Farming In Thailand

[ArranP]

Hello people,

I would like to touch on the subject of agricultural farming in Thailand, and can it be a profitable business ?

Does anybody have any knowledge on this subject ?

I thought growing food for sale would be a good business in both good and hard-up times, people always need to eat!

I would like to learn about the different varieties of farming in Thailand, rice, potatoe etc....

I would like to look into typical running costs, costs of producing vs revenue generated from sales, ie is it worh while venture.

I do not intend this to provide myself with an income immediatley, but rather an investment for my families future, I worry about my daughter having a job when she grows up..... I like the idea of the home being a place of hussle and bussle of organising employing people to come and farm the land.... I like the idea of my wife becoming involved with this business and making it a family business... I lke the idea of building a home in the middle of farming land...

Regards

Arran.

Edited December 16, 2008 by ArranP

[ArranP]

oh I forgot to mention this would be in and around the Nakhon Sawan area.

[GENeIsUS]

It has always been my understanding that only Thais could own land in Thailand. Pardon me for asking, but do you qualify?

[ArranP]

It has always been my understanding that only Thais could own land in Thailand. Pardon me for asking, but do you qualify?

Yes, the business is for my wife and child who both have Thai citizenship.

[ArranP]

It has always been my understanding that only Thais could own land in Thailand. Pardon me for asking, but do you qualify?

Yes, the business is for my wife and child who both have Thai citizenship.

[slapout]

arran; Your question about most profitable type of farming/crops for your daughters future job/business is next to impossible to answer during the best of times,much less in todays economy. I have about 30 rai of land and 2 daughters who will be going to university (outside Thailand) in the next 3 to 4 years. My idea is to provide the chance for them to get a first rate education and then they decide what they want to do with it. When they seem to be slacking off in their studies we make a trip to the farm so they can participate in weeding, planting, harvest, etc and this seems to get them back on the track quickly. With the exit of the young people from the rural areas/farming sector which has been going on for several years, it may be very difficult to convience the girls that a farming/rice business is a attractive future. The exception may be a farm of several thousand rai which would support multi families in the style they desire or are use to. Just my humble thoughts..

[Maizefarmer]

........ and to carry on from where slapout left off (ggod points), add the following: farming is no less a business than practising any other profession - they are going to need a good grounding/understanding of the subject, and a good understanding of the economics. It takes a long time to establish any farming project that is able to stand on its own year after year to generate sufficient income to support a family to the point that it can be relied on to pay bills, pay the mortgage, pay for higher education, holidays, pay for the car blah blah, blah blah .... and leave enough behind to be put aside for a pension.

It is in every sense of the word a profession that requires alot of self discipline and committment to succeed with.

[ArranP]

The financial needs of my family and myself are seperate to this farming project. The farming project does not need to provide an income, quite the reverse I can see myself funding the farming project until sufficient lessons are learnt that it can eventually (maybe after many years) turn a profit.

Its and idea for the next generation, whilst in 20 or 30 years I may (or may not) have finances to pass onto my children, I thought it could be something they could choose to apply themselves to if they so wished. At least giving the the choice would be my driver.

From a discipline perspective... in my thoughts I can see the gathering of skilled and knowledgeble employees over the years to carry out the labour itself, with the family owning the land, managing the finances, contacts, orders and sales.

The few types of farmings I know so far, are chicken, rice...

My wifes extended family already are in the business of slaughtering chickens, so growing chickens may be an appropriate avenue to go down. But I'm not sure, what are the better areas of farming from a profit perspective? Maybe this in itself is a hard question to answer as things will change over the years, I am interested in learning the various details and lessons learnt already.

Edited December 17, 2008 by ArranP

[dumball]

........ and to carry on from where slapout left off (ggod points), add the following: farming is no less a business than practising any other profession - they are going to need a good grounding/understanding of the subject, and a good understanding of the economics. It takes a long time to establish any farming project that is able to stand on its own year after year to generate sufficient income to support a family to the point that it can be relied on to pay bills, pay the mortgage, pay for higher education, holidays, pay for the car blah blah, blah blah .... and leave enough behind to be put aside for a pension.

It is in every sense of the word a profession that requires alot of self discipline and committment to succeed with.

I may be wrong here , but is not farming , or was it not , a basis for self sustinance in Thailand for many generations ? To this end , the thoughts of pension requirements can be put aside because that would not be a requisite if your are self sustainable .

As to the rest of what many people consider in this day and age to be 'The norm ' , to enlarge on what one has already established should not be such a difficult canundrum , one of the biggest problems in any buisiness is to remain solvent , if you are in fact already solvent , there should be no problem in expanding upon all of the knowledge you have accumulated to venture into 'Farming for profit ' , because you are already aware of what the average consumer needs to exist . I always worked on the fact that monetary gain is not achieved merely by 'Profit by item' , but more by monetary turnover on a daily basis , the proof of the pudding is to be able to retail ALL of your available stock on a consistant level , thus not leaving you with monetary loss on unsold product . Sell on a monetary affordable level of your consumers , with a quality that is hopefully higher than any competitors and you can be assured of a regular customer basis that will ensure your survival . Greed as such is the terminator of many a buisiness , the plight of Thailand today partially proves this point .

Now to my real reason for posting , i am growng trees at my apartment to replant in the village , so far so good except pomegranites , i have grown them but they do not survive when transplanted . I have cutivated 3 from seed that are a heathy 1 foot ( 1/3 meter) tall , what do i have to do to the village soil to maintain growth after transplant ?

I have tried to get them to put kitchen waste in a ditch for fertiliser , but to no avail , i want to do something myself , action speaks louder than words . Thank you for any advise you can me , all methods will be tried up to the limit of saplings i have : 3 .

[slapout]

dumball; Yes farming has been on a self subsistence level for many years here, but with the awareness of the rural population to the rest of Thailand and the world, the desired level of subsistence seems to have risen. With thew quality of health care improving here the life cycle has increased to the point that people live longer than their bodies can handle the physical labor required on the farm. It would be great if the farmers had the where with all to market to the consumer the product he produces but sadly the system here seems geared to the middlemen (not just one) in the marketing, providing of chemicals, fertilizer, seed/stock for planting, etc. The yearly income on the normal Thai size farm has fallen below the profit level with declining prices of garlic, pumpkin, rice, fruit, veggies,etc (to the farmer). When you couple this with the need for a retirement account, which has to come from farm profit during the productive years, the outlook for the normal Thai farming family is not real bright. The transplant problem can be from several things. A large root ball of potting/growing material (5 gallon bucket size) will reduce transplant shock. Amount of water, temp. at transplant, and moon cycle, etc have a bearing on transplant rate of survival.

[dumball]

Slapout , thank you for enlightening me , i had not realized things had become so bad since the last time i was in northern Thailand ,here in Cambodia , our extended family are doing quite well at this time their improved food production has so far kept ahead of rising costs . I am hoping with more diversification , it will continue to stay ahead , the family are good workers and do listen to suggestions to a certain degree , i feel that when the dream of building their new home becomes a reality mostly due to their utilisation of some of my methods and thinking , we can make even more progress in the future .

I will look further into your advise on transplanting , i am always open to learning new things , thanks again .

[bina]

check the soil type; our pommegranties like our middle eastern, arid, rocky terrain and do really really well... could be soil is too rich or acidic or wet....

or just the shock; we translplant mostof our trees in the winter which is actually cold enough for the tree to go into a slow down/sleep (not a real hibernation like north american trees as we dont have that type of cold).... not sure about trees in thailand ....

bina

israel

and farming as a business?! in this day and age?! take a good second look at what maizefarmer wrote and think again...

we here are all professional farmers and from this past year or so, i can say that farming and farmers are becomeing an endangered species ... farming for your own use is something else all together but with the world wide changes in climate, water, and energy sources is changing (or disappearing), agriculture is rapidly becoming a non business, a loosing venture for most small families and farms... not something to build up to count in in the future as more than an educational oppurtunity for the kids to experience as part of their growing up.

bina

[Maizefarmer]

........ and to carry on from where slapout left off (ggod points), add the following: farming is no less a business than practising any other profession - they are going to need a good grounding/understanding of the subject, and a good understanding of the economics. It takes a long time to establish any farming project that is able to stand on its own year after year to generate sufficient income to support a family to the point that it can be relied on to pay bills, pay the mortgage, pay for higher education, holidays, pay for the car blah blah, blah blah .... and leave enough behind to be put aside for a pension.

It is in every sense of the word a profession that requires alot of self discipline and committment to succeed with.

I may be wrong here , but is not farming , or was it not , a basis for self sustinance in Thailand for many generations ? To this end , the thoughts of pension requirements can be put aside because that would not be a requisite if your are self sustainable .

As to the rest of what many people consider in this day and age to be 'The norm ' , to enlarge on what one has already established should not be such a difficult canundrum , one of the biggest problems in any buisiness is to remain solvent , if you are in fact already solvent , there should be no problem in expanding upon all of the knowledge you have accumulated to venture into 'Farming for profit ' , because you are already aware of what the average consumer needs to exist . I always worked on the fact that monetary gain is not achieved merely by 'Profit by item' , but more by monetary turnover on a daily basis , the proof of the pudding is to be able to retail ALL of your available stock on a consistant level , thus not leaving you with monetary loss on unsold product . Sell on a monetary affordable level of your consumers , with a quality that is hopefully higher than any competitors and you can be assured of a regular customer basis that will ensure your survival . Greed as such is the terminator of many a buisiness , the plight of Thailand today partially proves this point .

Now to my real reason for posting , i am growng trees at my apartment to replant in the village , so far so good except pomegranites , i have grown them but they do not survive when transplanted . I have cutivated 3 from seed that are a heathy 1 foot ( 1/3 meter) tall , what do i have to do to the village soil to maintain growth after transplant ?

I have tried to get them to put kitchen waste in a ditch for fertiliser , but to no avail , i want to do something myself , action speaks louder than words . Thank you for any advise you can me , all methods will be tried up to the limit of saplings i have : 3 .

!!!!!!! - may well have been the case historically - but the reality of modern day farming is that the large majority of subsistance/self-sustaining farmers in the North and North East live in ongoing and in-escapable poverty - a poverty level responsible for so much stress that it leads year on year to one of the highest occupational group suicide rates in Thailand!

Modern day economics and the realities of having to have at least some degree of financial solvency have all but stripped away any possibility of able to farm consistantly without doing so to generate a decent income.

And on the topic of "retailing the produce" - speak to any farmer: farmgate prices in Thailand are harder to deal with than the actual farming its self.

Nope, while I see where you are coming from and your "ideal" sounds good, I can assure you that you will find the reality very different indeed.

Do you know just what is killing them once they have been transplanted - is it bugs, soil conditions ... or just what. Personally (and I have no experiance with fruit trees) I think you are transplanting to the ground far too early. I would be keeping them in pots (large if neccessary) till they were a good 1.8 - 2m high - and they have a well established root ball - then transplanting into the ground in a tailored soil mix. That should ensure they have sufficient bulk to withstand any shock stemming a sudden change in conditions - wheather it be soil/water/bugs, or whatever - and will give you time to respond to and treat any change in their condition that you notice.

All the best.

[jubby]

I've dabbled with a bit of Livestock and have planted Trees on the land we have. mainly to satisfy a waning interest in a sort of self sufficiency thing. Although I've never had a real serious crack at farming , Its quite obvious to me that with a few exceptions the only people making money in Thailand are the Middlemen. The situation in my opinion for the Farmers here is dire. Food for livestock and fertilizers are ridiculously high.

Someone gets a new Idea and everyman and his dog will copy the idea to the extreme. A good few years ago everyone planted Lamyai around us. That along with rice and corn. The farmers seem to protest about the 'wholesale' prices of corn with Road Blocks. The Lamyai's getting chopped down now, it makes excellent firewood ;-). Rubbers the new thing now. A new strain that will grow up north, everyman and his dog is planting rubber now. I passed a plantation near me a couple of days ago. A huge Area initially excavated by 'Earth moving' Plant machinery.

I swear you could see it from the Moon. I quite like the Rubber Idea because at least its a tree and appears evergreen and is better on the eye than parched earth. I'm no expert but I guess Rubber will need a lot of labour, so good for Jobs etc. I really think there will be too much of it leading to oversupply and low prices but I hope I'm wrong. The Middlemen will do fine as usual. I'm just going to plant some more teak and see what other Trees pop up by themselves.

[Khonwan]

Hi Arran

Your question would take a book to reply to in terms of its scope. I farm 200 rai and have done so for many years here in Nakhon Sawan. I’m Scottish, BTW. I’d be happy to answer any and all your questions over a couple of beers at my home/farm. I’ll PM the details if you wish to visit.

Cheers

Khonwan

[soundman]

Moved to farming forum.

[wolfmanjack]

Hi Arran

Your question would take a book to reply to in terms of its scope. I farm 200 rai and have done so for many years here in Nakhon Sawan. I’m Scottish, BTW. I’d be happy to answer any and all your questions over a couple of beers at my home/farm. I’ll PM the details if you wish to visit.

Cheers

Khonwan

How much profit can be made from farming 200 rai and what crop are you raising?

[Khonwan]

Hi Arran

Your question would take a book to reply to in terms of its scope. I farm 200 rai and have done so for many years here in Nakhon Sawan. I’m Scottish, BTW. I’d be happy to answer any and all your questions over a couple of beers at my home/farm. I’ll PM the details if you wish to visit.

Cheers

Khonwan

How much profit can be made from farming 200 rai and what crop are you raising?

I've no intention of detailing my income in a public forum so suffice to say that I am mainly growing cassava and that you can expect around 5,000 baht/rai in profit from this crop, ignoring initial costs of first year trees, machinery and, of course, land.

[slapout]

Similar to asking a cattle rancher, how many cows he has. Most will answer with a question about your bank balance or something similar and then note its a rather personal question, in their diplomatic way of speaking. But I have gotten somewhat used to (some of) the questions asked on the forum and in Thailand.

[Maizefarmer]

That is not strictly true - besides the "middlemen" there are farmers and farms that do very well. Take ChokChai (and I mention CC because I dairy farm) - its a very successfull and profitable business - well group of businesses, but if you look at the milk side of things it does very well by its self.... and I've done fine myself.

Its a scale of economies thing - to a large extent: there is certainly a "cut-off" below/above which profitability/loss if defined in the long term. Defining that point (as far as cattle is concerned) is very much down to the relationship between size/scale and the "model" adopted by the farmer (i.e. as there is no such thing as "what farming generates the best profit", so to is there no cattle farming method that is best and most profitable).

On the crop side of things are some big Thai national groups with 10's of thousands of rai under crop and they do very well.

But point taken - yes, the "middleman" in Thai ag has traditionaly fared better than farmers.

[JungleBiker]

Hello people,

I would like to touch on the subject of agricultural farming in Thailand, and can it be a profitable business ?

Hi Arran,

As Khonwan suggested, "agriculture" is a vast subject. If you search this forum you will find other people who have similar ideas and have similar questions to those that you've asked. To answer your first question, the answer is yes. On the other hand, there are many poor farmers in Thailand.

Does anybody have any knowledge on this subject ?

For sure, many people here in this forum have knowledge on this subject and as I said above you can find a lot of valuable knowledge already available in this forum.

I thought growing food for sale would be a good business in both good and hard-up times, people always need to eat!

It's true that people always need to eat, but, depending on which products you select, there are often times when supply exceeds demand and prices are below breakeven. It's best to start at the marketing end of the value chain and research your markets first.

I would like to learn about the different varieties of farming in Thailand, rice, potatoe etc....

To repeat, this is a vast subject and there are so many crops and types of livestock that you could produce and market. They include what I consider to be low value crops (e.g. cassava and sugar cane) which will only make decent returns if you produce them on a large scale. And then there are much higher value crops like say potted cacti and orchids which can be profitable on much smaller areas of land (though the investment costs per unit area of land will usually be higher). The same principle applies to livestock, e.g. raising low value livestock like pigs or chickens versus high value livestock like parrots or ornamental fish.

I would like to look into typical running costs, costs of producing vs revenue generated from sales, ie is it worh while venture.

Due to the enormous variety of crops and livestock species it is impossible to suggest typical costs, revenue and profits. Even for one specific enterprise, e.g. dairy cattle, you will find considerable variation with some people making losses while others make profits (due to differences in skills, location, scale, capital intensity, amount of value added to the product, etc).

I do not intend this to provide myself with an income immediatley, but rather an investment for my families future, I worry about my daughter having a job when she grows up..... I like the idea of the home being a place of hussle and bussle of organising employing people to come and farm the land.... I like the idea of my wife becoming involved with this business and making it a family business... I lke the idea of building a home in the middle of farming land...

Nothing wrong with your ideas and many of us here in this forum have similar ideas, but I hope you have already checked with your wife and daughter to see if they share your ideas.

Best regards,

JB.

[ArranP]

Hi Arran

Your question would take a book to reply to in terms of its scope. I farm 200 rai and have done so for many years here in Nakhon Sawan. I’m Scottish, BTW. I’d be happy to answer any and all your questions over a couple of beers at my home/farm. I’ll PM the details if you wish to visit.

Cheers

Khonwan

Yes, I would like that. I'm Welsh :-).... Lets exchange email addresses, I come to Nakhon Sawan for a month in February then we move to Thailand from May onwards, closer to the time I can get in touch.

Many Thanks Khonwan.

[ArranP]

......

I would like to look into typical running costs, costs of producing vs revenue generated from sales, ie is it worh while venture.

Due to the enormous variety of crops and livestock species it is impossible to suggest typical costs, revenue and profits. Even for one specific enterprise, e.g. dairy cattle, you will find considerable variation with some people making losses while others make profits (due to differences in skills, location, scale, capital intensity, amount of value added to the product, etc).

I do not intend this to provide myself with an income immediatley, but rather an investment for my families future, I worry about my daughter having a job when she grows up..... I like the idea of the home being a place of hussle and bussle of organising employing people to come and farm the land.... I like the idea of my wife becoming involved with this business and making it a family business... I lke the idea of building a home in the middle of farming land...

Nothing wrong with your ideas and many of us here in this forum have similar ideas, but I hope you have already checked with your wife and daughter to see if they share your ideas.

Best regards,

JB.

Thank you Jungle Biker, some good information from which will help me form a base understanding.

[jubby]

MaizeFarmer,

Its just my opinion based on my observations which may or may not be true.

I did say with a few exceptions. ;-)

The Large businesses can break through some of the Barriers imposed by the Fuedal system here.

and the 'lets copy everyone else' mentality.

for the vast majority of small farmers the situation is Dire in my opinion.

Anyone thinking of starting a small farming venture unless they have something different to offer will have an uphill struggle in my opinion.

Saying that , your the Successful Farmer not me ;-)

[Maizefarmer]

I often wonder (how successfull I've been).......... I gave up a good job with a big multinational at a very young age to follow a dream. What if I hadn't ?! Make no mistake about it, it has been (and continues to be) hard work. At times we have struggeled - really struggeled to make ends meet!

Yes - for a lot of farmers in Thailand the situation continues to be dire - with ever rising cultivation & production costs on one hand and a relentless pressure on farmgate prices on the other hand, margins are constantly challenged.

Theres always space for new ideas and something different in farming - not only a different product, but a different way of producing the same product for a lower cost. The great challenge today energy costs. About a year back there was alot of discussion on this section of TV about the viability of producing fuel from ... well, just about everything that could be grown for fuel was discussed. It doesnt have to be a new product, I think a new way of producing it is where the potential lies.

Hydroponics is something that Thailand is not big on.

There are a few small hydroponic projects running in Thailand, but nothing big. Hydroponics offers enourmous potential when it comes to reducing cultivation and production costs. The crop volume per unit area and cultivation rate at which vegetables can be produced at using hydroponics techniques, versus traditional in the soil/on the land techniques is exponentialy more efficient & productive. In many cases hydroponics can double to triple crop mass for the same area, while also reducing production cost by 50% plus (yes - that much)- yet as a farming tecnique in Thailand, it is to date little used.

Hydroponics is certainly something I would reccomend to someone who wanted to start farming to look into. While much of the equipment that is used in professional hydroponic farming is very expensive in Thailand, that cost can be off-set firstly against the saving in capital outlay on land one would otherwise have to make, and secondly, much of the equipment (I'd go so far as to say all of it) can be constructed In Thailand from COTS hardware (commercial off the shelf components) at a fraction fraction of what a so-called "professional" kit or equipment would cost. Not only is it subsequently easily scalable, that scalability is pretty linear to expansion cost - so its comparitively easy to forecast crop production and costs.

Hyrdoponics - give it some consideration. the internet has 10's of 000's of pages on the subject

[slapout]

Just keeping up with this thread as well as others with the new ideas, old ideas, maybes, where fores, what ifs, etc. The successful farmers around the world have one thing in common, they know what they are doing and have several years of experience and probably a fairly good education. It does not take them 15 to 20 years to find a successful formula for pigs, sheep, cattle, small grains veggies etc. They work with what they can control, plan for the worst and accept anything better as a gimme. If that does not work they quickly diversify so they make a profit or they move into the local labor market. Many farmers here and outside Thailand do the latter and work the farm as a hobby or summer job. The problem in Thailand is the farm size and the labor potential for the village folks is too small and/or limited. For the locals to even consider a new way of farming they need the money to invest and to live while they try to implement the suggested and/or new ideas. When I compare The normal Thai farmer with the Aussie, American, Russian, and many European farmers, farm size, education level, markets, operating money source/interest, etc I tend to be a negative nellie.Successful farming is not a hobby, accident or inherited in the majority of cases, and this coupled with the continual learning experience is not conducive to small scale Thai family farms. In todays world, the non experience learning curve is to costly to come by for those of us who do not have a sugar daddy backing us. Just my rant for the night.

[wolfmanjack]

Hi Arran

Your question would take a book to reply to in terms of its scope. I farm 200 rai and have done so for many years here in Nakhon Sawan. I’m Scottish, BTW. I’d be happy to answer any and all your questions over a couple of beers at my home/farm. I’ll PM the details if you wish to visit.

Cheers

Khonwan

How much profit can be made from farming 200 rai and what crop are you raising?

I've no intention of detailing my income in a public forum so suffice to say that I am mainly growing cassava and that you can expect around 5,000 baht/rai in profit from this crop, ignoring initial costs of first year trees, machinery and, of course, land.

thank you for your answer. It was not my intention to get into your personal finances or i would have sent you a PM and your answer is what i was looking for.

[tanganggood]

Hello people,

I would like to touch on the subject of agricultural farming in Thailand, and can it be a profitable business ?

Does anybody have any knowledge on this subject ?

I thought growing food for sale would be a good business in both good and hard-up times, people always need to eat!

I would like to learn about the different varieties of farming in Thailand, rice, potatoe etc....

I would like to look into typical running costs, costs of producing vs revenue generated from sales, ie is it worh while venture.

I do not intend this to provide myself with an income immediatley, but rather an investment for my families future, I worry about my daughter having a job when she grows up..... I like the idea of the home being a place of hussle and bussle of organising employing people to come and farm the land.... I like the idea of my wife becoming involved with this business and making it a family business... I lke the idea of building a home in the middle of farming land...

Regards

Arran.

[kikoman]

Hi Arran

Your question would take a book to reply to in terms of its scope. I farm 200 rai and have done so for many years here in Nakhon Sawan. I'm Scottish, BTW. I'd be happy to answer any and all your questions over a couple of beers at my home/farm. I'll PM the details if you wish to visit.

Cheers

Khonwan

This has nothing to do with the present topic, I live outside of Lat Yao about 50 kilometers from Nakhon Sawan. I am interested in purchasing fresh milk in small amounts, for home made butter and cheese.

Khonwan in your many years do you know of anyone selling cow or goats milk in the Nakhon Sawan, Lat Yao

or Sawang Arom area..

Thanks for any info, Kikoman

[dave_boo]

This has nothing to do with the present topic, I live outside of Lat Yao about 50 kilometers from Nakhon Sawan. I am interested in purchasing fresh milk in small amounts, for home made butter and cheese.

Khonwan in your many years do you know of anyone selling cow or goats milk in the Nakhon Sawan, Lat Yao

or Sawang Arom area..

Thanks for any info, Kikoman

You know where the resevoir is on the Lan Sak road? I.E. go north of Lan Sak for some 10 km and there's a sign that describes the entrance to the Huai Kha Kaeng Park and a bit further there's a wooden sign, also on the left, that tells you there's a resevoir. Head down there and you'll find a fairly large goat herd; don't know if they sell the milk or not though. I'll be home round about the 20th and would be glad to show you where it's at.