Scheme aims to shift farmers to corn from off-season rice

[CLW]

So how many rai on these corn farms?  I've seen corn farms in North America and they are huge, hundreds of rai and very expensive to plant/harvest. Growing corn in  a couple rai of rice patties may not work so well.

Not to mention that paddy soils are usually not suitable for growing corn.
I guess the scheme will just cost a lot of money with no improvement for anyone.

[anon2736434]

25 minutes ago, CLW said:

I guess the scheme will just cost a lot of money with no improvement for anyone.

Oh there will be some big improvements for a few as in houses, cars and bank accounts.

[swissie]

On 10/21/2018 at 5:59 AM, marko kok prong said:

Not sure if you could grow wheat here,does it not need a more temparate and less humid climate ?

Correct. Wheat wouldn't do well in this climate.

[zzaa09]

3 hours ago, CLW said:

Not to mention that paddy soils are usually not suitable for growing corn.
I guess the scheme will just cost a lot of money with no improvement for anyone.

Also hasn't been mentioned that they've tried this off-season alternative crop [maize] rotation with failure - usually akin with the poor soil for that type of crop. 

 

Yet, the blind authorities keep referring back to their obsessions. 

 

It's not as if the farmers require guidance, as many have experimented with all sorts of off-season items - sometimes successful and some not. 

[kickstart]

10 hours ago, Notagain said:

Maybe you have this equipment up in the north but none here in the ne. The only thing around here are disc ploughs worthless for corn growing, I have tried to find a furrow plough and they dont even know what they are showing them a picture. And again who is going to pay for it ?

I take it you have not seen Thai farmers plough , all the corn farmers  use are 3 and 7 disc ploughs, you will not find a furrow plough here, often farmers plough in the dry season, turn the over the soil any weeds the roots will be exposed and die, a furrow plough the points would not go in the ground ,ground is to hard and they would probably break 

Thai ploughs are made in Thailand, the discs are imported, if they where furrow /mouldboard ploughs most parts would have to be imported, pushing up the costs.

A machinery dealer near here had an imported second hand 3 furrows reversible plough he was selling it at 100 000 baht, your average 3 disc Thai plough is about 30-40 000 baht depending on disc size.

As for who is going to pay for it all, a lot of farmers around here get someone into drill they crop, now about 120 -150baht/rie , so you could buy a drill and contract yourself out, same with a fertilizer drill, and maybe a sprayer.

 

[anon2736434]

2 minutes ago, kickstart said:

you will not find a furrow plough here,

Golly geee isnt that what i said in my post ? What is the yield per rai on your great corn crop up there versus expenditure (ROI)? Its cheaper to import corn so I guess your way is doing really well. I guess you have never seen a real corn producing operation and they dont use disc plows. But hey i'll bet you are another successful falang farmer here in thailand with all your modern equipment and techniques.

[ratcatcher]

On 10/21/2018 at 9:24 AM, Ossy said:

The corn that I see, occasionally around Isan, is what is known in the US, Canada and other countries as maize, ie the hefty-stalked plant with the yummy kernels on top and just waiting to be boiled, buttered and scoffed. Sometimes called sweetcorn - to make it more marketable I suspect - it is still just 'maize'.

Just to add to the confusion, in many countries, including England and Scotland, 'corn' is the term used to refer to whatever grain is grown locally, eg wheat in England and oats in Scotland. So, when you recite your kid's bedtime nursery rhyme:

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
But where is the boy, who looks after the sheep?
He's under a haystack, he's fast asleep.
Will you wake him? No, not I,
For if I do, he's sure to cry.

 

just tell him/her that the cow wasn't actually in the corn, but in the wheat . . . or the oats maybe.

As regards its irrigation needs, I'm afraid I can't help there, either.????

 A 270 year old English nursery rhyme pops up in a Thai forum on corn growing.

"Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
But where is the boy, who looks after the sheep?
He's under a haystack with Little Bo Peep.
Will you wake him? No, not I,
For if I do, I'll get a black eye."

Sorry

[GinBoy2]

Ultimately it doesn't matter what crop they grow, the rotten truth, as the government's own figures show, the average farm is just too small to be anything more than subsistence farming, although now that's rebranded as 'sustainable' farming.

An average of 4 hectares is never going to be more than scraping a living regardless of of what you grow

[HAKAPALITA]

Bet theres not an EXPERT posting here who could grow Tomatoes on a Window Sill.

[GinBoy2]

10 minutes ago, HAKAPALITA said:

Bet theres not an EXPERT posting here who could grow Tomatoes on a Window Sill.

I grew up on farms, not as a farmer, but as a son of farm laborers.

 

While I would never claim to be an expert on growing stuff, there is an underlying truth to all farming, that size matters.

 

All my life I watched as farms consolidated to become more viable. Thats just an an economic truth about farming worldwide

[kickstart]

11 hours ago, Notagain said:

Golly geee isnt that what i said in my post ? What is the yield per rai on your great corn crop up there versus expenditure (ROI)? Its cheaper to import corn so I guess your way is doing really well. I guess you have never seen a real corn producing operation and they dont use disc plows. But hey i'll bet you are another successful falang farmer here in thailand with all your modern equipment and techniques.

No,I am not a successful Farang farmer with all the kit ,we have a few rie and rear some beef cattle,and a 40 year tractor and two homemade cultivators  we do, all right we use to grow some corn on rented land using local farmers to do most of the  land work,could not make it pay the main problem was a low farm gate price and we lost 40 rie to drought , and a big rent increase, and we do not have subsidies like the EU farmers and your USA farmers .   https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies.

You have a point about big farms being more economical than small farms, but for Thailand, it works, for years Thailand was the world's Number one exporter of rice, all grown on fields that a USA combine could not turn around on.

Big farms are the way forward big kit low labor costs, not only in Thailand but much of SE Asia small family farms are and will be the way, and that will be difficult to change ,a big  farming company is not going to move in to Issan with all they big kit, for just one crop of rice a year ,does not make economic sense, and trying to diversify  and grow other crops not easy ,as per this thread 

In Ayutthaya province where in a good year you can get 3 crops of rice a year, a farming company from the Emirates is growing rice and exporting the crop to they home country ,farmers still farm the land ,but some say they are just managers of they land some say they do not have much say in the way they farm . 

The video is a one pass machine, does what it says on the can, one pass of the field and the field is ready for drilling,, they are machines that will drill a crop as well  no ploughing, ploughing today is old fashioned time consuming and expensive ,furrow ploughs are now confined to the back of the shed ,and this one of your 2000 acre fams ,note the disc's  

[anon2736434]

4 hours ago, kickstart said:

we do not have subsidies like the EU farmers and your USA farmers

Who are you kidding no subsidies here for farming ??? too funny that the gov is constantly paying out money to farmers for their losses and low market prices. And didnt the sugar industry just get whacked by brazil (WTO) over the sugar system here (subsidy) ???? Thai small farms have never made money the gov has always payed the bills. In one sentence you admit you couldnt make any money farming then claim thais have been making money for years. I call BS. 

[kickstart]

3 hours ago, Notagain said:

Who are you kidding no subsidies here for farming ??? too funny that the gov is constantly paying out money to farmers for their losses and low market prices. And didnt the sugar industry just get whacked by brazil (WTO) over the sugar system here (subsidy) ???? Thai small farms have never made money the gov has always payed the bills. In one sentence you admit you couldnt make any money farming then claim thais have been making money for years. I call BS. 

The reason we could not make any money was the rent, we grew maize, the rent was 600 baht /rie/year. two crops of maize year 300 baht/crop that was ok, then cassava and sugar cane become popular the owner of the land wanted 1000 baht/rie/year,no way could we afford that to grow maize , I did a costing to grow cassava, again we would have to use local farmers as contractors to do all the work, we could not make anything, so the owner of the land rented the land to a local sugar cane grower and the owner wanted the rent for  3 years up front as well.

The other pice we rented the owner sold, as land prices were going up the owner sold the land, we never got a word in on the whole job no tenants right here in the LOS.

I have just re-read what I wrote in my last post, nowhere do I say Thai's have been making money for years, maybe the farmers in Ayutthaya do make some money, and why not.

Next time you fill a car/pick up with fule note the gasahole , made from cassava, and molasses, a byproduct of sugar cane industry that is fermented down into alcohol, that is why the government subsidizes the sugarcane farmers,and as world crude oil prices are increasing I think the sugar cane farmers will be subsidized  again  before biofuels arrived they were no subsidies  on sugar cane.

Thailand is a rice producing county with a big export market so the government subsidizes them, you could say without that subsidies, Thailand would not have the big export market, that could help the whole economy.

The way you wrote it the government subsidies the whole of farming, well they are no subsidies on corn farmers, cassava, sunflowers mung bean,  soya bean, dairy, pig sector, a large chunk of Thai agriculture.

That link I gave to USA subsidies, they have subsidies on almost all crops, and I would say the subsidies as a percent of the market price would be higher than here in Thailand? , I think a farmer in the USA and Europe for that matter with CAP, would be better off than a Thai farmer. 

[Srikcir]

6 hours ago, Notagain said:

Who are you kidding no subsidies here for farming

Some of the subsidies go to the land owner and not to the farmer renting the land.

[HAKAPALITA]

2 hours ago, kickstart said:

The reason we could not make any money was the rent, we grew maize, the rent was 600 baht /rie/year. two crops of maize year 300 baht/crop that was ok, then cassava and sugar cane become popular the owner of the land wanted 1000 baht/rie/year,no way could we afford that to grow maize , I did a costing to grow cassava, again we would have to use local farmers as contractors to do all the work, we could not make anything, so the owner of the land rented the land to a local sugar cane grower and the owner wanted the rent for  3 years up front as well.

The other pice we rented the owner sold, as land prices were going up the owner sold the land, we never got a word in on the whole job no tenants right here in the LOS.

I have just re-read what I wrote in my last post, nowhere do I say Thai's have been making money for years, maybe the farmers in Ayutthaya do make some money, and why not.

Next time you fill a car/pick up with fule note the gasahole , made from cassava, and molasses, a byproduct of sugar cane industry that is fermented down into alcohol, that is why the government subsidizes the sugarcane farmers,and as world crude oil prices are increasing I think the sugar cane farmers will be subsidized  again  before biofuels arrived they were no subsidies  on sugar cane.

Thailand is a rice producing county with a big export market so the government subsidizes them, you could say without that subsidies, Thailand would not have the big export market, that could help the whole economy.

The way you wrote it the government subsidies the whole of farming, well they are no subsidies on corn farmers, cassava, sunflowers mung bean,  soya bean, dairy, pig sector, a large chunk of Thai agriculture.

That link I gave to USA subsidies, they have subsidies on almost all crops, and I would say the subsidies as a percent of the market price would be higher than here in Thailand? , I think a farmer in the USA and Europe for that matter with CAP, would be better off than a Thai farmer. 

How you get WORK PERMIT to be Farmer.?.

[anon2736434]

Diesel fuel is just one subsidy farmers use for everything from tractors to transport, let alone a month doesnt go by some farming group is protesting then getting money thru subsidized loans or interest or payouts. US and european and most other farmers in the world make money because they are up before the sun getting equipment ready etc. then they work past sundown to get their crop in or out before weather hits or prices are good, same goes for animal producers. They dont go lay in the hammock because its too hot, or sit around eating not working or playing like children waiting for the gov handout. They have bills to pay and families to feed. Farming here is a joke. The only success being made is by the chinese up north taking over the operations who know you have to work to make money. There is no work ethic here, but you cant really blame them, from birth they are led down a path of obedience and blind faith.

[kickstart]

13 hours ago, HAKAPALITA said:

How you get WORK PERMIT to be Farmer.?.

Over in the farming forum this subject comes up often, and I think most farangs farmers do not have a work permit,  including me, the wife owns the land ,when we lost 40 rie of maize to drought we got some compensation, bearly enough to cover 10 % of the costs ,it was all in the wife's name, when the yearly bill for ground rent come up, again in the wife's name.

The general sense of opinion is , if you keep to your self, learn to speak a bit of Thai, help out your neighbors, you will be left alone, it has worked for me for 12 years and a lot of other farang farmers here in Thailand, any problems it will be "Kong-Pahn-ra-yar",it all belongs to the wife, I just go a bit here and there.

Now if "Big Joke " with his purge is going to change things we shall see.

As they say, Watch this space.

 

[kickstart]

14 hours ago, Srikcir said:

Some of the subsidies go to the land owner and not to the farmer renting the land.

No, the person who rents the land gets the subsidies, not the owner wife's daughter and son in law are rice farmers and rent they land, like a lot of other farmers in they area, they all get the subsidies, not the landowner.

If that was true people in Bankok will be queuing up to buy land, so they can rent it out and get the subsidies, I do not think so.

[anon2736434]

Before you said there were no subsidies now you say the land owner gets them, which is it ? People in Bangkok already own the lions share of the land in thailand. Thailand ranks #3 in the world income inequality index. You can bang you drum all day my friend but the truth is only a google away.

 

[CLW]

Diesel fuel is just one subsidy farmers use for everything from tractors to transport, let alone a month doesnt go by some farming group is protesting then getting money thru subsidized loans or interest or payouts. US and european and most other farmers in the world make money because they are up before the sun getting equipment ready etc. then they work past sundown to get their crop in or out before weather hits or prices are good, same goes for animal producers. They dont go lay in the hammock because its too hot, or sit around eating not working or playing like children waiting for the gov handout. They have bills to pay and families to feed. Farming here is a joke. The only success being made is by the chinese up north taking over the operations who know you have to work to make money. There is no work ethic here, but you cant really blame them, from birth they are led down a path of obedience and blind faith.

I don't blame the Thai farmers as they are either old and / or don't have any knowledge about modern farming.
Mostly they rely on traditional methods or by hearsay or advice of some middleman or salesman from the agricultural chemical industry.
While the first one just gives them yield on subsistence level the latter one mostly makes the other people rich and the farmer poor and leaving in debt.
My knowledge of Thai is limited but what I can see about marketing events from agro chemical and seed companies is just ridiculous.
They just want to sell their products and after that don't care for the farmers anymore.
Not for their income or their degrading soils or health when the use this crap to often or not according to the label.
Just one thing, how many farmers do a basic soil test that is provided free by the government?
Instead they are going to the sales shop, ask for fertiliser and apply the odd 15-15-15 at any suggested rate of the salesman.
Same goes for agrochemicals.
Not going to the cause of any disease, just spray as much as you can.
Old chemicals are cheap here because the big ones like Bayer etc. can't sell them in developed countries anymore.
I could write hours about this topic but I think most understand the problematic with farming in Thailand and it will take generations to change that.

[BritManToo]

5 minutes ago, CLW said:

I could write hours about this topic but I think most understand the problematic with farming in Thailand and it will take generations to change that.

Yet they still have a lot of family farms, and our family farms were all repossessed years ago.

Which of us is a successful farmer?

[anon2736434]

Most chemicals used here that are banned in other countries are sold here because yes they are cheap, but also thats what the market/economy here can afford due to the inefficient farming systems in place. Its not like bayer monsanto etc. wouldnt like to sell more advanced chems but the farming system here is so outdated there is no demand for them. Do you think they are going to stay in business losing money giving product away. Thai farmers are their own worst enemy. Just try and help one improve their farm and after the blank stare ends (falang dont know thai culture). You will give up, been there done that. I worked at a ag college for a year and the head ag professor even admitted they just wont change. They had monthly seminars with all the local farmers come to learn new farming ways, and he said as soon as they had their free lunch and handouts they just went back to what they were doing. Also under the current system those who make the rules dont want change, the big guys make all the money and the farmers just barely survive and most of them are not even doing that now. Why do you think the average farmers age is over 50, the young ones know its a waste of time fighting a losing battle.

[CLW]

Yet they still have a lot of family farms, and our family farms were all repossessed years ago.
Which of us is a successful farmer?

Repossessed you mean given to the younger generation?
And can they live from the income of the farm or do they have to work part time in another job?
Apart from that the statistical age of Thai farmers is somewhere in the 70's which means in the new future a lot of farms are being closed and or grouped together as company or cooperative farms owned by large investors.

[kickstart]

3 hours ago, Notagain said:

Before you said there were no subsidies now you say the land owner gets them, which is it ? People in Bangkok already own the lions share of the land in thailand. Thailand ranks #3 in the world income inequality index. You can bang you drum all day my friend but the truth is only a google away.

 

Can you read ? yesterday you said I wrote that all farmers make a profit which I did not, and now you are saying the person who owns the land gets the subsidies, my turn to say BS, I said the person who rents the land, not the owner that gets the subsidies.

And if you believe me,  since when has farm diesel been subsidized? farmers fill they tractors up at the same place you fill up your car /pick up, the local garage, I buy my diesel  when filling up my motorbike, you fill your pick up with subsidized diesel, we all do ,were you in Thailand 8-9 years ago when diesel was 40 plus baht/ liter?, problem with Thailand is a very high percentage of goods are moved about by road, rail network just does not work for hauling goods, when diesel was expensive, inflation in the country went up ,my lunchtime bowl of noddles went up twice in a month ,so the government at the time not so much as subsidize diesel but put more tax on petrol, it did help to bring down inflation but hurt  my wallet at the time 500 baht to fill up my 125cc Kawasaki motorbike .

[BritManToo]

8 minutes ago, CLW said:

Repossessed you mean given to the younger generation?
And can they live from the income of the farm or do they have to work part time in another job?
Apart from that the statistical age of Thai farmers is somewhere in the 70's which means in the new future a lot of farms are being closed and or grouped together as company or cooperative farms owned by large investors.

The normal definition of 'repossessed' is seized by banks and creditors for unpaid debts, which is what happened to nearly all the farms in the USA in the last 100 years. Which indicates to me Western farmers weren't very good at their jobs, so now you get people from the west who don't own farms, trying to tell people in Asia who do own farms how they should do it.

 

I'm thinking trying to change the Thai farmers traditional crops will only cause them harm.

At least they can eat the rice they grow.

[anon2736434]

Yes western farmers who feed the world just cant compete with the thai way and are not good farmers, too funny. You fail to understand feeding 7-8 billion people is not going to happen on small scale farms. When I grew up people that owned their land always made money then came along a generation that borrowed too much money and eventually lost everything. It wasnt the banks fault as most of the older farmers owned their land, didnt go out and buy equipment they could not pay for so they kept making money and still farm today. Most successful farmers today where my home is lease all their land. Try learning a little about economies of scale.  And Ill bet a baht or too most thai farmers are not happy about just having a few sacks of rice for their work, but then you being a westerner most likely on a pension can relate to their plight im sure.

[anon2736434]

https://www.reuters.com/article/thailand-economy-oil/thailand-to-use-fuel-subsidy-to-help-consumers-as-global-oil-price-rises-idUSL3N1ST3KX

So thats not a fuel subsidy, try reading the news once in awhile. And yes I was here ten years ago when fuel prices spiked and it was subsidized then too 

[CLW]

The normal definition of 'repossessed' is seized by banks and creditors for unpaid debts, which is what happened to nearly all the farms in the USA in the last 100 years. Which indicates to me Western farmers weren't very good at their jobs, so now you get people from the west who don't own farms, trying to tell people in Asia who do own farms how they should do it.
 
I'm thinking trying to change the Thai farmers traditional crops will only cause them harm.
At least they can eat the rice they grow.

Rice should always be the main crop of Thailand.
I'm already concerned and aware of that increase acreages of cassava and corn for industrial and feed purposes.
If this trend continues and something goes wrong in a particular year Thailand can import rice in the worst case.
We had the same in Germany a few years ago with a lot of farmers growing corn for biogas and then the government luckily reduced the subsidies.

[Lee4Life]

On 10/21/2018 at 5:36 AM, simoh1490 said:

Not a good solution from a pollution perspective, corn stubble when burned is one of the very worst air polluters.

I agree, never understood why they don't plow the stubble into the ground so the nutrients return to the soil. Isn't that common practice in other places?

[anon2736434]

1 minute ago, CLW said:

Rice should always be the main crop of Thailand.

I  respectfully disagree mono-cropping has been proven to be one of the most damaging ways of farming anything. I believe thats one of the biggest reasons for soil degradation in thailand. Crop rotation is a major factor in helping to not deplete your soil as fast as growing the same crop over and over.