Can Someone Explain The Thai Farmers Mindset

[JurgenG]

A bit more "big picture", from a reader of The Economist ( http://www.economist.com/node/18386051?story_id=18386051&CFID=159805008&CFTOKEN=55899523)

Farming and food

SIR – Regarding the future of food (Special report, February 26th), there are two additional factors to existing and new technology that will raise farm output significantly. Large tractors and combines have transformed agriculture in the developed world, enabling far more land to be cultivated and crops to be harvested at speed, which reduces the loss caused by weather. Sixty years ago my father needed six men to grow 100 acres (40 hectares) of crops. Today my son can farm 1,000 acres with one man.

Agriculture in the developing world could also be transformed by this existing technology, but there needs to be fewer and bigger farms to make use of large equipment and to raise the collateral to invest. That means far fewer rural workers, and controversial social consequences.

New technology, such as satellite mapping, will enable farmers to identify wide variations of soil quality across every field and to adjust their equipment to apply their seeds, fertilisers and chemicals precisely at varying rates, depending on the fertility across the field. This makes great economic and environmental sense.

Chris Haskins

House of Lords

London

[jamescollister]

I guess this is a regional thing, over the years most of the younger people left the area for work in the cities, Now that trend has turned and they are flooding back to work on their families rubber plantations. These people are used to having to work. no sleeping in a hammock all day in a factory in Bkk work or out. Whether ihe big city work ethic will stay with them or they slowly revert to the old ways, time will tell. My guess is that they will have brought the greed factor with them and the race for bigger, better will be on. Pity really as it was the simple way of things that made me want to live here in the first place.

Said to the wife many years ago that if a 7/11 comes to the area, it will be time to move to Lao. Last year a 7/11 opened in Buntharik, a mere 25 km away. Jim

[khaoboy]

I used to work on a sheep farm. That was the last time I heard so much bleating.

[slapout]

I used to work on a sheep farm. That was the last time I heard so much bleating.

I would reckon that the sheep found your attitude/behavior in about the same vain as your post came across.