale gas hydraulic fracking, which changed the game.

If you add in the recent inflation in land and labour costs in Thailand, you would be wise to rethink your idea.

There was talk on thai news last night rubber bieng 60 per kilo but oil is due to rise so should increase prices.Hmmm dont hold your breath.Not surprised if next year it drops further.60 per kilo will make it difficult for some farms with less output to keep a worker.40% will just not enough for them to survive on.

Time will tell.Brest of luck to all in this difficult time.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Did it mention what type of rubber? RSS, USS, Fresh? Maybe Kee Yang! Just about to buy another 60 rai but not feeling very confident about the income.

Greg

You are right to be concerned about the ability of a new investment in a Thai Rubber plantation delivering a good level of income in the future.

Rubber prices will be depressed for many years to come.

Modern clones with double the latex yield & the massive expansion of planting in non traditional rubber areas of SE Asia are game changers.

People may say that the rubber price moves with the price of oil.

However the price of rubber could easily decouple from the price of oil, due to the game changers mentioned above.

This decoupling has already happened to Natural gas in the US, due to the invention of shale gas hydraulic fracking, which changed the game.

If you add in the recent inflation in land and labour costs in Thailand, you would be wise to rethink your idea.

There was talk on thai news last night rubber bieng 60 per kilo but oil is due to rise so should increase prices.Hmmm dont hold your breath.Not surprised if next year it drops further.60 per kilo will make it difficult for some farms with less output to keep a worker.40% will just not enough for them to survive on.

Time will tell.Brest of luck to all in this difficult time.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Did it mention what type of rubber? RSS, USS, Fresh? Maybe Kee Yang! Just about to buy another 60 rai but not feeling very confident about the income.

Greg

You are right to be concerned about the ability of a new investment in a Thai Rubber plantation delivering a good level of income in the future.

Rubber prices will be depressed for many years to come.

Modern clones with double the latex yield & the massive expansion of planting in non traditional rubber areas of SE Asia are game changers.

People may say that the rubber price moves with the price of oil.

However the price of rubber could easily decouple from the price of oil, due to the game changers mentioned above.

This decoupling has already happened to Natural gas in the US, due to the invention of shale gas hydraulic fracking, which changed the game.

If you add in the recent inflation in land and labour costs in Thailand, you would be wise to rethink your idea.

฿42 000.- would give you a good life here in Isaan. Everyone is in a particular situation, but I think you are doing ok. It's the unexpected that you can't budget for...

Absolutely.

The things listed that total 42k are not actually all our expenses. They usually run to about 60k. Absolutely right about unexpected things. The rest of our income is saved as it is one of my main beliefs - Save for the future and the rainy day. I would not recommend anyone in their 30's or 40's to be living a life where they are not putting money away every month.

I lived very happily with only ฿25'000/mth/family here in Chiang Rai...

I live very happily with only ฿300,000/month here in Thonglor

Only 300k Baht / Month.

Personally I wouldn't get out of bed for less than 400k / month.

For base money requirements plus approaching retirement where you probably wish to lower management time overheads, you might consider backing off from chasing 8% ROI yields with the associated risks. The first step might be to maximise S+S ISA each year and put into blue-chip regularly paying 4%+. That gets you the equivalent of over 6% pre-tax return. If you are looking for a pre-tax return of ~ 1000 pounds per month but your capital is less than 250-300k then resist the temptations that beckon IMHO.

300k would buy 4 rental houses in my area @ 75k each.

Rental income would be £500 pcm x 4 = £2,000 pre tax / month.

I would be pretty devastated if I had 300k cash & couldn't make 1k a month return.

They area all different some take to it some don't mine did, again small country village but hourly bus to city so that was enough, she loved it others i saw hated it. Asian food shop to get the food seems a must. She did meet other Thai girls and soon new more about pensions and divorce law than me.

Thais are rarely bored when there is a crowd of them.

Often depends on the quality of the 'crowd'. I have seen boredom resulting in gambling, which has resulted in debt, which has resulted in individuals turning to prostitution to pay back said debt. Second nature in many cases.

I think your GF will be bored senseless and may well feel disorientated and isolated. She may, or may not, be aware that England does not have noodle stalls on every corner and somtam may be hard to get hold of. I guess she will pack a good view packets of Mama.

Frankly, I am amazed that you have not put more thought into planning this visit. Simplistically, you are hiking your GF 10,000 km across the globe and then clearing off to work for 11 hours a day - that is really supportive!

You should AT LEAST have taken 1-2 weeks off work to settle her in and help her to meet the sort of people she will be sharing her life with in future.

What do YOU expect your GF to do all day ?.

Also, consider a role reversal - what if you joined her in Thailand for a month and she spent 11 hours a day at work - what would you do ?

Your GF may be gregarious, adventurous and fluent in English (as a result of her career in 'tourism') in which case she may settle easily. i hope so.

We are all different.

Personally there is nothing I would like more than if my TGF paid for me to fly to Thailand, paid for everything when I was there & left me alone while she spent 11 hours a day at work.

Some get bored, some find interests to occupy them.

Best if you take some time off work when she first arrives, to show her around.

If she gets lonely, find out where the local Thai temple is & drop her off there.

She will have loads of Thai friends in no time.

(They won't all be good friends, so tell her to keep the bad one's at arms length).

DonW

At 38 years of age, with a Thai wife & a reasonable amount of savings, you are in a similar position to me.

I have another couple of years working in Farang land until we move to Thailand.

You didn't say if you have, or plan to have kids.

International school fees for a couple of kids will put a big hole in your savings, this is the reason I need a couple more years before we move to Thailand.

When we move, my plan is:

Spend more time enjoying family life.

Ensure the children get the best possible childhood & education.

Have a passive income stream, to remove the pressure of working to live.

Set up a hobby business to keep me interested.

My hobby will be an agri business, and TV has a great farming forum full of excellent information and a great community of members.

I have flown on S7, no problems.

Modern planes, they reminded me of a Russian version of Easy jet.

I wouldn't have any problems using them again.

# I know the bloke who has that Ban Dung web blog/site. He is a nice bloke, but some of his figures are incorrect, due to "misinformation" from his wife.

# I would say 3-5 baht per day per tree per cut, depending on type of rubber you process and the current price.

#Please no comments on the land title deed, I know.. and... no, I'm not

moving to Issaan, where it's all cheaper, I know as well... - jeezus that land down there is CHEAPER than up here in Isaan, 100k min per rai now with nothing on it, and sor por kor. 150k per rai with 3-4 year old trees. 175k per rai with 5-7 year old trees. 200k per rai with trees 7 years and older and producing. With Chanote or nor sor sam don't even go there! It aint cheap up here anymore dude.

Mike.

Mike,

Just to confirm.

3 to 5 Baht per tap, per tree would be the gross income.

50% would have to be deducted for the tapper.

So the plantation owners income would be 1.5 to 2.5 Baht per tree, per tap.

Hi farmers,

the following Scenario might be interesting, partially wrong, put up a lot of questions or maybe, I also get some advice from the most experienced amongst you:

Looking for land since more than 1 year now (Palm or rubber). Have bought 9 Rai palm near our home around Krabi and that's doing really well.

I have a Budget of 8 Million Baht to buy some more and got the following offer today:

94 Rai, Por Bor Tor, Rubber 20 years old, 4,5 Mio Baht (steep slope, but easy to walk)

7 Rai, Nor Sor Sam, Palm 8 years old, 2,8 Mio Baht (flat land)

20 Rai, Nor Sor Sam, 10 Rai empty and 10 Rai Rubber, 20 years old, 2,5 Mio Baht (flat land)

All is from one owner, total Price is 9,8 Mio Baht, might reduce to 9 Mio, sells only in a package deal (the missing one Million can be organized)

Please no comments on the land title deed, I know.. and... no, I'm not moving to Issaan, where it's all cheaper, I know as well...

As the trees of alltogether 104 Rai are old, I would cut them and get return of the Wood selling, approx. 4,5 Mio Baht.

I would then return the one Million which I was missing and pay for chopping the trees, preparing the land for new trees, etc: 1 Mio Baht

Then I would still have 2,5 Mio Baht left over and put new trees, which apparently cost 20 Baht plus the work 15 Baht (per tree)

104 Rai at 75 trees at 35 Baht would be a total cost of 273.000 Baht.

Now, my most important questions are:

1) What are the cost for fertzilizer for young trees per Rai per year?

2) I was told, one tree, when at cutting age, more or less bring one Baht a day (of cutting, I know there's many days off). Would that one Baht be a net profit or do I still have to deduct the cutters share (40-60 or 50-50)?

As far as the palm part is concerned, I know the figures.

Would be great if someone could give at least some approximate answer.

Thanx a lot!!

Type "Rubber tree economics" into Google.

The answers to your questions are summarised in a web blog called Bandung life, Rubber tree economics.

It should be the 1st website that Google finds.

There is information in this thread that will answer your questions in more detail, but it will take a bit more reading.

What does hardship got to do with this? I am confused now.

No need to be confused, sometimes a thread can wander off track.

Keep the interesting photos coming.

Thanks

Is it me or have you all just had soft lives. lived on and off in a stilt hut 6 years, bucket showers, slept on a board, Had to eat what was proved, maybe cooked in farang way, but lived. Have lived in worse environments. NZ one room hut, so cold that the water froze at night. Scotland, far north in a little caravan. First house England, had no money for bed or furniture, slept on the bare floor. Oz lived in a tent picking fruit, hotter than Hades, Plus a few other jobs where you had to sleep in the bush, snow etc without any comfort.

Take a few spoonfuls of cement and harden up, got a roof over your head and food o n the table, you are doing better than a lot of people in this world.

Try sleeping on the streets of New York in winter, which I had to do and anything is better. Think a Russian guy once said, after a Gulag in Siberia, if you can live through that, all the rest is easy. Jim

555

We only really discover ourselves by experiencing a bit of hardship.

I am working in the arse end of Russia right now.

The place is a dump, but the pay is great & dreaming of our retirement in Thailand always helps.

<deleted>

A mobile phone charged by a hula hoop!!!!!!!!!!

Apple, Google & Microsoft must be bricking themselves.

What sort of things could posters be paid to post about?

For example :

Could someone be paid to endlessly post in support of a nationalistic ideology?

I am an old school type of guy, so I don't know anything about making money by using the Internet.

However I read a lot of posts on Thai Visa about people who want to live in Thailand & one way to do it is to earn a living on the Internet.

I am a bit suspicious of some of the posts I have been seeing on Thai Visa recently.

Is it possible that some Thai Visa posters are being paid to post here?

The thread title is "Thai inventions in the last 15 years".

So far the only invention that is included in this thread which qualifies is the guy who stuck a snorkel in the exhaust of his motorbike during the floods.

Are there any more?

Claus,

There are a number of animals that are farmed inside rubber trees plantations.

Sheep.

Goats.

Turkeys.

Chickens.

I think the correct term for this system is agroforestry.

Just ensure that the animals you select don't damage the trees.

I think cows & pigs are examples of animals which would damage the trees.

As with everything in Thailand, if you leave the animals unguarded don't expect them to still be there when you come back.

5555 yup we can have all spreadsheets,guesstimates and business plans ....but unfortunately the unknowns screw us in the end..ie rain, drought, storm/pest damage, labor issues, theft,produce price fluctuations.Guess you can factor some of it in but....

Had all the spreadsheets yadda yadda set up on the basis of western style business plans etc..very pretty pretty and positive outlook.....frickin waste of time ..sadly it all becomes "suck it and see" in the end.

Probably true of all small time farming anyplace and many a businesses..."cannot f..k with mother nature".

Bit like trying to balance a cheque book with software..frickin depressing

555

Yes there are too many variables to ever calculate this type of thing perfectly.

The only thing that is certain is that what you actually receive will be different from your initial calculation.

HI all

Thanks for all the useful info you fill into this forum.

1 question I have, I think Jim talked about it earlier. It is estimated to harvest about 3 to 5 KG of rubber per tree per year (all depending on age, soil, fertilizer ect. ect.). The question i have is when we say 3 to 5 KG as a estimate is that dry rubber content or is this 3 to 5 KG of wet rubber. ??? (Jim??).

Another question for all of you. If you got a offer to buy land with 5 to 6 year old Yang on it what would you be willing to pay per rai in your area? i know many factors would affect the price but in average.?

By the way i found below link to a web site where people sell secondhand trucks, tractors, farm equipment ect. (all in thai) but easy to get a overview of what stuff cost's in this country.

http://www.truck2hand.com

maybe useful for some.

Claus

Claus,

3 to 5 Kg / Tree / Year is DRC.

Personally I wouldn't pay any premium over the price of empty land, for land with 5 to 6 year old Rubber trees.

I am sure that the trees won't be the type I want & won't be planted & cared for the way I expect.

Bad decisions & poor treatment of trees in the first few years can never be recovered.

Clause,

Mark 1971 has only seen shit trees taken care of by people who only planted them with the plan of selling them with minimum expense ,so of course the trees will be shit.I've seen many good 5,6 year old trees sell here in this area for100K to 200K per rai depending on if the paper is torbor ha or full paper .If the trees are torbor ha in a mountain around this area you can get 100K per rai,for good trees.However if right time right place you can get it for lessEG if owner needs money.I know of 1 farm here for sale on the side of a mountain ,24 rai torbor ha producing 30 KG to 35KG of dry sheet per day for sale for 2.5 million baht,so for sure you'd get it for 2.4 million,These trees are 8years old perfect trees.So it's a great buy.They are tapped 10 months of the year,So it's an extra 2 months tapping period than a dry area.Has electric and dam fed by spring for water.This is a better buy than 5 or 6 year old trees because first 2 years at least will give less rubber.So this farm can give you a great return from day 1.Just an example of what is around in this area.

Have another 20 rai for sale in this area,torbor ha 10 year old trees, 38 to 40 kilo of dry sheet per day,flat land small slope up in the back quarter of land.Has water electric and million baht house on it.So this is a bargain priced at 5million baht .tapped 10 months per year.Has extra 3 raia cleared behind farm allready with trees on it.Many people in this area mix bananas with the rubber,between the rows for extra income..This farm has 500 approx ,banana trees on it .Has other fruit trees on it also.

Had 25 rai torbor ha, sold not long ago here 6million baht.Trees 15 years old no electric These prices are normal in this area

Hope this is of help for you.

Cobbler

P.S. all farms in this area are shared at a 60% for owner and 40 % for worker

HI Cobbler

thanks for the info.

I think maybe my estimations are wrong then if i compare the KG per day you are talking about. A fast calculation, using you KG per day give an average of about 5 to 7 KG / tree / year.

What is your average income / rai / year, with the current rubber price about 50 TBH / KG???

I know it might be hard to say and depend on many factor's.

Claus

Claus,

How many tapping days per year did you use in your calculation?

Here is my quick calculation using Cobblers numbers, I have filled in a few numbers where information was not provided.

Cobbler,

Please feel free to change my assumptions if they are incorrect.

2 month deciduous period where you shouldn't tap. = 60 days

Assume you loose 5 days per month in the other 10 months due to rain / weather = 50 days

Total tapping days would be around 255 / Year

35 Kg Sheet / Tapping day = 8925 Kg Sheet / Year

70 Baht / Kg Sheet Rubber = 624,750 Baht / Year @ 60% = 374,850 Baht

24 Rai @ 80 trees / Rai = 1920 trees

8925 Kg / 1920 trees = 4.65 Kg tree / year

(To calculate your actual ROI, you need to understand who is paying for fertilizer, maintenance, labour & materials for sheet).

HI all

Thanks for all the useful info you fill into this forum.

1 question I have, I think Jim talked about it earlier. It is estimated to harvest about 3 to 5 KG of rubber per tree per year (all depending on age, soil, fertilizer ect. ect.). The question i have is when we say 3 to 5 KG as a estimate is that dry rubber content or is this 3 to 5 KG of wet rubber. ??? (Jim??).

Another question for all of you. If you got a offer to buy land with 5 to 6 year old Yang on it what would you be willing to pay per rai in your area? i know many factors would affect the price but in average.?

By the way i found below link to a web site where people sell secondhand trucks, tractors, farm equipment ect. (all in thai) but easy to get a overview of what stuff cost's in this country.

http://www.truck2hand.com

maybe useful for some.

Claus

The wife bought our land nearly 2 years ago.

At that time we were offered 10 Rai of non chanote land, with 6 year old RRIM 600's for 1.5 Million Baht. (It was sold before she could go & see it).

She bought 5 separate plots of non chanote empty land in the same area, totaling 200 Rai for just under 2 Million Baht.