Making Money On A Small Scale....What Am I Missing

[Jotham79]

I’m trying to organize my plans for my retirement and it needs to be partially funded. I would like to share what I have so far and ask that you help me brainstorm. I realize that some of this is more appropriate for the small holding forum.

I have a couple of goals. The first is to become as self-sufficient as is reasonable possible and the other is to make enough to retire. I have some medical issues(a couple of herniated discs and some other problems) that prevent me from doing some of the work myself so that is a consideration. Another consideration is that I need to watch my cholesterol so I plan to raise some of my own food (rabbits and Muscovy ducks). I’ll start with my resources.

Basically these fall under 2 headings. The first is a 45 rai farm about 20km from my house. The other is the land and buildings at my house. First the farm:

It has no power other than a solar cell. If this changes then it would allow me several additional options. It is fenced with barbed wire and has several ponds. An irrigation ditch runs along one side of the property with water most of the year and it can feed 2 of the ponds. All ponds have good populations of clams, snails, and grass shrimp. Shells from the snails and clams will provide calcium for the chickens,quail, and ducks. I currently have around 800 teak about 12 years old, 150 manila tamarind, 200 jujubes, 50 mango trees (9 are bearing now and the rest are coming on line), 75 Maprang (still 2 years from fruiting), 250 guava, as well as a few coconut trees, bamboo, jack fruit, bananas, papayas, dragon fruit, pomellos, and other oddball trees and plants for subsistence. I also have about 15 rai of open land for crops that I will rotate with long eggplant, chillies, corn, garlic, and probably soy or mung beans. I’m going to add a few hundred papaya and more bananas. One of the ponds is ready to stock with male tilapia I have a couple of thousand in nets that are about 3-4 inches) and the other have fish, but need to be cleaned out to start over. One pond will hold a mixed bag and will be for general fishing. I also just put 900 baby frogs out there. My BIL lives out there and we have had no problems with theft (after I got rid of the first guy I had out there 10 years ago). I plan to fence one small pond and about ½ rai of land to raise ducks. I will also fence about 2 rai for free range chickens. On this patch I will have bamboo, bananas, custard apple, rose apples, jujubes, and manila tamarind. Most of these trees will have some bad fruit as feed to the chickens.

At my house I have about ¼ rai of custard apple and rose apple and a chicken house with a few Thai chickens and ducks. I also have a 1400 sq meter covered open air structure with concrete floor and low walls (previously a quail barn). I also have a small one room building for storage (and could put some mushrooms in there if needed. I will shortly add Shanghai and Betong chickens and more ducks and eventually maybe some pure breed layers. I will probably make a couple of concrete tanks to hold fish to sell live. I will also probably have a few pens for frogs. I also plan to add Jumbo Coturnix quail and rabbits for my own consumption, but hope a small market will develop. Around the house the wife already has much of her herbs and I plan to add raised beds for veggies that will be fertilized with rabbit manure and water from the fish and frog tanks. I will produce most of my own animal feeds (I need to buy a corn mill for 5,000 baht) and supplement with old veggies from the market and Gratim that is available. I will also run a small hatchery to supply my own needs and hope to develop a small side market. Lots of surplus is sold through a small store my SIL has next door.

I know absolutely nothing about raising worms, but I would consider that when everything else is up and running. I know nothing about pigs or hydroponics and don’t want anything that takes a large capital investment. I am at a few large projects and lots of small ones. I don’t want to have too much of a problem is one project takes a hit. I’m probably forgetting a few things but let’s see how it goes.

Thanks

[pigeonjake]

you should move this to farming for advice

[cooked]

Sounds like a recipe for having everything stolen, living 20 Km away from the farm. You have gone for good crops, labour intensive, so you will need to find trustworthy employees, not an easy task. And excuse me, if the land doesn't belong to you, you may be in for a surprise some time. You don't need to raise worms in my opinion.

[Jotham79]

My BIL lives on the farm with his girlfriend. I have had no trouble getting labor. No problems with theft so far and I have had the farm for 14 years. I have good neighbors and we look out for each other. I have a good feel for the problems, but am mainly looking for other opportunites.

[OOTAI]

Jotham79

Man you have it all happening. For someone who can't do too much physical work you haven't have made it hard for yourself unless you get good help.

hoefully your BIL will work out in that regard, not all Thais are lazy but they seem to have difficulty persisting at times.

One thing that I want to try in the future is growing "crickets" they don't take up much room and sounds like you have a good covered space to put them in.

[Khonwan]

Hi Jotham79

I hope you are not missing a government certificate registering the planting of your teak trees. Unless things have changed in recent years, you cannot cut your teak trees without this certificate and I don’t think you can (legally) acquire it after planting.

Best wishes in your new venture

Khonwan

[Jotham79]

The BIL has been there for 10 years and does well. It was a little slow at the start, but alot was just the learning curve. The teak have the government certs as we planted back when you got paid to plant them.

Crickets were big a few (maybe 10) years back and there are still alot of people with empty concrete rings. There is no where nearby to sell them and everyone around here that wants them catches their own. You just put a light at the top and a pan of water at the bottom. The crickets fly into the steel and slide down and are trapped in the water.

[ attachment=172281:cricket trap.JPG]

I would like to take a shot at planting a few rai of melons, but may have to try a small plot first.

[TwoDogz]

Excellent effort.

Hope you do well out of it all and you should certainly be able to live off of it well.

I have an issue personally with small farms and fruit trees, they take up so much space per tree and only fruit in most cases once a year.

Aim to make enough surplus to sell to pay for labour and some necessities that you cannot grow such as toothpaste and fuel etc.

[swissie]

45 Rai should be plenty to achieve "self-sufficiency". Quite a bit of land. Looks like you will need outside help. And not forget: Us farangs are not really made for doing hard labour at temperatures of 33 degrees and with humidity of 90 % !!

I did this for a while, but not anymore. Too much effort, not enough financial reward, If one thing can be said: Despite price increases, the food in Thailand, bought at the local market is still very very reasonably priced.

I wish I could grow a health insurance policy, airline tickets, building supplies, spare parts, promiscuos woman etc on my land directly without having to aquire all those things with the sale of agricultural products, if this were possible, I would take up farming again immediately.

Cheers.

[Bluetongue]

You have enough but you have to be able to sell it at a decent price to pay for your labour, self sufficency and barter is fine but you also need hard cash for many things we all need, energy, comms, fert, insurance, bla blah. Develop markets to sell all that guava and tamarind

[IsaanAussie]

This is anextremely interesting topic. Integrating many different things into one farming operation which tries to limit external expense and maximise returns. To me the most important thing to do everything at a scale that in fact yields a return. A few pieces of fruit or a few eggs isnt going to do more than feed yourself. But take it to the other extreme and one thing will dominate time and resources. I suppose you could plan to maximise efforts on different things seasonally.

For me balancing everything is something I am still trying to achieve. Too much to do on most days and usually playing catch up. Still, it is fun and a challenge.

Hope it works out for you J79