Simply this: My wife's small farm made 29 sacks of rice this season but none of the people at the sharp end seem to know quite what that means in kilos. These are the standard size large sacks - my wife thinks 80kg each of dry rice. Can anyone set me straight on the likely weight and outlook for rice prices which must be low at this point I would think.

If you really want to muddy the water, supply a scale and have them weigh the rice (in the sack) and ask what price/kilo your wife can expect. Paddy rice, sacked is not 80 kilo, nor have I seen 80 kilo sacks after milling. But anything is possible here, although I will say yes sir to them individual carrying that sack of rice.

I guess we could add this one to the post "You know you've been in T'land to long, when:.......you need to know the weight of a sack of rice....

If you really want to muddy the water, supply a scale and have them weigh the rice (in the sack) and ask what price/kilo your wife can expect. Paddy rice, sacked is not 80 kilo, nor have I seen 80 kilo sacks after milling. But anything is possible here, although I will say yes sir to them individual carrying that sack of rice.

I'm just trying to do a rough calculation of the yield per rai to see what the cost has been. We're in Chiang Mai, the rice is in Surin along with her brother whose grasp of farming is not helped by his life long experience as a security guard. Since he doesn't pay the input bills he doesn't care much about the output but we do! If the sacks weigh in at the 80kg my wife guesses then the cost will be just under 9 baht a kilo.

This should help you out.

A sack of rough rice is about 80 kg,see photo.

Once you take it to the mill you will end up with about 60 kg,see photo in the back of car.

Most mills will take 1 or 2 kg per 80 kg bag as payment of husking the rice.

This is in rural Issan with the local mills.

Forgot,the mill owner will keep the husk to sell later.So as you can see they make money from the husked rice they keep and the husk.

Thanks. That's pretty much what I was looking for. I assume that the price of rice normally quoted is milled and that the 60 kg you mention is after the milling "cost". What's the current price, do you know? My wife wants to store it for a while in the hope that it improves when many of the farmers have sold theirs to pay off the Bank Farm loans.

Dry rice before milling was 12.5 baht a kg a couple of weeks ago in Surin, Straight off the paddy was 10.5 baht a kg. May have dropped now. My wife always holds...'until the price is good'....I've no idea when that would be!!

Thanks to you all. Very helpful responses - Happy Christmas!

The standard rice sacks here in Loei will hold between 40 and 45 kilograms of paddy rice. I'd guess that on average you will lose about 25 percent after milling. The miller keeps the hulls from the milling. It is called rum and is used for animal feed.