Rubber Trees

[thaiguzzi]

Interesting post on TD in the rubber tree thread by our old Jim. I pray to the gods this will become true. Spoke to a Felang mate of mine in Bung Khan last night who has a lot of rubber and been doing it a long time, he said a similar thing, by the end of the rainy season, prices will be up and going up further.

[cobbler]

Hmm hope so.Guess this would prove it that darkling luk gov was definitely corrupt.Cozz go down soon as she goes in and then up when she gone out.scimming millions off the top of yang money.Of course u all knew that.

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[Mosha]

Well we've got BBC back at last. Jonathan (Richard) Head yesterday said something about the military want to help all farmers in Thailand. Stabalising prices was what was proposed.

[Mosha]

Gave up my day job in 2003, and yes, good luck to all of us.

2003 must have been a good year to stop the 9 to 5, or in my case 6 to 6.

[thaiguzzi]

In my case 7 till 9 on average, though sometimes could be 7-11, that's 16 hrs in the workshop. All good fun though, plus lack of sleep at weekends made for one burnt out bunny by 2003.

[scotbeve]

Thaiguzzi,

Did you work in this region or back at home? I'm still stuck with an upcoming uni tuition (and all the rest) - hence, another 200 (+) days to go before R day... Freelance, yes...plus a pretty good size teak plantation. Yes, been here a while. Once again, have your missus pray harder at the temple and spirit house!!! At least the ladies will be happier than us rubber investors....55555 lol

[thaiguzzi]

Had my own motorcycle engineering shop in the UK, 1988-2003. Owner/operator, hence ridiculous hours. Also lived the, how shall i put it, "outlaw motorcycle club lifestyle", which meant even more ridiculous hours. Sleep - that was for pussies.

[fezzy]

Plenty of time for sleep when we're dead.

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[Oziex1]

Hi oziex1

My recomendati8n to you is , DONT.Future of rubber is not looking good at all..Many countries who were not growing rubber before, are now growing millions of rai.They can have cheaper wages than Thailand.I wouldnt do it now, but Im here now so we keep going.Many ways to make money better than rubber.

The fqrmers who have nice houses.I can guarrantee you they diddnt buy them at 30 bart per kilo for kee yang and 60 bart a kilo for sheet.

Anybody wanting to sell there yang to you will be very happy to think somebody will buy it.

I wont even go into your other questions as I dont recomend doing it at all.

KEEP YOUR MONEY

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Thanks Cobbler

I did detect a feeling that the people selling were trying to unload the poorer performing chunks of land, nothing wrong with that. I guessed that the good times may have passed. I'll look for something else to do.

I had an interesting pm some one wishing to sell me 100 rai of trees, after I stated I know little about the business!

[cobbler]

Hi oziex1

My recomendati8n to you is , DONT.Future of rubber is not looking good at all..Many countries who were not growing rubber before, are now growing millions of rai.They can have cheaper wages than Thailand.I wouldnt do it now, but Im here now so we keep going.Many ways to make money better than rubber.

The fqrmers who have nice houses.I can guarrantee you they diddnt buy them at 30 bart per kilo for kee yang and 60 bart a kilo for sheet.

Anybody wanting to sell there yang to you will be very happy to think somebody will buy it.

I wont even go into your other questions as I dont recomend doing it at all.

KEEP YOUR MONEY

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Thanks Cobbler

I did detect a feeling that the people selling were trying to unload the poorer performing chunks of land, nothing wrong with that. I guessed that the good times may have passed. I'll look for something else to do.

I had an interesting pm some one wishing to sell me 100 rai of trees, after I stated I know little about the business!

Good idea.Many ways to make money in thai if u have the right conections, idea or wife with the knowledge.Farming is a hard life its fun but difficult,. An aunty of my wife who has more than a thousand rai of yang said to us"expect about 1 decent year in 3 as far as pricing goes.So if this year goes up a bit, that will be the 1 in 3.Last good year was 3 years ago.The rest of the time its the government making the money acting as middle man, setting the prices".

Cheers and best of luck to u, icant help but feel relieved to hear your decission.

Cheers Cobbler

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[fezzy]

I had an interesting pm some one wishing to sell me 100 rai of trees, after I stated I know little about the business!

I would be interested in knowing what sort of price they were trying to get for 100 rai and location and age of trees . It's been a tough few years and the locals are having to sell small parcels of their rubber plantations to get the banks of their backs. We picked up 10 rai with 10 yr old good producing trees for 900000 Bt earlier this year. Even if prices are currently down for production of rubber. I will still be miles ahead with just the predicted land prices in the years to come .

Dont put all your eggsin one basket , keep most of your investment choices in your home country and just like gambling. Be prepared to lose everything if sh#@ goes pear shaped.

Just my 2 cents .

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[utr]

my five cents worth on rubbers future is that as with any industry, there are boom

and bust cycles. nobody knows exactly when these will occur but they will.

the downside of the cycle, as we are currently experiencing, usually brings about

consolidation and contraction where non-profitable situations close or are at

least minimized. see reports of Malaysia labor costs making their small rubber

holdings unprofitable, Vietnam reducing their rubber acreage and in general further

future investments suspended/cancelled.

these cycles often run over about 7 years. after that occurs supply/demand is

usually re-balanced somewhat. often the harder [price-wise] the decline the sooner

balance between supply and demand is restored.

with the increasing world population demand will probably again in future get

ahead of supply in which case we may have those peak prices come back.

but those higher prices would only last for a short time until another world/market crisis turns everything upside down or we get too much investment resulting in an over-supply again. and the cycle would start again.

i'm sure you'll agree that whether to invest in rubber or not is not just simply looking at where we are now. most investments, rubber included, should be looked at on a longer term basis. i personally still see a future in rubber, but it doesn't look too wonderful over the next year or two.

as an aside our family has no intention of selling any of our rubber plantations [be a bit like selling one of the family really] and we'll be staying in rubber and in due course we'll pass that on to our daughter too.

[utr]

i put in paragraphs but when posted they disappeared. must be a trick to it?

[thaiguzzi]

Got 28 of my 64 rai reluctantly for sale. Needs must, we are skint. This land has the best/oldest trees on it, but is 1.1 km away from the house. The other 36 are two plots attached around the house, which we don't really want to sell, 10 rai tapped for 3 seasons, the other 26 ready post rainy season.

[utr]

People near us were in a similar position and they split their land into parcels, each of about 10 rai. It ended up being easier for them to sell a smaller piece of land as more locals could afford the smaller farm than one large farm.

they also ended up only selling some of their land rather than all of it.

[Oziex1]

I had an interesting pm some one wishing to sell me 100 rai of trees, after I stated I know little about the business!

I would be interested in knowing what sort of price they were trying to get for 100 rai and location and age of trees . It's been a tough few years and the locals are having to sell small parcels of their rubber plantations to get the banks of their backs. We picked up 10 rai with 10 yr old good producing trees for 900000 Bt earlier this year. Even if prices are currently down for production of rubber. I will still be miles ahead with just the predicted land prices in the years to come .

Dont put all your eggsin one basket , keep most of your investment choices in your home country and just like gambling. Be prepared to lose everything if sh#@ goes pear shaped.

Just my 2 cents .

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Didn't get any details as I had a change of mind, just a fleeting thought of riches from rubber just like when I thought of having a bar in Phuket, thankfully I wake from these dreams quickly. As I have no farming back ground best look for something else, as for a drinking in bar background thats another story.

Some properties I looked at: 60 rai for BT4 mil 4000, 4yo trees. many smaller trees bending over and supported by bamboo props, not sure what that means. Sorry a bit vague on the area, near my gf's home in the Chaiyaphum district in some hill country near the Chulabhorn dam.

25 rai 800 mature producing trees first price mentioned by the guide? 1.2 mil, price from owner 1.3, price from owner the next day on phone 1.5 ?

As you rightly point out there may be value in land price in the future.

[cobbler]

My wife just read a report saying that some ysng farmers in issan area r cutting trees down to sell the wood . Down sowth not cut down because what else are you going to grow on the side of a mountain besides palm oil

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[thaiguzzi]

Congrats to this thread. 100 pages.

[thaiguzzi]

32.50 baht per kg, kee yang @ auction, Udon province, yesterday.

[cobbler]

War coming again in Iraq = oil goes up = yang goes up o goody cheers cobbler

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[Hunter s somtam]

Hi uncle Mike

Took your advice and got the grass cutter ,got it from kubota and the cost is 28 k now ,will attach a photo .im out of the country at the moment and back in a few weeks ,but the wife's cuz is driving it in the photo and she says he was driving up the long runs as the photo shows but then drove it across between the trees ,and I remember you saying not to do that and cut in between by hand .

I will do this my self when I get back if it hasn't rained to much and won't bog the tractor.

Hope your all getting some rain and making some money. :-)

[thaiguzzi]

They do a good job don't they. If it's a little 36-38 hp Kubota i would'nt worry too much. The bigger 45 hp and up Kubotas are far heavier. It's root damage and compression of the roots/soil that is the problem of anything heavy and mechanical going into a plantation. That's why my latest tractor is one of those KRT Kubota single cylinder tractors. Only 14hp, looks like a toy, but cuts grass as well as my old 50 hp Ford (albeit not as wide per cut or as quick), and uses 150 baht per day in diesel instead of 600. Beauty of the thing is it weighs only 600 kgs instead of 3 tons !

[thaiguzzi]

War coming again in Iraq = oil goes up = yang goes up o goody cheers cobbler

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I can handle 40 baht per liter diesel and 50 baht per liter petrol if rubber is 45-50 baht per kg for kee yang.

[thaiguzzi]

Hi uncle Mike

Took your advice and got the grass cutter ,got it from kubota and the cost is 28 k now ,will attach a photo .im out of the country at the moment and back in a few weeks ,but the wife's cuz is driving it in the photo and she says he was driving up the long runs as the photo shows but then drove it across between the trees ,and I remember you saying not to do that and cut in between by hand .

I will do this my self when I get back if it hasn't rained to much and won't bog the tractor.

Hope your all getting some rain and making some money. :-)

We're getting too much rain and not enough money.

[imokg2g]

As noted by cobbler;

The price of Brent crude spiked on Friday over concerns about the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.

Oil prices settled down, but at $4 per barrel higher than at the beginning of the week.

Reassurances about the flow of oil supplies went some way to calming market jitters.

Brent crude futures stabilised at $112.32 per barrel, while US crude levelled to $106.55, after the highest reading for both since September.

14 June 2014 1:44 AM>

Fingers crossed the price of yang follows suit.

[imokg2g]

As noted by cobbler;

The price of Brent crude spiked on Friday over concerns about the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.

Oil prices settled down, but at $4 per barrel higher than at the beginning of the week.

Reassurances about the flow of oil supplies went some way to calming market jitters.

Brent crude futures stabilised at $112.32 per barrel, while US crude levelled to $106.55, after the highest reading for both since September.

14 June 2014 1:44 AM>

Fingers crossed the price of yang follows suit.

Source: BBC article, 'Oil markets spike on Iraq concerns', published

14 June 2014 1:44 AM

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[cobbler]

Not trying to get everybodies hopes up BUT .My wife read a report today about the price of yang saying that due to the war possibilities in Iraq and the fact that the military will fix the prices for farming goods , yang could definitely see 100 per kilo for sheet.

Maybe a bit from the war and a bit from daklingluk gov being gone and not scimming off the top now. See wat happens

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[thaiguzzi]

Unless oil really spikes, i doubt we'll see those prices this year. Maybe 40/80 cup/sheet. Which is still better than now. Govt will not help prices, it's unsustainable and has to be set by market forces. The fertilizer subsidy last year was a good idea from the previous Yinglak govt which did help rubber farmers. The only people who did'nt like it, were the deep south farmers, who were told not to like it by their local mp's, sorry, landowners, the Dems.

[Mosha]

We didn't get a cetang out of that subsidy. Due to the local admin losing every ones papers. These were handed in 5 years ago, when the land was being assessed. So that may be why some of the southerners didn't like it. My wife's land was Tor Bor 5.

Now as we know some of the new competition is coming from W. Africa, as they switch out of Cocoa. There was something in BBC the other day, missed most of it due to weather and power cuts. However, it seems there is an initiative to try to give the farmers a bigger share of the profits. The target of the complaints are the chocolate manufacturers. I hope that works and eases the pressure on us.

[thaiguzzi]

Sold yesterday at auction, Udon province, cup rubber @ 33.88 baht per kg.