Olives

[lecol]

DOES ANY BODY KNOW IF OLIVES CAN BE GROWN IN THAILAND? I LOOK FORWARD TOO YOUR REPLYS

[walker]

Yes, they can. I actually looked into this a dozen or so years ago. My conclusion was that I was too old to seriously consider it, as the payout starts 20 years after the investment. A good decision for me, I think, but depending on your age, maybe a possibility for you. The east, Issan, is where you'd want to do it, but I actually think that there is a much better agricultural opportunity in Thailand. Email me if interested in my thoughts. walker

[rebo]

Close to my house in the paddy fields of Saraphi is a small soi flanked by dozens of olive trees (as what I would consider but I'm not an olive expert) which no one harvests.

PM to me if interested.

rebo

[john b good]

They might well grow here BUT how well?

Thailand has nothing like the climate in the traditional olive growing countries such as Spain and Israel.

I daresay that you can grow apples here but they are likely to be pretty sh1t.

Same for many crops i.e. tomatoes, I dunno where they grow them in Thailand but most that find their way into markets and supermarkets are priced about the same as gold and most are absolute rubbish.

A certain climate is required for various crops i.e. you don't see much citrus growing in the south of NZ nor do you see lychees in NZ.

[KevinN]

They grow tomatoes all over and one reason that they are trash is the Thai do not really understand anything about farming,even rice,the way they do everything is very labor intensive,,tomatoes are of ther commercial grade and picked way to green, but a lot of things just do not grow to a size that they would other places,and Apples grown here are really quite nice,they havent learned to pick em so green yet,just wait,pomagranites are never left to ripen,and they wonder whay they are not fit to eat.

I really do not think that most olives will produce a good crop here as the humidity is just to high from what I have seen in good olive country, but maybe over in ISSAN,I don't know,never lived over there. and maybe a strain that will do OK.

Give it a shot, I have been wondering about chessnuts,I might try it fore I croak.

[john b good]

They grow tomatoes all over and one reason that they are trash is the Thai do not really understand anything about farming,even rice,the way they do everything is very labor intensive,,tomatoes are of ther commercial grade and picked way to green, but a lot of things just do not grow to a size that they would other places,and Apples grown here are really quite nice,they havent learned to pick em so green yet,just wait,pomagranites are never left to ripen,and they wonder whay they are not fit to eat.

I really do not think that most olives will produce a good crop here as the humidity is just to high from what I have seen in good olive country, but maybe over in ISSAN,I don't know,never lived over there. and maybe a strain that will do OK.

Give it a shot, I have been wondering about chessnuts,I might try it fore I croak.

Now KevinN, I can only agree with what you say but ya gotta be careful saying bad things about Thais like "they do not really understand anything about farming)

OK, back to tomatoes, yes they do grow them here and once in a blue moon you might get some that are halfway decent but most of the time they are absolute sh1t.

The climate here is not right for tomatoes.

Back home we say that if you have tomatoes in the house that you have a meal.

Not so here (nor in many other countries either)

And yes many things are picked too early here (gotta get the money and to he11 with the quality, let alone washing the stuff before taking it to the market)

[KevinN]

Now KevinN, I can only agree with what you say but ya gotta be careful saying bad things about Thais like "they do not really understand anything about farming)""

I said nothing bad about Thai's,,I just stated a fact, The beef that they sell is not fit to feed your dog,the pork isn't that much better,chicken is terrible,and all the produce that I see should be thrown in the dumpsters,worms,bugs and all. golf ball size Broccoli with 4 kilo of stem,baseball size cabbages that taste bitter instead of sweet, Asperigass that looks like shoestrings, and most of this is because of bad farming practices or poor feeding technique.

Poor farming and work ethics go hand in hand it seems.

[scottie]

Been reading with interest. I still live in UK at moment so can only give limited input.

But many of the supermarkets in UK import asparagus, beans etc. from Thailand.

And We import more chicken from Thailand as well than anywhere else in the world.

My point being, they must be able to farm a bit, UK supermarkets are notorious for being picky with the food on their shelves.

Also when I'm in LOS I've had some great salads.

[KevinN]

Been reading with interest. I still live in UK at moment so can only give limited input.

But many of the supermarkets in UK import asparagus, beans etc. from Thailand.

And We import more chicken from Thailand as well than anywhere else in the world.

My point being, they must be able to farm a bit, UK supermarkets are notorious for being picky with the food on their shelves.

Also when I'm in LOS I've had some great salads.

We live in central Thailand,and only have one large market store,and they do not sell much fresh anything,some butter,milk ,small packages of vegs,meat or fish mix,kinda like a U-cook it TV dinner,and soap canned goods[Thai only],

meat and vegs. are sold in the open markets like in every village, and a Thai will not buy or eat a fryer chicken raised in a chicken shed for export,they prefer field range chickens. My bro in law raises 8000 at a time for an export co. and the family will not eat one of em.

I have seen some fair [not good] produce in the large chain markets,Lotus,Big C Carrefour and such,but never in the open markets. and it is 170 KM to one of those markets for me.

When I lived in mexico they started to import mexican avacados into the USA, we could buy a dozen large,fine avacados for less than a dollar and all mexicans ate quite a few of them,,then when they started to export,all the good ones went north and what was left was ones that no one would buy and the prices were more than doubled for the cull that remained.

And import produce is not as good as would be grown in an importing country,The reason is that it is cheaper to import, Why??

one reason is because it is seasonal,and the main reason is because it is inferior as the rules of sanitation and pesticide are less in the growing country,and the standards of quality are lower also, I have bought mexican bell peppers in the states to make stuffed peppers and inside every one was worms growing,you would never find that in an american grown pepper,and my mex wife always washed all produce with bleach/water mix to sanitize the stuff before we used it. In the US,you can take an apple or any fruit or produce and eat it right in the store without any ill effects.

I won't even eat this stuff here after it is washed in sanitizing wash as the cauliflour that we were going to use awhile back had a dozen worms left in the flowerettes after it was washed.

must be all the edible stuff is sent to england.

[john b good]

Now KevinN, I can only agree with what you say but ya gotta be careful saying bad things about Thais like "they do not really understand anything about farming)""

I said nothing bad about Thai's,,I just stated a fact, The beef that they sell is not fit to feed your dog,the pork isn't that much better,chicken is terrible,and all the produce that I see should be thrown in the dumpsters,worms,bugs and all. golf ball size Broccoli with 4 kilo of stem,baseball size cabbages that taste bitter instead of sweet, Asperigass that looks like shoestrings, and most of this is because of bad farming practices or poor feeding technique.

Poor farming and work ethics go hand in hand it seems.

Now KevinN, I can only agree with what you say but ya gotta be careful saying bad things about Thais like "they do not really understand anything about farming)""

I was actually taking the pi*s because I received a PM a while back saying that negative comments "even if true" were not welcome.

I agree with everything you say about the produce (i.e. which suit's our diets) that is available is mostly sh1t and is priced off the planet.

Even a can of Heinz spaghetti in Thailand is 4x times more expensive than in Singapore.

They fly milk into Singapore from Australia and it is as cheap if not cheaper than the milk produced in Thailand.

Most of the chickens here are about the size of sparrows where I come from.

And the beef, well, you might as well forget it.

Pork is the only thing here (produced in country) that is halfway decent.

There I go "being negative again"

[lecol]

many thanks for all of your remarks sounds hopfull.

[KevinN]

JOHN;ain't the milk here really a laugh,,only thing you can get that sort of tastes like milk is powder and it is skimmed,,they even take the butterfat out of the canned/evaporated stuff,,they make it with milk powder[skimmed] and add palm oil of 5% to put the fat back in and palm oil is not as healthy as butterfat. ###### hard to get anything without sugar and flavoring.