ourmanflint

We all know the plane really landed in Kazakhstan.

The world sometimes moves too fast for Thai editors to keep up it seems. Tomorrows editorial will be "What's next for Robin Williams"

Why doesn't the railway go direct across to Chachoengsao from Bangkok instead of looping north for miles. Seems like a huge waste of money

This is one way of boosting Thai Airways chance of success allbeit a cynical one. Restricting competition is not the way to go.

All hoping to get a lucky lottery number no doubt

Like almost every other problem the solutions have already been implemented many years ago and ignored. This country deeply needs actual law enforcement, get the police to do their jobs properly and fairly, and all of Thailands problems bar none will become manageable.

Jolly good news! I really hope that this time this line gets its well deserved upgrade, as I know it will change the lives of many people for the better.... myself included!!

Have the Thai Navy actually started patrols along the Andaman coast to return these boats before they get too close to Thailand or is that just too obvious an idea?

Make it into a park with trees..... as a park..... and allow free access for the public.

include a food park area with local stalls .....it works for Singapore..... and if done well could be a tourist draw right in the center of Bangkok.

A "Green Haven" area in the center of Bangkok.

Just don't let foreign "investors" be involved.

Call it the "King's Park" and put the land under Royal control....... owned and run as a Royal project by a Royal commission under Royal

control.

managed to get a tour of the Makkasan site a couple of years ago, I think it would make a great park.

Another harmless idea, attacked as being some form of mind control by the TV hacks. Must be a Wednesday!!

I can only suggest you research a few basic concepts before commenting further. Start with "labour intensive" then try "mechanisation" and then go to "productivity".

In case you lack the time or skill, let me summarise fr you. Too many workers working in a labour intensive industry producing a low value crop result in poverty for most of them. Reducing the number of workers, increasing the acreage of each farm, and using mechanical equipment results in sufficient yield per worker to afford them a reasonable income, and the market price actually drops.

Hilarious nonsense from someone who has absolutley no clue about farming in Thailand or Asia. Western arrogance at its very best.

He's absolutely right. His statement right there reads like a passage from a master's degree in agriculture textbook which would be used by your "Western arrogance" universities who have taught Western farmers how to be wealthy.

Farming is big business in the West. Your typical large farmer or rancher will have a million USD (33.5 million baht) in his checking account just for operating capital. I posted a link above where that farmer on a combine can harvest 60,000 pounds (27,000 kg) of wheat per hour. Which Thai does anything close to that with rice? I see them out in the field stooped over planting rice by hand.

They are poor due to small holdings resulting in too much manual labor and a lack of productivity. If one of them spent US$300,000 (10 million baht) on a combine with a 15 - 20 meter wide harvesting head, where would he even find room to turn it around in the field?

Hang on! How can Thai farmers be inefficient when as you said there is also a local glut on rice production, they cannot surely be both inefficient and overproduce rice can they?

I very much doubt any of the geniuses giving out advice here to the farmers would be anywhere near the position in life they are if they too were born into a rice farmers family.

Farmers worldwide have a tough life, and the job they do is essential as it provides cheap food for the masses. I know this is explaining the obvious but it seems some here do not understand the simplest simplest thing when it comes to the economics of food production.

Telling farmers to go get a job to better themselves is about as stupid a comment as could possibly be made.

With all due respect, this is simply not true. The best thing a poor, small holding farmer can do for himself, his family, and the community is to sell his farm to enlarge another farm, and learn a trade or profession from the modern world of mechanization and technology.

We don't want to see farmers stay in the 18th century as poor people walking behind a buffalo or stooping all day in a field so that we can have cheap food. The food process will be just a cheap or cheaper due to productivity of mechanization which can only be economically viable on a larger scale. Farmers who stay on those small farms stay poor and don't get to enter the 21st century of economic opportunity. This is partly why Thailand is still third world.

Before you challenge my credentials let me just tell you that I grew up on a 4,000 acre (almost 10,000 rai) wheat and cattle ranch in the W. US and I do know something about a profitable farm and ranch. I know something about economy of scale where the large farmer can easily afford to own wheat combines and also make money doing the small neighbor's wheat and therefore even keep those machines productive and profitable. I earned all of my spending money and bought my first new car from driving wheat combines and dump trucks harvesting neighbors wheat. I made quite a bit of money driving tractors prepping fields and planting wheat.

Just as a kid I was making a lot more money that any Thai rice farmer I know simply from the fact that I could harvest and haul wheat to market from about 100 acres (250 rai) of wheat per day all by myself. Productivity in the 20th century.

In this way you have one guy who's farming with mechanization and technology while making a lot of money and a whole bunch of other people who don't have to farm get to eat cheap food. Those other people can make our smartphones and computers and big screen TVs - things that didn't even exist when the Thai farmers learned to farm. Everyone makes more money and has more and newer things.

I know this isn't about wheat but the principle is the same. Take a look please.

…One bushel of wheat contains approximately one million individual kernels (berries).

…A modern combine can harvest 1,000 bushels (60 pounds = one bushel of wheat) per hour. 60,000 pounds of wheat per hour!!

…A family of four could live 10 years off the bread produced by one acre (2.5 rai) of wheat.

LINK

Hi, nice post and I really appreciate that you have a vast amount of experience of farming, but I think your experience has very little relevance to farming in Thailand. Just look at the landscape of many rice growing communities, the principal of mechanization may not be practical unless you have huge superpaddies, paddies here are fractured, combines may work well in big fields as in the USA, but are they as efficient in small fields when you have to factor in access and travelling time?. This would need a massive revolution in how rice is grown in Thailand and is just unlikely to ever happen.

I very much doubt any of the geniuses giving out advice here to the farmers would be anywhere near the position in life they are if they too were born into a rice farmers family.

Farmers worldwide have a tough life, and the job they do is essential as it provides cheap food for the masses. I know this is explaining the obvious but it seems some here do not understand the simplest simplest thing when it comes to the economics of food production.

Telling farmers to go get a job to better themselves is about as stupid a comment as could possibly be made.

There is surplus supply of rice for mankind. If these farmers cannot survive from farming such a cheap produce, either switch to a high value crop, or sell off the farm to someone who can.

Then get a job and buy cheap rice farmed by someone else.

Nonsensical! You must be the only person in the world who thinks there is a surplus of rice in the world.

Even if it were anywhere near true, the person leaving farming would have to be replaced by someone else wouldnt they? or the amount of rice produced would go down and prices go up. Then the farmer who left his fields would also have to pay more for his rice and he would still be unhappy.

I can only suggest you research a few basic concepts before commenting further. Start with "labour intensive" then try "mechanisation" and then go to "productivity".

In case you lack the time or skill, let me summarise fr you. Too many workers working in a labour intensive industry producing a low value crop result in poverty for most of them. Reducing the number of workers, increasing the acreage of each farm, and using mechanical equipment results in sufficient yield per worker to afford them a reasonable income, and the market price actually drops.

Hilarious nonsense from someone who has absolutley no clue about farming in Thailand or Asia. Western arrogance at its very best.

Abandoned because the news has got out that their captors are wanted men, and even their bosses are now on the run as well. Looks like these all Thai slave traders were heading to the islands to deliver their hoard to their new lives, cleaning up after tourists.

I very much doubt any of the geniuses giving out advice here to the farmers would be anywhere near the position in life they are if they too were born into a rice farmers family.

Farmers worldwide have a tough life, and the job they do is essential as it provides cheap food for the masses. I know this is explaining the obvious but it seems some here do not understand the simplest simplest thing when it comes to the economics of food production.

Telling farmers to go get a job to better themselves is about as stupid a comment as could possibly be made.

There is surplus supply of rice for mankind. If these farmers cannot survive from farming such a cheap produce, either switch to a high value crop, or sell off the farm to someone who can.

Then get a job and buy cheap rice farmed by someone else.

Nonsensical! You must be the only person in the world who thinks there is a surplus of rice in the world.

Even if it were anywhere near true, the person leaving farming would have to be replaced by someone else wouldnt they? or the amount of rice produced would go down and prices go up. Then the farmer who left his fields would also have to pay more for his rice and he would still be unhappy.

I very much doubt any of the geniuses giving out advice here to the farmers would be anywhere near the position in life they are if they too were born into a rice farmers family.

Farmers worldwide have a tough life, and the job they do is essential as it provides cheap food for the masses. I know this is explaining the obvious but it seems some here do not understand the simplest simplest thing when it comes to the economics of food production.

Telling farmers to go get a job to better themselves is about as stupid a comment as could possibly be made.

Hooray the rich will get richer!

Malaysia will have to come clean at their end too, which more than likely will be a huge embarrassment for them and their self imposed clean image.

I'm guessing they wont need more than a couple of days to dig out all the hundreds of reports on where these camps are. After all they have all been known about for years now it seems and people have reported them to the RTP, but then swept quietly away to the room downstairs.

Glad to see this is making the BBC news site now along with other reports from camps in Phang nga

There really should be a "special" police station for officers like these to be transferred to, preferably one that has big 25ft high white walls around it and barbed wire on top of it.

RIP Errol, bravo for fronting one of the least PC named bands in the world.!

Cameron can relax now for the rest of his life wake up people these guys are a burden on society

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Hopefully Labour will win and there can be a Euro referendum that takes the U.K out of the Eurozone in 2017.

Yes hopefully Labour will win and we will not have to listen to smarmy Dave or stupid George ever again. I do hope they appoint Nigel Farage as immigration minister though, I'm sure he would do a grand job!

Adelaide, Australia, because of the low level of traffic, is very bike friendly with numerous bike lanes throughout the city. Most of these on major roads. I used to enjoy taking advantage of these, riding for pleasure. However, as a motorist, I found many of these lycra-clad riders had no respect for the rules of the road. They would block a lane by riding three abreast, weave in and out, verbally abuse you and sometimes hit your car if you gave a warning beep on your horn. It should be seen as a privilege for bike riders to share the roads, since it is the motorist who pays the taxes for new and repaired/upgraded roadworks. Share the roads by all means, but within the law and safely.

This doesn't lessen the sadness I feel with this tragic incident, the injuries and loss of life. Motor vehicles can be murder weapons and, especially for bike riders, the utmost care must be taken when on the road.

Apart from the last sentence this is the same crap car drivers repeat ad nauseam worldwide. Car drivers have no special right to use the roads more than someone else just because you pay car tax. You pay car tax because it is a privilege to drive a car it is not a right, remember you are the one polluting the air we all breathe with your car. The government provides the roads for your use and taxes you because it can, and because of the damage car driving adds to health and road repair bills. The revenue from road tax is nowhere near enough to pay for road repair so it almost always comes from general tax which we all pay equally.

Cyclists do not damage the roads or pollute the air we breathe. You do!

Wait a second my family has grown corn for generations we always supplied our own seed for corn we set aside 100 ears of corn or more to air dry thus giving us seed for next years crop. And we rotated crops from field to field so not depleting the soil. also the stalks we mulched to return to the land. It is called farming.

Then you really should understand that not all seeds are viable, and that the "monsanto irradiated" F1 seeds that are sold to farmers cannot be saved and used for next years crop. They have to purchase new seed from Monsanto every year.

Another 117 million Baht wasted as it will never be built. Fantasy railway lines are the 'in thing' at the moment and give cause for 'Quango's', 'Feasibility Groups', 'Committee's' and other 'Action Group's' to receive large lumps of money which then vanish

All these current 'Development Plans' will be shelved if...and i say if...a new democratic Government ever gets into power.

I don't get it, how is improving rail links to what is arguably Thailand's second city a fantasy?