Price Rubber, Palm Oil Etc

[WilliamCave]

Hello, was woundering the price of farmed goods in thailand now, like rubber palm oil, coffee and others. Wife telling me that the price has dropped by 60% or more. This will be very costly for the farmers with the cost of chemicals and other things to maintain the farms...Hope the farmers dont louse there farms and property to gready thais or westerners...

[Loom]

Saw this report today. All ag commodity prices have dropped in the international market. Local pricing would most likely track international trends, though I think govt. intervention pricing has held rice pricing up in Thailand.

------

Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia to Cut Rubber Exports (Update1)

By Yoga Rusmana and Naila Firdausi

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the world's three biggest natural rubber producers, plan to reduce rubber shipments next year to help revive prices.

The three countries agreed to cut rubber exports by a combined 700,000 metric tons next year, or a tenth of their annual harvest, said Nurmala Abdul Rahim, Malaysia's deputy secretary general at the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities in Bogor, Indonesia.

The producers are discussing steps after rubber prices in Tokyo tumbled 70 percent since reaching a 28-year high in June on slowing demand. Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia in October agreed to jointly reduce output by 215,000 tons next year by felling trees.

[stoneman]

Hello, was woundering the price of farmed goods in thailand now, like rubber palm oil, coffee and others. Wife telling me that the price has dropped by 60% or more. This will be very costly for the farmers with the cost of chemicals and other things to maintain the farms...Hope the farmers dont louse there farms and property to gready thais or westerners...

Go to this site and you will get the daily price and volume of rubber...

http://www.rubberthai.com/

Stoneman

[Mosha]

As I have posted before, Thailand intends to take about 400,000 rai out of production. Quite how this will be enforced I have yet to find out. Most rubber is grown on family plots of less than 10 hectares. If this is there sole income, How can they pursuade them to cut back, versus someone with 700,000 trees or 10,000 Rai?

[Maizefarmer]

How will they take it out of production - natural wastage: there are fewer and fewer folk each year taking up rubber plantations as one generation passes onto the next, so there is less and less tradition replacement - especially with smaller and older plantations, which are then get sold off and the land put to other use(s).

[Mosha]

MF the article I read in the Bangkok Post said they would encourage people to delay tapping the trees until they were 6.5 years old. The problem I see is they also say to cut down trees at (say) 25 years old. Most plots around here that I see are on the 20-25 Rai range. Some of the slopes are quite steep, so I'm not sure what else would bring in as much money for them.

Another proposal I have read is to cut down the number of days that the buyers are open to buy the rubber.

[Loom]

"Thailand" intends to take production out of the system? Based on your understanding is this some sort of a government policy or is it policy from a cartel of rubber exporters?

Just wondering how much of the fluctuation in international rubber pricing translates down to farm gate prices...

[Mosha]

This is the information I got from various googling and checking my previous post.

http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/061208_Busine...c2008_biz31.php

http://www.bangkokpost.com/301008_News/30Oct2008_news16.php

http://www.bangkokpost.com/181008_Business...t2008_biz36.php

[Loom]

Looks like a group of rubber exporter companies trying to cut back global supply. That translates into exceptionally poor economics at the farm gate but good profits for tire makers.

[Lickey]

Anybody know how long the rubber/latex mats will store for, is there a cut-off point when the mats cant be proccessed? TIA Lickey.

[Lickey]

So nobody knows??? well, you rubber farmers should have thought of this before you went into it full time, ive just found on the web that 3 months is the max for stored rubber mats!!

[chang35baht]

your point is?

[stoneman]

So nobody knows??? well, you rubber farmers should have thought of this before you went into it full time, ive just found on the web that 3 months is the max for stored rubber mats!!

Lickey...

If the rubber sheets are smoked, they can be stored for a lot longer than that..

Stoneman

[Gary A]

You can bet that only the farmers will get hurt. Between Loei and Nong Bua Lamphu, there are MANY new rubber farms just coming productive.

[Lickey]

So nobody knows??? well, you rubber farmers should have thought of this before you went into it full time, ive just found on the web that 3 months is the max for stored rubber mats!!

Lickey...

If the rubber sheets are smoked, they can be stored for a lot longer than that..

Stoneman

Thanks Stoneman, a rubber farmer friend of mine asked me about storage,will pass on the info xmas day, hes the falang not so far from you, if you are in Namsom over the xmas period, do drop in, have a chat and a beer, Happy Xmas to you all, Lickey & Pan..