How Big , Much To Invest To Get A Return Of 1,5 Thb

[THAIPHUKET]

Hypothetical question=

you want to buy a farm, rice or something else yielding 1.5 MM b /year . Assume farm is managed ok by local standards.

How many rai , how much money is necessary to buy a working farm? Rough idea?

What type of farm has a higher certainty of stable returns?

[pnustedt]

300 rai rice land at Bt40K/rai = Bt12mill

[ozzydom]

300 rai rice land at Bt40K/rai = Bt12mill

With possible water access 300 rai @ bt 100k/rai around here = 30 mill = 5% return on investment,(thats why we grow fish )

[somo]

250 RAI of cassava should do it.

Depends on the cost of land in your area but about 20k/rai for me = 5m Baht.

Plus you need to invest about 6k Baht/rai (planting, weed killing, fertilizer etc) and wait 18-20 months for the first harvest so that would be another 1.2 million.

Investing in a couple of Tuk Tuks for 100k each would be a good idea and a tractor for say 1m would bring the total needed to about 7.5m Baht

Still about 20% return on capital and as long as the land can be resold that would be a good investment in itself.

It may be a problem getting decent reliable workers to tend the crops as a farm that size would require employing gangs of them for short periods.

All a bit hypothetical as the price of land is a big variable. The price of cassava is strong at the moment and forecast to stay that way for a while.

[soidog2]

250 RAI of cassava should do it.

Depends on the cost of land in your area but about 20k/rai for me = 5m Baht.

Plus you need to invest about 6k Baht/rai (planting, weed killing, fertilizer etc) and wait 18-20 months for the first harvest so that would be another 1.2 million.

Investing in a couple of Tuk Tuks for 100k each would be a good idea and a tractor for say 1m would bring the total needed to about 7.5m Baht

Still about 20% return on capital and as long as the land can be resold that would be a good investment in itself.

It may be a problem getting decent reliable workers to tend the crops as a farm that size would require employing gangs of them for short periods.

All a bit hypothetical as the price of land is a big variable. The price of cassava is strong at the moment and forecast to stay that way for a while.

Just for information purposes, Today I tried to buy 12 rais of very nice rice paddies.

I was prepared to pay up to 50.000 per, the owners wife, in a very unpleasant way, raised the price to 58.000. I let it go.

regards

[IsaanAussie]

Gentlemen,

I have to agree that all the advice you have offered is sound. But the bottom line here is the income requirement.

For me, I only have eight years in the rice growing area here, so I stand to be corrected. Rice is a staple diet here for thai people not for me. When a Thai has rice to eat, the rest doesnt matter. Last year I netted about 4,500 baht per rai profit from rice. So if the OP needs 1.5 M THB per annum, then do the maths from there. It isnt going to work. Why are there so many peasant farmers in Isaan?

With fuel prices through the roof, cassava the primary source of ethanol here was attractive for a short time. Then 25 satang was the going rate, no profit in that on a consistent basis.

Ozzy, your fish is a good example. Yes the farm gate price varies but not as much. The issue I have there is the feed costs. I would question the viability of fish farming as a stand alone enterprise? I have no experience in aquaculture.

I posted on the forum somewhere recently that any rural enterprise here must be multifaceted. Single source incomes are difficult unless you get into a low cost startup like member Monkeypants has achieved. I believe him to be one of the exceptions that proves the rule.

Isaanaussie

[ozzydom]

Gentlemen,

I have to agree that all the advice you have offered is sound. But the bottom line here is the income requirement.

For me, I only have eight years in the rice growing area here, so I stand to be corrected. Rice is a staple diet here for thai people not for me. When a Thai has rice to eat, the rest doesnt matter. Last year I netted about 4,500 baht per rai profit from rice. So if the OP needs 1.5 M THB per annum, then do the maths from there. It isnt going to work. Why are there so many peasant farmers in Isaan?

With fuel prices through the roof, cassava the primary source of ethanol here was attractive for a short time. Then 25 satang was the going rate, no profit in that on a consistent basis.

Ozzy, your fish is a good example. Yes the farm gate price varies but not as much. The issue I have there is the feed costs. I would question the viability of fish farming as a stand alone enterprise? I have no experience in aquaculture.

I posted on the forum somewhere recently that any rural enterprise here must be multifaceted. Single source incomes are difficult unless you get into a low cost startup like member Monkeypants has achieved. I believe him to be one of the exceptions that proves the rule.

Isaanaussie

RBH appears to have a profitable fish operation ,but his food bill would give me nightmares,however shear weight of numbers and good management seems to get him through.

Our operation is totally different to RBH,s catfish operation, we raise Tilapia, which takes us 7-8 months to do a rotation of about 2000 fish per rai of pond (RBH probably does a rotation of 40,000 cats in half that time).

Because we provide an environment which provides the fish with their natural food our feed costs are fairly minimal (FCR 1:1)so margins are pretty good.

[IsaanAussie]

Gentlemen,

I have to agree that all the advice you have offered is sound. But the bottom line here is the income requirement.

For me, I only have eight years in the rice growing area here, so I stand to be corrected. Rice is a staple diet here for thai people not for me. When a Thai has rice to eat, the rest doesnt matter. Last year I netted about 4,500 baht per rai profit from rice. So if the OP needs 1.5 M THB per annum, then do the maths from there. It isnt going to work. Why are there so many peasant farmers in Isaan?

With fuel prices through the roof, cassava the primary source of ethanol here was attractive for a short time. Then 25 satang was the going rate, no profit in that on a consistent basis.

Ozzy, your fish is a good example. Yes the farm gate price varies but not as much. The issue I have there is the feed costs. I would question the viability of fish farming as a stand alone enterprise? I have no experience in aquaculture.

I posted on the forum somewhere recently that any rural enterprise here must be multifaceted. Single source incomes are difficult unless you get into a low cost startup like member Monkeypants has achieved. I believe him to be one of the exceptions that proves the rule.

Isaanaussie

RBH appears to have a profitable fish operation ,but his food bill would give me nightmares,however shear weight of numbers and good management seems to get him through.

Our operation is totally different to RBH,s catfish operation, we raise Tilapia, which takes us 7-8 months to do a rotation of about 2000 fish per rai of pond (RBH probably does a rotation of 40,000 cats in half that time).

Because we provide an environment which provides the fish with their natural food our feed costs are fairly minimal (FCR 1:1)so margins are pretty good.

Let me jump in first, a dangerous place to be in the predatory fish business. RBH also has pigs and their excrement (from the photos supplied erlier,)

grows food for the fish, more integrated. If you are getting FCR of 1 then the rest doesnt matter, well done Ozzy. For me, my pigs average an FCR of between 2.4 and 2.6 to 100 Kg. The FCR may be <deleted> in comparison, the that same substance is hopefully the start of the balance.

Each to his own I suppose, I have just purchased some locally grown greenery grown on my compost. Samples were free, product was purchased. There is a God after all and we Farangs might just have a place here.

Isaanaussie

[somo]

The key points here are the price of land and the price of whatever is grown. Land prices seem to vary enormously in different areas but at the moment anything over 30k Baht/rai is probably not worth considering unless you feel the land itself will appreciate considerably over the forseable future but that is a different business.

The price of foodstuffs are on the rise. The price of cassava has doubled over the past year and although I don't follow it I think rice has also got more expensive.

As someone said on another thread it is a bit like investing in the stock market. You invest your money and hope that a year or so later you can sell the stock for more than you put in. In that year so many things can happen that are outside your control so luck and judgement can play equal roles. As they say in all the warnings the price of stocks (read rice/cassava) can go down as well as up.

Having said that agriculture is now being highlighted by many investment analysts as a good area to invest in.

I have only looked at cassava but Thailand supplies 60-70% of worldwide exports although they are not the largest grower and demand is expected to double over the next 5 years especially from China. This demand is nothing to do with producing ethanol for fuel which has been a big red herring

All in all I think it is a good time to get involved. I wish I had more time to devote to it but at the moment am happy to have it as a secondary source of income.

[JurgenG]

In some area around Khao Yai, 10 years ago you could buy 1 rai for 30,000 bahts, now it goes on average for 500,000.

To earn around 1.5 M / year for the past 10 years, to buy 32 rais would have been enough.

And you could even have made a few extra bucks by renting your land.

Is it more risky than growing rice or raising chicken ? I don't think so