Pigs 101 (A Start)

[IsaanAussie]

Just for the hell of it I charted the pigs33 Thai live prices for the last two years. Whilst the figures are not the most reliable the trends are close enough. Just have a look at the roller coaster!

Thai live prices 2yr 2013 feb.pdf

I hope that things settle at around 65 baht so the small in and out players stay out.

Edited February 9, 2013 by IsaanAussie

[NeverSure]

Please excuse this interruption. I don't know the Thai market or the conditions right now. But I did grow up on a large cattle ranch, and have some questions.

In my 60+ years, when meat is cheap and feed is high there is only one cause and it is not only temporary, but it rebounds into the other direction.

For example, for the past couple of years there has been a major drought in the mid west in the US, not unlike the dust bowl of the 1930's. This has caused feed crops to die in place or even not germinate seeds. This is corn and wheat and alfalfa and other feed crops. Add to that the clear fact that a bunch of corn grown in the US is made into fuel for cars - alcohol as in gasohol, and the cost of feed has soared.

NOW what happens is that farmers dump their cattle at auction because the price of feed is unmanageable. Their crops died and buying more is out of the question. So for the present, meat, especially pork and beef is really cheap.

BUT there is an end to it somewhere. Meat animals are being depleted in this sell-off making meat cheap, but when the panic selling is over, there will actually be a shortage of meat instead of the surplus we see.

If the farmers get rain this year feed will be really cheap because of plenty, and because there aren't very many animals left to feed, lowering the demand.

So, meat prices will go up rapidly, feed prices will go into the cellar, and there it will be until farmers and ranchers can build up their herds again. Then things will strike a balance again.

Is it possible that something happened to cause a feed shortage? I don't know. Floods? Drought?

I ask only because if feed costs are soaring while meat prices are falling, there must be a natural cause, followed by an imbalance in supply and demand, which is temporary and will correct. That cause is usually weather related.

Sorry if I missed the mark. It's just that I've seen the cycles, and wonder. I'm just asking.

Edited February 9, 2013 by NeverSure

[slapout]

Neversure; The US has a competive market for feed grains, fertilizer, etc. as well as the markets for livestock. The price set/advantage here in Thailand is close to what we would call a monoply, for selling product as well as buying essectionals to grow the product. There are few farmer member organizations here, other than what the big companies support/allow. Equipment import duties, equipment manufactored/priced here are in many cases one and the same group of investors/companies.

Then you top off any government price support is is most times via a middle man type operation and they do just about what they and their cartel feel like doing.

[IsaanAussie]

NS,

I think you have summed up a global cyclic pattern, Thailand fits the pattern like anywhere else. However there are some very basic evolutionary changes happening here that complicate the situation. 30 years ago over 70% of employment was is agriculture, now it is down to 40%. Less land is being cultivated and yields are low by comparison to neighbouring countries. Agricultural giants are firmly entrenched and building an export capable industry regionally to take advantage of the ASEAN economic community starting in 2015, and to offset the seasonality of prices. Further they are controlling the independant growers by entering contract growing agreements which yield a subsistance incometo the farmer but remove the cash flow issues.

The community and family based farming traditions are collapsing as the farming community declines, ages and is forced to mechanise. The small holding farms are finding it harder to earn a living as with labour in short supply the integration of crops and livestock is simply not possible. These farms are moving further into monocropping and complete dependance on chemical solutions and the Ag giants.

On the feed issue I have to disagree. I consider the prices here as a constant increase issue annually rather than a peak and trough market. At least at user level. The shocks are controlled by the feed companies, including the worlds largest, CPF a Thai multinational.

There are two markets emerging. Local village market for social and religious events and then the rest from supermarket to export. The best the farmer can hope for is a continued presence in the local small market.

[NeverSure]

OK, I get your point, and I'm sure you're right. But even a crooked cartel can't charge prices higher than farmers can pay unless they export to someone who can pay.

Look at the fiasco the Thai government caused with rice supports. They lost a bundle on it and are still sitting on warehouses full of rotting rice. While the government thought it could increase the price of rice by withholding, the price actually went down worldwide. I wonder what the true figure is that was lost.

I'll stand by one thought. The price will never be higher than the traffic can bear. Worldwide people have gone broke trying to corner the market on various things. Unlike gold and diamonds, feed is perishable and has to get out the door before it rots. If the feed sellers drive all of the hog growers out of business, then they either know of an export market or their product rots. When Thailand has tried to compete by exporting, it has lost. As someone said, the farming isn't mechanized and can't compete with that which is.

If the issue is that too many people are growing pigs and driving the price down, that should correct as some of them go broke.

[IsaanAussie]

Agree with all you have said.

I look at the impact of the pig farms we have made in terms of the local market around each of us. I studied my district and the numbers of farms and their stockholdings. The niche opportunity for me was the supply of piglets to people who grow them out. I used those figures to determine which areas I should pursue. I have no doubt that "we" have produced a glut in some areas and depressed prices.

The correction must come and will probably have the biggest impact on us. The small local farms will simply stop until things get better.

The rice scheme is as complex with much of that actually repaying favours owed by the government, possibly more than the interests of the farmers or dare I say than the loss due to wastage in the wrong storage. As an export commodity rice has become much less important to Thailand over the last ten years.

Those areas where mechanisation can be seen directly competing with manual labour, your point is already proven. Much cheaper to machine plant and harvest, much much cheaper.

[NeverSure]

Agree with all you have said.

I look at the impact of the pig farms we have made in terms of the local market around each of us. I studied my district and the numbers of farms and their stockholdings. The niche opportunity for me was the supply of piglets to people who grow them out. I used those figures to determine which areas I should pursue. I have no doubt that "we" have produced a glut in some areas and depressed prices.

The correction must come and will probably have the biggest impact on us. The small local farms will simply stop until things get better.

The rice scheme is as complex with much of that actually repaying favours owed by the government, possibly more than the interests of the farmers or dare I say than the loss due to wastage in the wrong storage. As an export commodity rice has become much less important to Thailand over the last ten years.

Those areas where mechanisation can be seen directly competing with manual labour, your point is already proven. Much cheaper to machine plant and harvest, much much cheaper.

I don't know the Thai market at all. I just don't think they've repealed the law of supply and demand, LOL. I believe that Thailand used to be, and recently, the world's #1 exporter of rice. The USA was #2 believe it or not.

Countries which have much bigger farms and ranches and groves and orchards can produce cheaper because it pays to own equipment. I used to plow and disc and plant 1,000 acres of wheat all by myself and I was only 14! I pulled equipment that was 40' wide with a Caterpillar crawler tractor. When your soil is good enough for farming, but the land is far from level as in much of the land W. of the Rockies, a Cat is just the ticket because it takes a lot to tip one over. The tracks don't wear much in farm soil as opposed to construction sites. Harvesting was all done with combines and dump trucks off-loading the combines on the go. The combine didn't even have to stop combining to auger its grain into a 25 yard dump. The combines are self-leveling to run side-hill.

Anyway, I hope everything gets back into balance for you guys. I have seen this constant, lifelong flux of supply and demand in either feed or animals, and if it's just business you can kind of guess it. But if it's weather you're caught by surprise as they have been for a couple of years in Midwest US with the drought. You spend years building a herd and then you don't have any feed. So you keep your prized breeding stock and start shipping animals to the auction where prices suck already. Then when the drought ends you have way too much feed due to lack of animals, but no one else wants to buy your feed that you couldn't get at any price a couple of years ago. Everyone cut herd sizes. And so it goes.

FWIW, that's why we had 2,000 acres in cattle, and 2,000 acres in wheat and alfalfa. Often when cattle prices were down, wheat prices were up and that's the case in the US right now. Cattle prices suck so bad due to that drought that you can buy top sirloin steak on sale, USDA choice, for $2.99 a pound. Today. T-bone is 3.99. Right now. But when the herds get sold off and the drought ends and ranchers are building herds, the price will double. Count on it.

[NeverSure]

BTW, we wouldn't have made money some years if it weren't for developing prize breeding stock to sell. When you have a prize bull that will throw calves that gain lots of weight on the minimum of feed, the price per pound for that bull isn't even considered. If it had been made into a steer, it might be worth $1 a pound on the hoof, or $1,500. But the bull might be worth ten times that much.

Has anyone considered trying to develop breeding stock by crossing the biggest, fastest growing sows with the same in boars?

[CHRISTIANa9]

I believe you need 4 plots of land of same size for free ranch as it requires 2 season of crops to take the nutrients out. That's the practice of some farms in down under.

[IsaanAussie]

http://www.thaiexportproduct.com/top10thaiexportproducts.php

Rice is number ten export for Thailand.

[IsaanAussie]

BTW, we wouldn't have made money some years if it weren't for developing prize breeding stock to sell. When you have a prize bull that will throw calves that gain lots of weight on the minimum of feed, the price per pound for that bull isn't even considered. If it had been made into a steer, it might be worth $1 a pound on the hoof, or $1,500. But the bull might be worth ten times that much.

Has anyone considered trying to develop breeding stock by crossing the biggest, fastest growing sows with the same in boars?

Yeap, sure have. But I settled for the meat quality as my driver

[NeverSure]

http://www.thaiexpor...ortproducts.php

Rice is number ten export for Thailand.

That's very interesting, and good for people who want to work in factories in a city. ??

According to this, India beat out Thailand last year as the world's #1 exporter of rice. It wasn't by much. I wonder if it had anything to do with warehouses full of rotting rice in Thailand, at absurd asking prices?

[NeverSure]

I believe you need 4 plots of land of same size for free ranch as it requires 2 season of crops to take the nutrients out. That's the practice of some farms in down under.

Are you talking about crop rotation and/or fallow land for soil health? If so, that's why we had wheat and alfalfa. Alfalfa is a legume with deep roots and it fixes nitrogen in soil. Someone said that there's a cousin crop grown in Thailand? Alfalfa is rich animal feed. It's expensive, top quality hay and great pasture.

Then when you plow alfalfa under and plant wheat which is a grass, it's good to go.

[NeverSure]

BTW, we wouldn't have made money some years if it weren't for developing prize breeding stock to sell. When you have a prize bull that will throw calves that gain lots of weight on the minimum of feed, the price per pound for that bull isn't even considered. If it had been made into a steer, it might be worth $1 a pound on the hoof, or $1,500. But the bull might be worth ten times that much.

Has anyone considered trying to develop breeding stock by crossing the biggest, fastest growing sows with the same in boars?

Yeap, sure have. But I settled for the meat quality as my driver

We had to have quality too but that was about breed and finish feeding. Hereford, Angus... Then try to find the ones that would grow the fastest and most on a normal amount of feed, and breed those. Keep those aside for breeding and keep developing the best. Even buy and sell to add to the gene pool and keep from inbreeding too much. There was a lot of trading, and a lot of people brought cows and dropped them off to get bred. There's money in that too.

I don't know LOS, so I'm just thinking out loud.

[IsaanAussie]

http://www.thaiexpor...ortproducts.php

Rice is number ten export for Thailand.

That's very interesting, and good for people who want to work in factories in a city. ??

According to this, India beat out Thailand last year as the world's #1 exporter of rice. It wasn't by much. I wonder if it had anything to do with warehouses full of rotting rice in Thailand, at absurd asking prices?

Absolutely. Industrialised Thailand (Toyota....) need workers, and that is where they went. India and Vietnam will both get well ahead as exporters of rice.

[IsaanAussie]

I believe you need 4 plots of land of same size for free ranch as it requires 2 season of crops to take the nutrients out. That's the practice of some farms in down under.

Are you talking about crop rotation and/or fallow land for soil health? If so, that's why we had wheat and alfalfa. Alfalfa is a legume with deep roots and it fixes nitrogen in soil. Someone said that there's a cousin crop grown in Thailand? Alfalfa is rich animal feed. It's expensive, top quality hay and great pasture.

Then when you plow alfalfa under and plant wheat which is a grass, it's good to go.

Sun Hemp is a major one used

[IsaanAussie]

BTW, we wouldn't have made money some years if it weren't for developing prize breeding stock to sell. When you have a prize bull that will throw calves that gain lots of weight on the minimum of feed, the price per pound for that bull isn't even considered. If it had been made into a steer, it might be worth $1 a pound on the hoof, or $1,500. But the bull might be worth ten times that much.

Has anyone considered trying to develop breeding stock by crossing the biggest, fastest growing sows with the same in boars?

Yeap, sure have. But I settled for the meat quality as my driver

We had to have quality too but that was about breed and finish feeding. Hereford, Angus... Then try to find the ones that would grow the fastest and most on a normal amount of feed, and breed those. Keep those aside for breeding and keep developing the best. Even buy and sell to add to the gene pool and keep from inbreeding too much. There was a lot of trading, and a lot of people brought cows and dropped them off to get bred. There's money in that too.

I don't know LOS, so I'm just thinking out loud.

Hold yar harses Cowboy! I have only been as this 5 years, slowly, slowly Trojan Horse. I have just got past the inbreeding bit. Got the basics in place and a way to go,if and when I start again.

[NeverSure]

BTW, we wouldn't have made money some years if it weren't for developing prize breeding stock to sell. When you have a prize bull that will throw calves that gain lots of weight on the minimum of feed, the price per pound for that bull isn't even considered. If it had been made into a steer, it might be worth $1 a pound on the hoof, or $1,500. But the bull might be worth ten times that much.

Has anyone considered trying to develop breeding stock by crossing the biggest, fastest growing sows with the same in boars?

Yeap, sure have. But I settled for the meat quality as my driver

We had to have quality too but that was about breed and finish feeding. Hereford, Angus... Then try to find the ones that would grow the fastest and most on a normal amount of feed, and breed those. Keep those aside for breeding and keep developing the best. Even buy and sell to add to the gene pool and keep from inbreeding too much. There was a lot of trading, and a lot of people brought cows and dropped them off to get bred. There's money in that too.

I don't know LOS, so I'm just thinking out loud.

Hold yar harses Cowboy! I have only been as this 5 years, slowly, slowly Trojan Horse. I have just got past the inbreeding bit. Got the basics in place and a way to go,if and when I start again.

OK. This is why small operations are so hard. If you had a big operation, each animal would get an electronic tag on its ear at birth. That would sort it from all the other animals. It's birth weight would be recorded, and then it would be weighed again regularly and recorded. When it was weaned, it would learn to approach the feed pen to eat. A computer would read the chip and decide if it was time for that particular animal to eat. If it was, it would dispense an exact amount of feed as it opened the gate to any one of the stalls that the animal had walked up to. The animal would know to eat that. The exact diet for each animal would then be controlled, and the animal would be weighed as it ate. The computer would record all of that.

If the animal gained weight really fast and economically on its feed, it would be held back for breeding. If not it would be prepared for market for meat.

After a few years, a really good pattern would develop of healthy, fast growing, readily bearing animals that would increase profits.

I "think" one could approach that idea without the computers and mechanization. Everyone can see the runt of the litter and the biggest healthiest ones. I'd probably still tag the ears and keep an eye on growth. If a farmer (rancher if it's cattle) didn't know better he might sell his prize animals for meat.

I know that there is a "Thai" way to everything and this might be a way to beat them. Try to buy their best of litter for regular prices and mix that into the herd and see what develops. ("Herd" of swine? Sure, I've heard of swine hahaha.) Is it called a herd?

One more time. Without developing prize breeding stock we wouldn't have made any money. I was told that all the time. There was as much profit in trading breeding stock and breeding cows for people at expensive prices due to the genes of the bull as there was in the beef. I don't mean as much gross income, but as much profit. When you can get someone to pay you just for semen, even if it's in your pen, and you still own the boar, It's like collecting interest. That boar should be worth a lot more than a market hog. A calf from a prize breeding cow is worth a lot of money the moment it hits the ground.

[IsaanAussie]

No computerised system. Got the ear tags but never needed to use them. But agreed again, your logic is sound.

The PRRS situation here is the reason the herds (yes herds in my book too!) are not mixed on my farm. As a farrow to finish operation it is simply not worth the risk. Bring in boars as replacements, one at an isolated time.

Small is better with pigs in my book. Way too much fun with individual pigs to have more than you can get to know. I used to use a spreadsheet that reminded me when sows had to be moved for farrowing, etc.. But as time went on, they would tell me. They would just go stand at the gate of the gestation pen and wait for me to open it. The farrowing pen door is opened, the sow door opened and she just walked down to the new individual mum's pen. Same with my boar, whistle him up and open his gate, he walks the aisle and stops at the gate of a pen with a ready to roll sow inside. All I have to do is open that gate. When finished he comes to the gate and lets me know its time for him to go home for a rest.

If it wasn't for the demon dollar, keeping pigs would be the ideal way to spend your days.

[IsaanAussie]

Time for a new sty story.

We are destocking and the pigs are moving out. Most to the funeral market so it is the biggest first. Over the last few months the customer has been bringing some really "smart" helpers to load these pigs. Most of the pen gates have been almost torn off their hinges by these idiots trying to use the gate as a lever to move the pigs through. I have had enough of that so I now ask them to wait while I put the pig in the box alone. Much less stressful for the pig.

Well sometimes the message doesnt sink in and the other day this moron comes down and decides to help,he leaves the outside gate ajar but not locked and as soon as he managed to spook the sow, she was through the gate into the outside world. Now my septic system on the sty works really well but the lids are only ply and it has always been a fear that one day... Yeap, it happened. After she was outside I managed to catch up and calm her down while the boys brought the box nearer. Took my eye off her for a moment and in she went, head first, all 206kg. Well I grabbed a back ankle and locked my legs against the side of the tank while I tried to enlist some support to get her out. Not much to grab on to and try to lift but we managed to get her out just before she drowned. The sow and I were lying on the ground patting and the lemons are trying to drag the box under and around her, hose trapped under the dragging box. I asked for the hose to be moved, it was, above the gate valve with half the plastic feed pipe, 4000 litres of water dampening things through a 2" pipe. So a "clearance sale" priced pig cost me new plumbing and a broken tank lid. Great day,highly profitable.

[NeverSure]

I know a lot of people who keep animals as a hobby, and it's one of the most expensive hobbies. The first that comes to mind are people who are into owning and riding horses. The more they get into it, like competing in some sport with them, the more expensive it is. I know a guy here who paid $US50,000 for a horse for his wife to ride on trails. It's a status symbol. I hate to say what a good roping horse is worth for rodeo work, or what it costs to keep it.

That's without mention things like the Kentucky Derby where the horses are worth millions.

Heck, my dogs and cat are expensive. Vet bills for vaccinations and minor ailments, food...

So it's either a hobby or a business. The girls always fell in love with a calf or a colt and used it for school for what's called 4H. THEN it was a pet and couldn't be sold. The things died of old age sucking up feed and vet bills. Now, the horses that were used to herd cattle and do roundups were worth their weight. They could do ten times what a hired hand could do but they were broken to rope and cut. They paid for themselves both in labor, and by reproducing themselves and their youngin's were a special breed worth money.

We always tried to talk the girls into picking a horse for barrel racing. Then they'd train it and compete for their ribbons, and afterwords we had a good cutting horse. The horse would earn it's keep for life cutting cattle out of a herd, and the girl could pet and ride it any time for life.

BTW, a horse or I suppose a buffalo, unlike a tractor, will reproduce themselves. This is a main way the Amish get rich. They have some of the finest draft horses to be found. They still plow with horses and go to town in a horse drawn cart. If you think about the economics, instead of buying a car which depreciates, needs maintenance, and must be scrapped, they use a horse for which they can grow the fuel, and it will reproduce itself several times over its lifetime. Those are special horses and they keep the offspring just long enough to break them to work, and then they are worth a small fortune. The difference in family economics is staggering. They don't have to borrow money for a new horse, either. I'd like to find a car or a tractor that would reproduce itself every year and burn fuel I grow in my pasture.

The Amish aren't addicted to commercial fertilizers or machinery or the cost of ownership. Most commercial farmers are up to their eyeballs in debt just for planting and fertilizing and for equipment, while the Amish are rolling in dough.

Still just thinking out loud...

Edited February 9, 2013 by NeverSure

[IsaanAussie]

Clip, clop, clip, clop, BANG! clip, clop, clip clop.......

Amish drive by murder

[loong]

Just an interested observer on this thread as I have no knowledge of pig keeping at all.

Re the price of pig feed being driven by supply and demand, that is normally the way things work in most of the world, but not here.

In Thailand, supply decreases, demand increases - raise the price

Supply decreases, demand decreases- raise the price

Supply increase, demand increases - raise the price

Supply increases, demand decreases - increase the price.

I also wonder if the companies that are running the big farms and contract farming also control the pig feed market?

[IsaanAussie]

Control it? Nar, they own it.......

[Khonwan]

The biggest feedstuff makers are also the biggest pig farmers. That is why the normal self-correcting system of supply & demand total fails here. I saw it (and was burnt by it) 6 years ago, which was one of two major reasons for me getting out of pig farming.

Rgds

Khonwan

[revar]

chinese newyear is upon us. lets see what the price from the sharks and local butchers does. Here it is still 60 thb/kg for pigs collected this week . industry buyer went down to 55.

Sent from my GT-S6102 using Thaivisa Connect App

[NeverSure]

The biggest feedstuff makers are also the biggest pig farmers. That is why the normal self-correcting system of supply & demand total fails here. I saw it (and was burnt by it) 6 years ago, which was one of two major reasons for me getting out of pig farming.

Rgds

Khonwan

This is probably true and would explain a lot. What it doesn't explain to me is why anyone would raise pigs if he couldn't raise his own feed. I can understand buying feed to finish animals in their last weeks before slaughter. That is a separate business for many. They buy animals at auction that are about 1 year old (cattle) and then feed them in feed lots for 2 or 3 months before butchering.

I thought people raised animals to use the feed they already had, and not the other way around. We had a ranch that would support about 500 head of cattle + raise about 1,000 acres of wheat or extra alfalfa for market. A lot of the land was good only for grazing. It was too steep and rocky to cultivate, but it was still grassy and the cattle could be put on it from Spring to late Fall. Then the hay that was grown on the good farmland was fed to them over the winter.

So the land that was good only for grazing was the reason to have cattle. The ability to raise feed for the winter was another reason because it didn't have to be bought, ever. Then surplus alfalfa hay and 1,000 acres of wheat went to market.

The only people I ever in my life knew who raised animals without having first the land to support them did it for a hobby. Some raised a beef for their own use and they had ideas about how they wanted it fed and handled, but it cost them dearly. Others had horses to ride and it cost them dearly. Others had animals for the kids' 4H and it cost them dearly. I don't know of a single animal (although I've seen many try and fail) that can be raised profitably while buying feed, except exotic dogs and cats. Rabbits, chickens, pigs, cattle... all losers unless the feed is owned or contracted in advance as "futures."

So I thought the land and its best use based on what it was drove the need for the animals. I mean economic need. Pasture (grazing) land or land that does best growing feed drives the need for the animals to get the highest and best use from the land.

If I had prime feed raising land, why would I raise feed and sell it to someone else? In business school there is a term called "value added." At each step value is added. Someone owns land with iron ore so he digs the ore and loads it onto a truck. That truck is loaded with new wealth. Then the truck takes it to someone with a smelter and it is turned into raw iron. Value Is Added and there is more wealth. Then someone refines it into a good type of steel and Value is Added and there is more new wealth. Then someone uses that to build a new car or refrigerator and Value is Added and there is more new wealth.

Animals are a type of manufacturing and value added process. A lot of new wealth is created. A new born animal is new wealth. Feed growing in the pasture is new wealth. The animal growing from eating the feed is Value Added. But if there is no control over the cost of feed, someone else might get all of the value and the New Wealth. So again, people either raise their own feed, or contract for it about a year in advance at a fixed price. That's a "futures contract."

Sorry I'm not proof reading my rants...

[IsaanAussie]

NS,

What you describe is the ideal situation but simply not practical at any sort of scale in pig farming here. Yes, locals feed rice bran and banana stems to 3 or 4 pigs, and yes they grow, eventually. But the meat quality is not good. The best I can achieve is to supplement the commercial feed rations.

[NeverSure]

What do you think is in that commercial feed, or can you tell?

My experience was that if we couldn't grow our own feed, and that if the land wasn't best suited for that in the first place, then we raised the animals only for eggs and meat for ourselves. We felt we could grow better quality than what we could buy or we wouldn't have bothered, and the cost was for groceries, not farming.

Other than finishing meat (grain feeding) for butchering, I've never seen a single case where it paid to buy feed and raise animals.

Now, I don't know LOS at all much less animal and feed prices, but please let me reiterate. We raised cattle only because that was all the land was good for, but it was very good for that. It was simply too hilly and with ravines and too rocky to cultivate. Money was made by letting cattle graze its grass.

On the portion (about 1/2) that was true farm land, crops were grown for winter hay and for market.

When we had to buy feed due to weather conditions we lost our butts. The new wealth had to grow out of the ground and be harvested by cattle and turned into beef. If we bought feed we were transferring our wealth to someone else instead of getting it from our own ground.

Only the new wealth that our own ground produced could be banked, with the exception of value added by breeding and making money from breeding stock.

I dunno. I don't know squat about LOS. I just know we would have lost our butts doing what you guys are doing. Our land forced us to grow cattle or the grass would have been wasted. The wealth was already there for the taking.

???

[IsaanAussie]

The missing factor is not the ability to grow the crops, corn and soy same as anywhere, it is the amount of land and availability of water. Most village farms are small, less than 2 hectares. There simply is no room.

To mix feed materials on farm (purchased grains etc..) is not cost effective enough.

Again, your logic is sound, just not applicable here.