Sugar Cane

[Gary A]

About five years ago we (my wife/my money) bought a ten rai piece of land that had not been farmed for years, if ever. After hiring a tractor to plow down the HUGE growth of weeds and brush, we found out that it was full of laterite formations. That was why no one bothered to farm it. Since then we have put in a pond and pushed the laterite rocks into dikes to form rice paddies. Last year we/she enlarged and deepened the pond. The rice did poorly because there still wasn't enough water.

I told my wife that if she had listened to me the small farm would have been planted in sugar cane. This year she decided that sugar cane is the answer, (LOL). Some fool kid with a 6610 Ford tractor gave her a price of 1,200 per rai to take out the dikes and get the land ready for planting sugar cane. I am absolutely amazed that he was able to get rid of the laterite rocks and make it look good. Since my wife takes care of the land, I contribute nothing. I never asked her for any money she happened to make. (Not much).

Anyways she has about enough money to finish up and get the cane planted. Since it is expensive to plant and I don't want her to cut corners, I may give her a loan.

[Gary A]

I told my wife that since the kid has done such a terrific job, she should give him a good tip. She told me that she has already bought 500 baht worth of Lao Kao for him and his small crew.

You really would have had to seen it before he started to appreciate the work that has gone into the project. A total of 9,600 baht plus the 500 for the whiskey. She now has about 8 rai of land ready for planting and she never had to use my little Yanmar 31 HP tractor.

[khunandy]

I told my wife that since the kid has done such a terrific job, she should give him a good tip. She told me that she has already bought 500 baht worth of Lao Kao for him and his small crew.

You really would have had to seen it before he started to appreciate the work that has gone into the project. A total of 9,600 baht plus the 500 for the whiskey. She now has about 8 rai of land ready for planting and she never had to use my little Yanmar 31 HP tractor.

Hi Gary,

Good to hear these stories of value for money. Off topic but I watched a neighbours house being lifted, moved 10 metres and reset on concrete posts last month...cost 6000 baht...probably a quantity of firewater at the end of each day as well.

When I have had sheds built and other work around the place the builders seem to respond to and give a better end product if there is a bit of sanook involved, I used to shout a few bottles at the end of the day and BBQ a bit of beef or fish.

Andy

[Gary A]

She had to buy a rai of standing sugar cane to plant her eight rai. She had some cane left over so she had a small plot on the other farm available. It was grown up in VERY high weeds. She hired another kid to plow that up. She gave him two big bottles of beer, a bottle of that energy drink and one hundred baht. I gave her hel_l and told her that the next time she sees him to give him another couple hundred baht. He had to take out a couple of stumps and two small trees. his fuel probably cost him a hundred baht. She told me he wanted to do it because he was just starting out and needed the practice.

[catwho]

She had to buy a rai of standing sugar cane to plant her eight rai. She had some cane left over so she had a small plot on the other farm available. It was grown up in VERY high weeds. She hired another kid to plow that up. She gave him two big bottles of beer, a bottle of that energy drink and one hundred baht. I gave her hel_l and told her that the next time she sees him to give him another couple hundred baht. He had to take out a couple of stumps and two small trees. his fuel probably cost him a hundred baht. She told me he wanted to do it because he was just starting out and needed the practice.

Hi Gary,this year we were going to start growing sugar cane, on 5 rai we have , the wife was quoted 14000, for 1 rai to cover the 5 rai,they then wanted 18000bt for a rai,seems like 1 rai of cane would replant at least 8 to 10 rai,from your report.

what did your mrs pay for the rai for replanting? just for future referance as over the future yrs i would like to buy land each yr

[10yrs the plan] and maybe have 100 rai over the next 10 yrs of on sugar cane, to have a consistent income for the kids.

i know the fist out lay is the biggest , in OZ they change each 4 yrs the oringinal crop here the mrs says 6 yrs . can you or anyone give any insight on this

thanks

cat

[Gary A]

My wife bought one rai of standing sugar cane to plant eight rai. She paid 12,000 baht for it. She and her crew cut it themselves. The only one she paid for labor was her nephew. He has no other job so she pays him for taking care of many things. Cutting brush, weeds and pumping water is nearly a full time job. She has seven other women who help each other on their farms so there is very little labor paid for. It's a barter system around here. Judging how long it took them, I would guess the labor, if paid, would be about 2,000 baht per rai just for the planting. That one rai of cuttings planted about 9 rai total.

I think she used a bag of fertilizer per rai with more needed when the cane is about knee high. She also must find someone later on to spray for weeds. I don't want her doing that herself. I have no idea what that will cost.

They pumped the pond dry for the initial soaking and had to pump water from a government pond into her pond for the next irrigation. The government pond is about 300 meters away.

She plans to get 3 or 4 years from this planting. The 4th year is a little iffy. Depends how well it comes up and the population of the plants.

[catwho]

My wife bought one rai of standing sugar cane to plant eight rai. She paid 12,000 baht for it. She and her crew cut it themselves. The only one she paid for labor was her nephew. He has no other job so she pays him for taking care of many things. Cutting brush, weeds and pumping water is nearly a full time job. She has seven other women who help each other on their farms so there is very little labor paid for. It's a barter system around here. Judging how long it took them, I would guess the labor, if paid, would be about 2,000 baht per rai just for the planting. That one rai of cuttings planted about 9 rai total.

I think she used a bag of fertilizer per rai with more needed when the cane is about knee high. She also must find someone later on to spray for weeds. I don't want her doing that herself. I have no idea what that will cost.

They pumped the pond dry for the initial soaking and had to pump water from a government pond into her pond for the next irrigation. The government pond is about 300 meters away.

She plans to get 3 or 4 years from this planting. The 4th year is a little iffy. Depends how well it comes up and the population of the plants.

THANKS FOR THE INFO GARY.

CAT

[Huey]

I'm actually thinking of grabbing some land for sugar cane myself. What I wonder is what are the yearly costs for planting and fertilizer, and what dose it currently sell for per rai with each harvest? And how many harvests per year?

[Maizefarmer]

Huey

It would be close on impossible to give you a set of figures without some additional info to use as a starting point, but I'll share with you some of the factors you are going to have to take into consideration if you are going to cultivate cane and make a profit doing so:

1.how many rai you decide to cultivate (economies of scale)

2.how you plant the sets (i.e. pieces/segments of cane) – presume it will be manual labour, but how labourers will you employ and what row and set spacing will you use (which determines how much cane you will need to purchase per rai).

3.Fetilizer – type and quantity will be dependent on soil type/condition, your planting density and the hybrid you decide to plant.

4.how many harvests per year? - at max it will be 1 harvest per year, but more typically it will be one every 14 – 18 months, and what determines this are a variety of factors:

- the type of cane/hybrid of cane you decide to cultivate (which depends on where in Thailand you are)

- the soil conditions

- the time of year you decide to plant(some hybrids do fine without irrigation and they are speaking the slower growing varities, and some are very much dependent on irriation to realise a decent yield.)

5. Irrigation – energy costs for pumping can be high (electricy is cheaper than diesel)

Ignoring hybrid type, plant spacing, irrigation or no irrigation, time year planted etc etc …..... all the above considerations (but this is not to say you can ignore them when you come to deciding to cultivate cane – you can't and you had better not if you want to make a profit!!), the average yield of cane per rai in Thailand is around 9 - 10 metric ton per rai (which for what it worth, converts to around 1 ton of sugar).

Again, ignoring the above in detail, labour (planting & harvesting) accounts for around 42% – 54% of the total production cost per rai of cane cultivated – but there are extremes on each side which are determined by the amount of labour employed, the size of the farm and whether or not harvesting is mechanical or by hand.

Speaking for myself (and most of the cane I grow I grow for on-farm cattle feed primarily) I can tell you that in 2008 it cost me around Baht 4300 per rai to cultivate. This figure includes all inputs (e.g. labour, set stock, fertilizer, irrigation, fuel, land prep blah blah, blah blah.....). Off hand I don't recall what farmers were getting per rai when selling to the mills in 2008 but there are a few members on the forum who cultivated over 2008 and they will be in a position to share that info with you. What I can tell you is that 2008 was a bad year all round – for farmers in general, not just sugar farmers. Fuel price escalated fast & furiously, so did fertilizer and consequently it was a bad year all round for the ag industry, cost wise.

There is one more point to keep in mind about growing cane – and failure to factor for this (in so much as its possible), and to plan ahead with accuracy and certainty will ultimately determine whether or not you make a bit of money (let alone a decent profit), or loose the shirt off your back: is logistics (transport).

This one factor is the cane farmers annual/18 month nightmare. Harvesting cane and getting it to a mill can be like trying to get a taxi from the new airport minutes after a dozen flights have landed – supply versus demand.

There are only so many trucks avaliable in each area and the truck owners all want to be transporting for the biggest farms, and they all want to be in the front of the unloading que at the mill. While sitting around 6 – 8hrs is quite normal at some mills, its not unknown for trucks to have to sit around for 2 days waiting to get unloaded …... while your labourers are sitting around for 2 days doing nothing, or you get all your cane cut and then can't find a truck to transport for you at the cost that you budgeted for because everyone else is getting their cane cut at the same time and the truck owners know they can bargin hard.

Burning cane before transporting it means you can get as much as 25% more cane onto a truck – and thus reduce your transport costs to the mill. It also makes manual harvesting much quicker and easier – reducing labour costs on the field. The problem though is this: burn to get rid of all the organic trash, cut it and have it ready “to go”, and then not be able to find transport risks the loss of the crop as burnt cane can fast deterioate if not processed within a a couple days or so.

Transport/logistics of getting cane to the mill can quickly turn into a profit/loss factor for you if not planned for carefully.

Traditionaly cane farmers in Thailand breakdown their total cultivation costs down so that “cutting & transport” are treated as a single item on the balance sheet. Cutting cane (labour) and getting it to the mill (the transport part) will vary from around Baht 300 per ton to around Baht 500 per ton, with the transport bit, depending on the distance from the mill, been the majority of that cost.

Cane its self is not a very hard crop to cultivate – I hope these brief comments though, convey the importance of understanding all the points that have to be taken into consideration, and the careful planning and prep work that has to be undertaken, if it's to be profitable.

All the best