thoongfoned

edit. Machine is booked for end wk to cut last of rice,now 800 baht...

here people are already busy with the harvest, 700 baht arai so i heard the other wk.a good few harvesters in the village now plus the local government has 1 for rent, i see this yr a lot of people have swiched over to using the harvesters. wife is selling bags at 5baht, village shop price 6 or 7 baht.

boiler farming from what i hear and read sounds a lot harder to get paided ok if you run an average farm/production. alot of the contracting farm models come from the usa. the tournament model is popular in the usa, like you mention benifits the top end farms but kills mid to low end farms.... i like the idea (used in usa) that the farmer get paided per animal/space in each farm (sort of regardless to production targets.) like this would help if you go delivered weak chicks or infertile gilts... alot of time the supply chains of these big companies does not match up to their own standards....

the baac bank in my mind is the better option to borrow from then say scb or kk ect.. i think (not sure coz have not done it) if you have enough land to borrow xx amount the baac will let you borrow coz they will only let you have 40 or 50 (max) % of appraised land value, plus you will be borrowing in the group/team format so all the other people in your team will have to counter sign/guarantee your loan... the wife team has around 10 people in it. i do know 1 local couple who borrowed 3,000,000 to do finisher farm some years ago, took some time to sort out but been up and running now for 3 plus years.... our area now is full of finisher farm and sow farms (betagro) plus some thaifoods group and cp all within 10km of us. its very difficult to getting planning permission now to build. example. wife was selling some land last year, but before the change over of title the new owner wanted the planning permission in pace to build finisher farm. by the time the wife had got all the paperwork ect ready to go to the local vote five other land owners in same area also tried to get permission at same time... 555 all got rejected... no land sale, but she managed to sell said land a few months latter for more baht. new owner bought because he wants to build a finisher farm when he can....... alot of farmers around us that built a finisher farm 10 plus years now have 3 or 4 on same site (4 is the max the company allow) most would have used the baac to finace.... if we were to borrow again the baac would be my 1st choice. basic cost of 700/750 head finisher 3,000,000 plus plus

555. no, will not happen with the local peoples mindset. i have spoken many times over the years of the need of forming some kind of union.

no the loan will come from one of the banks. in the past (like us) you will try to borrow from say scb or kk bank ect... its a long and difficult process.... will need money in bank (history) and also money going in from say job every month. in our case a betagro rep (guy that got us the contract) smoothed the way with the bank by saying what was pos to earn/garentee of work ect.... 100% will need this. i was talking to the SME guy at scb about 4 yeas ago and he was saying that they will not lend for betagro contract farms now. why? poeple cannot repay loans..... i know the guy that is trying to get new people to sign up in the contarct sow farms in our area, he says the only bank that will lend now is the baac. you can do well working in the contact farming if your work is to a high standard... but many farmers do have problems meeting production targets. so far for us its been good.

the only reason we are changing to silo feed is the cost saving for the company. we have had the silo all ready to go/set up for over 1 year already. all the finisher farms moved over to silo feed around 3 or 4 years ago. a couple of years ago i was told sow farms under 300 head will not be going to silo as too small.... but now all change...555 farmer gets the silo "free" but we have to buy the scales. scales around 100,000 baht..... if we finish contract inside 5 years we have to pay for the silo to be removed. around 50,000 baht up... silo is connected to our main feed store by auger system, we then fill feed carts - then into farm. all up cost 2x14 ton silo plus augers and scales not much change out of 600,000 baht..... i can buy online alot cheaper but was told have to have company ones. betagro have a "brother" company called b inter they deal in farm equipment and contract builds.. so basically sell to themselves at an inflated price, same principle as the contract farm model - feed/animal/phamacy sales all in house.... we will still receive some bagged feed (same with finsher farms) because of power cuts ect... yes bagged feed will still be main for shops ect... yes like you say i think feed costs have to come down, same with the buying/selling rate for pig meat ect.. @ the mo the company is expanding its pig business as much as poss (last 2 or 3 years) loads of new farms coming online now, basic build for 250 head sow farm 5.5 - 6,000,000 baht ... i hear of people taking loans @ 20 years now...... all i would say is dont.5555

lovely betagro have (from what i can see) been running low on feed stock for a couple of years now, used to get 1 lorry delivery per farm 550/600 bag. for some time now its 1 lorry for 3 or 4 farms... bag date stamp produced 2 or 3 days before. before the feed would be 1 or 2 week old by the time we received it... nearly all areas/provinces are now delivered in silo format, we are one of the last to change over, can not get a clear answer on when we change, but i think its down to lack of silo lorry and drag units... feed cost increased by around 20% last year until november, then it started to come back down by about 5/10 baht a bag (2ish %)... higher protein feed increased by about 30% inside same time line. baht for owner driver lorry stayed the same for past 1.5 years