Buying Rice For Profit?

[Andyfez]

Reading the topic 'Rice prices in Buriram' I wondered how reliable buying and selling rice can be?

Does anyone know where on the web I could get a historical record of rice buying prices month to month?

OK, right now the price is about 7 Baht a kilo.

In February perhaps 11 Baht a kilo.

And someone was saying it can go up to 14 Baht in April.

Obviously this must vary from year to year.

But it seems to me you could never lose if you have money to invest, and perhaps almost double your money?

I've never even considered doing this before, and have simply rented out our fields for the usual 30% payoff in rice.

But as long as you invest in building a nice cosy dry chang, what's to stop you?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Andy

Edited December 8, 2005 by Andyfez

[eddie11]

We are currently building a rice storage shed at the moment.

We buy the rice of our neighbours for 7 baht and hopefully sell on next year for a profit.

Does anyone know the cost of a rice thresher?

[RamdomChances]

Does anyone know the cost of a rice thresher?

Have a look at this site and drop them a line if you are interested in the price.

http://www.kpn.co.th/

RC

[Andyfez]

Good luck to you - but do have any figures as to what prices are likely to be if you sell in any given month?

Thresher?... does that improve the price when you sell it, or are you using it for other purposes?

Andy

[eddie11]

Good luck to you - but do have any figures as to what prices are likely to be if you sell in any given month?

Thresher?... does that improve the price when you sell it, or are you using it for other purposes?

Andy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A thresher takes the husk of the rice.

We buy untreated rice ( still with husk)for 7 Baht/ Kg

Treat rice (remove husk) sell for 14 Baht/Kg.

We got a local with a thresher but we gave him 48 kg and he gave us back 20kg

so we want to buy our own. His take seems too high .

[eddie11]

Good luck to you - but do have any figures as to what prices are likely to be if you sell in any given month?

Thresher?... does that improve the price when you sell it, or are you using it for other purposes?

Andy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A thresher takes the husk of the rice.

We buy untreated rice ( still with husk)for 7 Baht/ Kg

Treat rice (remove husk) sell for 14 Baht/Kg.

We got a local with a thresher but we gave him 48 kg and he gave us back 20kg

so we want to buy our own. His take seems too high .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I seem to have mixed up TRESHER with Rice MILL.

What I am looking for is a rice milling machine.

Sorry for any confusion

[chownah]

Threshing rice means removing the grain from the straw. Its done in the field.

Milling rice means taking the grain and removing the hull (also called the husk) and removing the outer coating of the grains of rice which is called polish (also called rice bran) after it is removed. Brown rice does not get polished.

The rice hulls are used in making industrial abrasives because they contain alot of silica. I use rice hulls for mulch in my garden. Rice hulls are also used as the fuel for firing low quality bricks.

Rice polish is high quality animal feed. Most of the protein (if not all of it) gets removed in the polish....that's right, the most nutritious part of the rice gets fed to animals!!! When my wife has our rice milled she can choose to either keep the polish or not. If she lets the miller keep the polish then she pays a lower price for the milling....don't know the prices though since she does this chore.

Edited December 9, 2005 by chownah

[RamdomChances]

Threshing rice means removing the grain from the straw.  Its done in the field.

Milling rice means taking the grain and removing the hull (also called the husk) and removing the outer coating of the grains of rice which is called polish (also called rice bran) after it is removed.  Brown rice does not get polished. 

The rice hulls are used in making industrial abrasives because they contain alot of silica.  I use rice hulls for mulch in my garden.  Rice hulls are also used as the fuel for firing low quality bricks.

Rice polish is high quality animal feed.  Most of the protein (if not all of it) gets removed in the polish....that's right, the most nutritious part of the rice gets fed to animals!!!  When my wife has our rice milled she can choose to either keep the polish or not.  If she lets the miller keep the polish then she pays a lower price for the milling....don't know the prices though since she does this chore.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just to add to that. The outer usually called "geap" although could be "greap" is used a lot in chicken farming as well, a bit like saw dust would be used back home, just to cover the floor. It's very cheap about 800 bhat a lorry load.

The polish (lamb in thai) is indeed good quality animal food, I think we used to buy it for around 5 bhat/kg, but is used in the making of most pelleted animal foods in Thailand.

RC

[suegha]

I never knew rice was so interesting. Could someone explain a bit more about the difference between brown and white rice. I thought they were different 'types' ie came from different plants. A poster above said something about brown not being polished?

Also what are the nutritional differences?

[Thaicoon]

Reading the topic 'Rice prices in Buriram' I wondered how reliable buying and selling rice can be?

Does anyone know where on the web I could get a historical record of rice buying prices month to month?

OK, right now the price is about 7 Baht a kilo.

In February perhaps 11 Baht a kilo.

And someone was saying it can go up to 14 Baht in April.

Obviously this must vary from year to year.

But it seems to me you could never lose if you have money to invest, and perhaps almost double your money?

I've never even considered doing this before, and have simply rented out our fields for the usual 30% payoff in rice.

But as long as you invest in building a nice cosy dry chang, what's to stop you?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Andy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Over the years my wife and I have purchased a lot of land, we have her family farming it at a percentage of 60-40, 60% to the family, most thais do 70-30 but we are pretty good to them and sometimes buy the fertalizers, they make a good living and we get a nice profit once a year, i bought all the land, but in the wifes name as everything in thailand is, this does not bother me as it will pass to my two daughters in the future also land is going up in value, if you have the land get your wifes family to farm it, you may be better off, i have also got a lot of building land, and am trying to think of what to grow on it in the meantime, give it a go, this year was a poor harvest on last.

[Thaicoon]

Guys another thing about Rice, i saw a tv Pro on this a few years ago the Chinese use it to make fireworks, they actually colour the rice and put it in balls inside the firework and that is what makes those shooting effects in the sky.

[~G~]

Rice stored for long will end up full of bugs - it needs to be treated to remove them.

[chownah]

Around here (northern Thailand) most people grow one crop of rice each year. In my neighborhood most people eat sticky rice so that's what they grow...and also steam rice can have problems sometimes. When you store sticky rice it slowly looses quality over time and when the new harvest comes in the sticy rice from last year looses its value because the new stuff is better...often the old stuff gets made into whiskey. On the other hand people here say that khou chow (for making khou soai (steamed rice)) gets better as you store it and generally people won't eat the new crop for at least two months after harves and it will be really good for even two or three years after harvest...at least that's what my wife says. Rice is stored here with the hulls still on...just like it comes from the field. Evidently when the hull is left on and the rice is kept dry the bugs don't really cause a problem although there are bugs present when you harvest it so I assume there are still some in the rice when you store it....according to my wife....who is Thai....but not infallable.

Edited December 10, 2005 by chownah

[ShingDam]

My opinion is that at first you have to know about the different sorts and the quality of the rice in which you speculate.

Second you need the equipment to store it, i guess the bugs wont be the problem, more the mouses, the rats, the birds maybe the chickens ... and you have to keep it dry. The bigger buissiness would be (for an expirienced eye) to buy the rice still on the field from people which run out of money (but this is risky).

I stay close to a big rice mill, which even sell its brand in germany and they make BIG money in this subject.

But i guess that if you really want to earn you need connections because this kind of poeple (rice mill) wont buy to market prices.

@eddi 20 kg out of 48 seemed a bit to less, but you have to think about the quality of your rice because the mill not only keeps the lamb the keep the broke rice as well and if the mill is technical to old it will produce o a lot of trash.

To everybody whom havent tons of rice , dont buy a mill !!! its a horrible machine, you need a small house to keep it in, you pollute your environment with tickling powder, you have to pay for people which work for you AND i guess you wont have to much customers, because they all have relatives with a rice mill.

It was a great government campaign about 7 years ago to give the farmers credit to have a mill and start a new big bussiness. Some still pay the depths.

Frank

[Andyfez]

Rice trade today

This link explains how Thailand rice dealers operate;

http://www.thairice.org/eng/aboutRice/rice_trade_2.htm

And answers some of the speculation raised so far.

and

http://www.thairicemill.com/index_en.php

But my original question of where I can get reliable annual mill buying prices still stands.

Thanks for all the replies.

Andy

Edited December 12, 2005 by Andyfez

[guyshown]

great info!

[lannarebirth]

I never knew rice was so interesting. Could someone explain a bit more about the difference between brown and white rice. I thought they were different 'types' ie came from different plants. A poster above said something about brown not being polished?

Also what are the nutritional differences?

Hi suegha,

What is in this link is my inderstnading of how Brown Rice is created:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=f...ce&dbid=128

macb, a poster here, grows it on his farm, and I've been trying to ask him what he's growing for several days, now on three different subforums, but I guess he has me on ignore, and no one else seems to want to answer either. I guess I'll research it myself.

Ken

[fxm88]

Be careful. During the few months I spent living out in the provinces I noticed that many people took pride in serving rice "from this year" (meaning the most recent harvest, I assume). So you could have some difficulty finding buyers for your "old" rice.

You may wish to research the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET). Or, if you are familiar with some farmers, you could see if they'll sell you some of next season's harvest for cash now -- if you can think of a way to guarantee the quality of what will get delivered to you.

[lannarebirth]

Be careful. During the few months I spent living out in the provinces I noticed that many people took pride in serving rice "from this year" (meaning the most recent harvest, I assume). So you could have some difficulty finding buyers for your "old" rice.

You may wish to research the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET). Or, if you are familiar with some farmers, you could see if they'll sell you some of next season's harvest for cash now -- if you can think of a way to guarantee the quality of what will get delivered to you.

Quite right. Hedging with Futures would have to be part of any successful grain storage enterprise. Otherwise it's just speculation.