A Farming Myth …

[David48]

Some say that the way to make a Small fortune in Farming in Thailand is to start with a Large fortune …

That might be folklore, a Farming myth … or is there an element of truth in it?

We can discuss the various merits of Farming here.

• Is there money to be made out there?
  

• What are the benefits?
  

• What are the pitfalls of Farming in Thailand?
  

• Importantly, what are your personal experiences
  

At all times please, remember gentlemen, a civil tone goes a long way ...

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[David48]

I’ll kick it off with this …

On a positive note there are the health benefits of a small Farm holding.

The Farm style where you have some space around you, a large vege patch and maybe a pond for some fish and more then one fruit tree.

Surely the heath benefit of living on a ‘Hobby Farm’ outweighs any argument that is put that the ‘Farm’ is profitable.

Hopefully you are exercising more working the small Farm holding, eating your own produce … a general sense of well-being.

Maybe you think … Farm profit …

But you will live to a ripe old age to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Your story to tell …

[David48]

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Broadacre or intense Livestock Farming.

The opposite argument is when the same person sees the cheap Farmland and available labour and thinks that it is possible to make a ‘living’ off the land.

You have the fiscal capacity (enough money) and maybe an elementary Business Plan.

You might not know much about Farming but how hard can it be to turn a handsome profit here?

Your story to tell …

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[IsaanAussie]

Farming in Thailand is no different to anywhere else, it is a business like all other professions. Amateurs adopt casual elements that give them pleasure in the form of a hobby when and if it suits them.

There may be an element of romance to the observer but to those that are seriously involved it is largely hard work and callouses.

[Pond Life]

We are aiming at organic self sufficiency on 5 rai, we are getting close but it has taken a lot of investment to get there.

From what I've seen it is close to impossible to make a "financial" profit from a small scale farm.

Better to eat the profits.

[pigeonjake]

hi all,

i think there is profit to be made, but as others have said it does take hard work, we know its hard work,

but also you can look at it that this hard work is also keeping you healthy, can you put a price on that, your not just sitting there drinking chang,

self sufficiency.thats profit, your not going and buying veg and meat, and again its keeping you healthy,

so looking at it this way, having a farm will keep you healthy, yes might be hard work,

but i wouldnt change a thing,

jake

[RedBullHorn]

The only light work i know is when you are instructing or delegating work to farm hands... light, medium or hard work wouldn't be if one is not committed to it and we all seem to know this type of people around us.

I start my farm routine at 6:30 am stacking 35 sacks of pellet feed onto the E-tan for the morning round, in the eyes of my community, they "imagine" me hauling the feed sack on my shoulder one sack at the time, walk a distance to load onto the tractor...

Actual fact is i use a 200kg load trolley ...See ! Light work~

And then they "visualize" me shouldering the feed sacks to all 9 ponds and feeding the fishes, scooping the pellets out of the sack scoop by scoop. Wow ! dam_n hard work ! Imagine twice a day, morning and evening, totaling 70 sacks of feed, each weighing 20kg per sack ......

Actually the ATV is park at the farm, a trailer is then attach to the ATV and feed are pour out into the lined trailer... and scoop ? What scoop ? My catfishes are fed by the bucket load ...

7 and half buckets equal to a sack, 4 sacks per pond of 25'000 catfishes, that's 30 buckets...It took me longer to finish smoking a cigarette which i would have completed feeding 2 ponds .

See ! Light work~

If my 2 sty have pigs, usually a herd of 70... washing the pigs and cleaning each sty will only take less than 15 minutes. I don't use power washer but equipt myself with a couple of 2 hp pump, powerful enough to send their shits flying. Top up the feeder and i'm done.

Again, light work~

So what do i do with all this free time ? I pass it by doing "observation" work like monitoring water quality, checking health and growth of the catfishes, spotting environment transpassers, getting rid of frogs, snake and scaring off kingfisher, heron and egrets with ping-pong bomblets. If the pigs are in, observing their health, growth, alertness or administrating meds for the Mai Sabai... or breaking up fights and isolating the bullied victim...

I don't even trim the grasses any more, i get hired help. A team of 4 boys to do it regularly every 1and a half month for a contract fee of 1'500 Baht, if they start out at 8am, they will finish trimming my 11 rai ponds borders and slopes by noon. They have their own bush whackers and I just supply the fuel + 2T, they will split 300 each and save the rest for a drinking feast in the evening .... See ! Outsource~

I make profit every 75 days in dry season, 90 days monsoon season and 135 days during the cold season. When it comes to harvesting time, i found counting money is more tedious and extremely hard work...

dam_n wholesalers always pay me in 20s and 100s Baht bank notes (only about 20% are big notes).

Feel for me man! I'm counting them notes by-passing a million Baht !... #$%^&*x#%^~*

Now that's hard work...

Edited July 22, 2012 by RedBullHorn

[soidog2]

In my opinion, net profit is the percentage earned on your investment after deducting expenses.

Money in the bank brings pitiful but safe earnings.

The percentage we earn in crop farming beats banking anytime.

Off two hundred+ rai we net middle 6 figures almost every year, with obscene percentages.

We own all our cultivated land, occasionally growing additional crops as interest for money we lend.

The farming income is spent only on farming, as needed; therefore, the capital is growing every year.

Yes we do spend a portion of current year's profit in planting next year's crop, I do not see it as an expense but as compounded investment; it will bring next year's profit.

If I would have left the money used to acquire land in the bank, my net worth would be substantially lower.

Land bought carefully in prime areas, most doubled or tripled in value.

In conclusion, to be successful you need:

# 1, wife / family, 100% honest with interest in farming.

# 2, be humble, listen and learn from the accumulated experience around you, only than you will be able to understand and improve on it. You may look down at your average Thai farmer but they have eons of accumulated experience in this land.

# 3, you need available investment capital (and the b***s to do it) Forget about absenteeism.

Crop growing; it is definitely impossible to become self-sufficient (farang style) on less than a couple hundred rai. I do not have any experience in livestock; it may be possible to make it with much less land;

[jamescollister]

May as well throw my bit in, work is sometime I did for a living in another life. The only time I get my hands dirty is if I want the exercise IE loading rubber or fertilizer. Something I will set off on a bit of hobby farming, corn, cassava and lately the coconut planting. Work is strictly for the workers and they would do as little as possible given the chance. My job is to be watching and be seen watching, keeps the workers honest.

Profits are a big fat zero, no different than when I had a real job in the world. What comes in goes out, car payments, house improvements, weekends away, plus 2 kids and of course beer. With luck enough to take the wife and kids to OZ for Xmas.

The trees pay and we have a good life, I pads for the kids, nice clothes, good school. No real outside money now.

The rubber factory is a maybe big winner on the money scene, if I can get it running properly and the market settled, but that's a gamble at the moment, not a calculated risk.

All in all I sleep when I want, eat when hungry, drunk beer if I want and play with the kids, a 24/7 dad and I would not go back to my old life no matter how much they paid. Here life is for living, there life is work. Jim

[junglechef]

Not in it for profit but on our 5 rai (2 rai rice, 60 fruit trees, fish pond, 10 chicken for eggs, mushroom house, organic veggie plot) we enjoy our little project hobby. I like to eat healthy and it's nice to eat stuff we produce ourselves. One must remember what one could do w/the money if we did not, income from investing etc. and deduct the cost of the foodstuffs what we would have had to buy otherwise if we wanted to keep a tally, but we don't. We give a lot a way and the family visits when it's time to harvest, say 600 kg of longon fruit or rice crop, and we split the money. We also hire guys to trim the trees and other jobs we just don't feel like doing as well as a full time gardener who mainly does the yards and flowers but helps whenever needed. I won't even get into figuring the cost of the land and depreciating capital outlays if one is truly looking at it in business model terms but any money used for vacations, school or not related to the business is profit. We are always expanding, ducks next, to our little fantasy, which is obviously not self-suffiency but does follow the King's theory, as I don't want to kill animals or do a lot of things a "real" farmer does.

Edited July 22, 2012 by junglechef

[nev]

My better half is a farmer even though she is only 31 she has been farming since 19 when her farther died, she makes a very good living, used to have 700rai but now only farms 300 rai as her mum is getting older and needs looking after more, she has made big money and lost big money, she tells me there are not many very rich farmers, meaning having money in the bank, but credit is very easy to get due to the title deeds for her land holdings,

She does Cassava Sugar Cane & rice,after 2 year crop sugar cane then plants cassava, just sold the cassava and now rice is down, when that is harvested just in time for the sugar to be put down again.

She also works for the sugar cane factory, so gets the newest seeds and can get as much as 25,000baht a rai with the new seeds, at the factory they pay 950 baht a ton, and she has a contract to supply 3,000 tonne's now do the sums, she has a lot of out goings and has to keep her main 8 workers employed during the year, as it is very competitive and other farmers try to steal your workers, we find work around her home farm around 5 rai.

She has been told from the factory that sugar will be good for money this harvest so she regularly weeds and feeds her sugar for a bumper crop.

For a young lass she is a very hard working girl, who was thrown into farming at such a young age due to her dad's tragic death on the farm,i just support her help out as much as i can and feel very blessed to be with her.

Just my contribution to a very interesting topic. nev.

[slapout]

We have 2 nearly 30 rai, for the past 16 plus years. One third is in orchard, lamyai, mango, lemon. coconut, banana and what ever caught our fancy and to fill in from the lamyai and around a pond.The rest is planted to rice once a year, potato, and various other veggie twice a year. The sad part is its 150 clicks away from our principal home. This is due to getting a decent education for 2 daughter, Internal school and University. We nearing the end of the schooling requrement(1 more year) so the long range could change.

We were fortunate that the wife's parents and a sister/husband team were in good enough health to take care of this land along with their 10 rai until 3 out of the 4 fell ill and passed away about a year ago.The wife is not a farmer, although she like to be boss. When I first went into this venture, I propose a 3 crop/year system (they did 2 half way), drilled water wells, install irrigation systems to backup government water (not real reliable) P;anted the orchard as the major cash generatior, with the rest to feed family and sell excess at the local market.

Is it woth more today than the investment, yes, if I could/wanted to sell it. Has it been profitable, yes in that it required no additional cash input for the family in the vicinity of the farm . Would it support my family in the lifestyle they want, no, the daughters and wife consider every week a shopping week (sometimes 2 or 3 times) I really do not expect the daughters to send money home as they finish unvirsity and get into the labor pool (1 in US and the other Thailand???) and I am at the point/age that I consider hard manuel labor, having someone shove a large beer in front of me instead of a small one. Plus they do not go warm on me.I will depend on my retirement income and the farm income is a bonus/rathole, if I get there first.

[David48]

I'll be brief, because I don't wish to stop the flow of excellent stories be told here ...

Best line thus far has to go to slapout above with ...

The wife is not a farmer, although she like to be boss. ...

[gamini]

I have had three farms in Thailand. In 1980 we sold our lamyai for Bt17 a kilo. In 2005 we got Bt10 a kilo. However we grew all our fruit and vegitables and had a healthy lfe style. We never made money, .You need at leasy 200 rai to make a profit. And now you must pay Bt300 a day for help.

[Surin steve]

To make money out of farming you have to be one step ahead of the countryside farmers like the handful of clever Thais do when they go bonkers over pigs you need to be the man selling there pig feed and baby pigs when they flood the Market there and everyone gets into cattle you have to be the man selling the grass seed 3 or 4 years ago when everyone went potty over uka trees you had to be the man selling the saplings now it's all rubber trees same again the sapling sellers are cleaning up you just have to know when the time is right to invest in the latest Thai get rich quick idea

[JurgenG]

...

When it comes to harvesting time, i found counting money is more tedious and extremely hard work...

dam_n wholesalers always pay me in 20s and 100s Baht bank notes (only about 20% are big notes).

Feel for me man! I'm counting them notes by-passing a million Baht !... #$%^&*x#%^~*

Now that's hard work...

Problem solved

_

Edited July 23, 2012 by JurgenG

[IsaanAussie]

There are several topics around at the moment that are focusing attention more on ourselves than the details of farming itself. It is very informative to read the motivation and direction others have and are taking. Also the changes that are happening here in Thailand within the farming community. The common thread being the increasing difficulty is getting hired help. This is the limiting factor for me. For those that know me, money has never been a strong driver in my life, not that there ever has been much around, it is the challenge that motivates me. To me retirement happens when they put the lilly on your chest and close the box.

Self sufficiency is the objective but I believe it is something that will always be just out of reach. More importantly is to try to reduce external cost and in any farming enterprise that must surely come down to personal input. What form that input takes is the personal choice we all make.

[Gary A]

We are certainly not self sufficient but my wife grows enough rice for us and her family. We have eggs from the chickens and ducks. We have plenty of fish in the pond for us and her friends. We have a large surplus of fruit from probably more than fifty various fruit trees. She has pepper plants and the various cooking herbs growing in our 2.5 rai yard. I'm too soft hearted to kill the chickens or ducks so we buy chicken from Tesco or Makro.

Yes, there is a great satisfaction from growing a lot of our own food. Her mushroom growing attempt was a flop but she finds a LOT of wild mushrooms in her top secret places. And yes, there are plenty of coconuts and bananas.

[sezze]

Is farming profitable? Sure , even on small scale . But if you are thinking in western money , you certainly would need a very large amount of money to start and even more knowledge of what you are doing .

Is farming a good life , you bet it is . I do not know others peoples lives , but i am working in the western world in a chemical plant on full continues shift system . The money there is good , but it is very demanding on body and mind . Quite a bit different then farming . I do know which one i prefer .

Most farmers here are small scale busnisses thinking in western money from only a few rai . Now , think of it with a bit of reason . NO farmer in the world makes serious money out of this . It provides you food , a healthy lifecycle , and a bit of money . The more you scale it up , the bigger the potential profits but also the bigger the risks ( and losses ) when you do have a bad season .

Thailand is just like the rest of the world , also for farming . Small scale farmers are struggling , and always will be .

[RedBullHorn]

Well said sezze, my dad once ask me how much i made from catfish farming ? I said on average per annum...about 850'000 Baht. He begins to do a mental calculation on the different in exchange rate converting SGD to THB, That's not very much he said... Yes we all probably make more money in our blue or white collar professions back in our home countries, maybe double, triple or even more. What i like to think is that i'm making very good money in this country i now call home, living hood is much much affordable compare to Singapore standard. I can hit the million Baht mark anytime if i choose to integrate other farm live stocks or planting chillis or Thai egg plants Makua which i did in the past.

Live in Thailand, invest in Thailand then i will have to spend what i made in Thailand, the standard of living i have now with my annual income from farming is definitely the very very comfortable type compare to the average 300 Baht minimum income per day labourers or even the 500 Baht per day blue collars. I'm blesses and i truly have no complain.

In my village, farmers farm according to their living hood "needs", by that i refer to small scale, mostly because their children are all grown up and doesn't see the need to work so much or so hard anymore.

Then some farmers beside farming for their living hood "needs" also farm for their fantasy "wants" or dreams. Like poster Surin steve said about capitalization, i did that. They can fulfill their "needs" so now the want to reach their goal, their dream, they "want" 4WD tractors... They began co-ops, they expand their cash crop (sweet corn/maize) they all got their "wants" and continue to expand their crops to maintain their 4WD tractors and also to fulfill other targeted "wants" in life like the 50'' LED TV... for me i simply open a tractors spare parts shop to capitalize on the growing numbers of tractors... the shop is currently in its 3rd year and is making nett profit in the 6 figures annually.

Good season, bad season or suddenly the price spike for a superb season, add them and average them to an annum figure... in life we will not always get what we want, some time we made a lot and sometime we made lesser, it's just part and parcel... So keep smiling, keep the beers coming and the till ringing...

Edited July 24, 2012 by RedBullHorn

[Gary A]

I wish I could find the story about a Thai river fishermen but I can't find it. It was a long story but in a nutshell, a farang was giving advice to this guy about the merits of expanding his business. If the fisherman had a number of boats he could take it easy and only work when he wanted to. The story ended with the fisherman thinking how stupid the farang was because he already takes it easy and only works when he wants to. The moral of the story is that it's more important to be happy with your lot in life than to have a lot of money.

[David48]

Again, I'll be brief, but just wanting to say thank you to those who have contributed thus far for not only the engaging stories, but the manner we have conducted ourselves.

We all have different Farming objectives and I welcome all Farming reports here.

Maybe you know someone who hasn't posted yet ... encourage they to drop buy and tell their story.

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[Rsquared]

G'day Dave, I hope to present a similar, but not as much detail, as your prawn farming thread.....as time goes by.

We have 50 rai that has been used to grow pineapples for the last 5 years or so. We now plan to use 30 of those rai to plant palm oil trees.

We will receive our 600 young trees on Sunday (20 trees per rai), but unfortunately they are arriving earlier than we anticipated. We have yet to "thrash and burn" the remnants of the pineapple plants (we have our own tractor) before we are able to make it suitable for planting the new palm oil trees.

I hope to provide photos as we go along............but we are so busy at the moment as my wife is in the process of opening a new restaurant in the village on friday......it's just go go go!

BTW once we open the restaurant..........anyone who mentions TV and Rsquared will receive a free beer ( or more if I'm there).

Cheers.

[Gary A]

No one mentions pineapples. Some time back my wife was offered all the pineapple plants that she wanted if she would dig them up. The farmer decided to plow them under because he couldn't afford to harvest them if he waited until they were ready. My wife took none of them.

Another friend of hers has several rai of lumyai trees. If she hired pickers, the buyer would give her four baht per kilo. She told him it was better for her to let them rot. He needed them and later gave her 6 baht per kilo. She didn't quite break even. That was two years running that she lost money.

My wife was offered four baht per kilo for her mangoes. She allowed her family and neighbors to pick and take all they wanted. She has maybe twenty five producing somo trees. Somos are big fruits and most get stolen before they can be picked. She has never sold a single one. She also has a number of dragon fruit frames. Again she has never sold any of them but her family and friends keep them picked.

My wife is tighter than the bark on a tree but she has decided that most fruits are not worth picking if you want to sell them at a profit. The small Thai farmers are struggling and decent workers are hard to find. A farang friend of mine has basically adopted a young Lao guy to help him. He arranged for the guy to legally stay in Thailand and provides him with housing and a salary.

[Rsquared]

Pineapples are the main product grown in the area I live, and I must say they are some of the best tasting pineapples I have had the pleasure to try.

There is a large pineapple canning factory only 20km from our place.

But now a lot of farmers here are getting into Palm oil trees and are being very successful, hence the reason we are going down that path.

[jubby]

GaryA, we got 24 baht for our AA lamyai this year, and 15 baht for A. first time I can remember making anything. took us 2 weeks to pick the fruit using very elderly people who were very keen and a few people no one else will pay to work because of mental illness . I paid them quite well and they worked quite leisurely . for my part, I just drove the truck around 3pm to miss the queues. I'm glad its over but we made enough to cover all our expenses for about 6 weeks so It was a nice surprise. the elderly made enough to cover the mobile phone Bills of the youth they try to support and who are unable to farm due to having a masters degree in Mobile phone Sales and accessories.. like every post teen seems to have these days in Thailand.

The Mango I wouldn't sell for 4 baht so ate as much as I could. and gave the rest to the pigs.

maybe fruit prices will increase when everyone else turns to rubber or Palm OIl

These Elderly people do seem to be the last generation of farm workers in our village .

Edited July 29, 2012 by jubby

[Gary A]

That's a very good price for the lumyai. Maybe this is the year that my friend Porn would have made some money. She turned the several rai of trees over to her family to take care of. After last year she was fed up and wanted nothing to do with the trees. Bad luck ??

Her mother and father have a fairly large garden that she helps with and she sells the vegetables for them. They don't get rich but they do make a respectable living. Local people like their vegetables because they are organic. That said, they work very hard keeping bugs picked off and pulling weeds.

[Bluetongue]

GaryA, we got 24 baht for our AA lamyai this year, and 15 baht for A. first time I can remember making anything. took us 2 weeks to pick the fruit using very elderly people who were very keen and a few people no one else will pay to work because of mental illness . I paid them quite well and they worked quite leisurely . for my part, I just drove the truck around 3pm to miss the queues. I'm glad its over but we made enough to cover all our expenses for about 6 weeks so It was a nice surprise. the elderly made enough to cover the mobile phone Bills of the youth they try to support and who are unable to farm due to having a masters degree in Mobile phone Sales and accessories.. like every post teen seems to have these days in Thailand.

The Mango I wouldn't sell for 4 baht so ate as much as I could. and gave the rest to the pigs.

maybe fruit prices will increase when everyone else turns to rubber or Palm OIl

These Elderly people do seem to be the last generation of farm workers in our village .

That's a very good price for the lumyai. Maybe this is the year that my friend Porn would have made some money. She turned the several rai of trees over to her family to take care of. After last year she was fed up and wanted nothing to do with the trees. Bad luck ??

Her mother and father have a fairly large garden that she helps with and she sells the vegetables for them. They don't get rich but they do make a respectable living. Local people like their vegetables because they are organic. That said, they work very hard keeping bugs picked off and pulling weeds.

Me and the wife are supplementing my other resources until super kicks in and living quite well. Also supporting Peter Pan song khun. The farm is totally lamyai now after initially doing corn and cassava as well but in too small a scale. I have new trees coming on stream every year now for the next 3. We wouldn't be doing it so easily at 24 bht per kilo though. This year we contracted at 33 for grades 1-3. Harvest time is December and the buyer supplies the labour. I just sit under a tree and count the boxes to make sure our tallies equal. It's not a fortune and I see larger operators making much more than we do but I think I have got the economy of scale about right, many things we can do ourselves, I couldn't be bothered dealing with all the labour issues in particular plus other stresses for a larger operation but we are larger than most of the village who are farming their small plots and dont invest in irrigation or fertiliser for example. We grow a few veggies and there are chickens here but I killed a chook once back in Bris when I had them and I wouldn't do it again. The lifestyle is the main thing for me, being able to slow down to Thai time, sure work hard a bit but also "smell the metaphoric roses"

[Gary A]

We could see a big increase of tamarind (macam) soon. I don't know about all of Thailand but in this area most of the orchards have been taken out and replaced with sugar cane.

[jubby]

yes, if you can get the Lamyai to produce out of season your laughing all the way to the bank.

We bought land as many do just after our marriage and I was working permanently at the time in the UK. A family member said it was a good Idea to plant Lamyai and we let him get on with it. It was a bit of a dream of mine to eventually get out of the rat race and supplement an early retirement. and If I'm one thing its definately a dreamer

working in the financial sector mainly in IT, I never made or produced anything other than perhaps money for other people. As I say, just wanted to do a bit of farming and live the Good Life as many people do at some stage.

We have a lot of teak also so I don't doubt I will have something to supplement my income when I retire.

Wife was never into it though as I've said before, she'd spent 10 years in the UK as a Housewife and just wants to continue with this Housewife lifestyle.

I've tried quite a few animals also , free-range, the latest which I've had for a few years, a few sheep and Pigs as we have so much excess green stuff and waste . Our House plot was very infertile and used just for Corn before we bought it. The Shit from the Animals has certainly helped improve the Soil and that was the main reason for keeping the Animals.

I'm starting to get rid of the Animals now, I've got them out of my system. Chickens that Chase and Kill snakes, A Duck that try's to eat young Chicks . Its definately not kansas. The Pig is supposed to be a very intelligent Animal but we had a very fat Potbellied Sow who we weren't sure was pregnant and we made the mistake of not seperating the Boar. As soon as she gave birth he was in there , must have thought she was in season. He trampled the new born pigs into the mud. my mistake of course but Nature's pretty cruel.

I've got to try and Catch that Killer Duck today. would be useful if I had an air rifle but I guess I'll have to do it the thai way and bludgeon it to death if I get near it.

Starting to think that Rat race wasn't such a bad place after all