How Much Does A Thai Rice Farmer Receive Per Kg ? ?

[jaapfries]

In trying to understand the on-going debate about this controversial Rice-Paddy Scheme by the Government.

It appears to be very difficult to discover how much Thai farmers, in fact, receive for their rice, per Kg.

Any ideas out there ? ?

Appreciate your in-put.

Cheers,

JaapFries (as in Frysian)

[billd766]

The only person I know whose wife is a rice farmer got 12,000 baht per ton of rice up here in Khampaeng Phet province instead ot the "promised" 15,000 baht.

Not too bad in a way as it was "only" a 20% ripoff instead of the usual 30 or more %.

[ExpatOilWorker]

Good thing we had a recession in 2008, if not rice would have been selling at the same price as caviar: http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=rice&months=60

Farmers should get 15-20K/ton: http://www.economist.com/node/21558633

[RedBullHorn]

......and then get penalise for moisture level, hence some will get ฿12'000 + instead of the "promised" ฿15'000.

Edited October 15, 2012 by RedBullHorn

[OOTAI]

Last year the wife decided to sell some of her rice to get the governemnt price which I think was supposed to be 20B/kg. Anyway first she had to have her land papers as only people with proper chanote title could claim. So she loaded up the truck, about 3 tonne, and headed to the local major rice buyer, there are several but only one that buys for the goverment scheme. Gets there at about 8am takes a ticket and finally gets to be the second last load to be taken for the day at just before 4:30pm. They take a sample and tell her, "too much red rice, no good, can't buy" so she brings it home. Next day she heads off to the smaller buyer she normally goes to and he pays her 14.5B/kg.

So this year she actually went out and bought some certified seed to ensure she has the right stuff this time, we'll wait and see. I think she might have plans to have her gun in the truck next time just in case they F#*# her around again. Although she is Thai, after spending 10 years in Aussie running a business she gets really pissed off sometimes having to deal with her fellow countrymen.

[seedy]

At Walmart in Canada this summer, saw pallets of the following:

Thai Hom Mali Rice

Jasmine white scented rice

Rose Brand Thai Indochine

18-lb bag - $14.97 Canadian - converted - 8-kg - 468 Baht

Was some Vietnamese writing on the bag too, so not sure if this is a Thai grown product or not.

Edited October 15, 2012 by seedy

[Dancealot]

In phetchabun province we sell sticky rice(the most popular) no shell 450B 15kg. FYI

Nice to meet you Jaap, greetings from Karel.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Dancealot

[Pormax]

According to my wife who is a 'farmer' and has 40 Rai of rice land which she lets other members of the family work for a 50-50 split. if you have signed up to use the government scheme ( which as a post above states you must have a chenote/land papes to do) then you are given 20B a kilo. Problem is that when they come to assess what you have the rice is still full of water. Soon after you go to the bank and get the money. When you later get called to bring in the rice it has dried out so there is 10-15% less weight at the time and sometimes if the farmer has not kept some in reserve other than for the yearly family consumption plus so many kgs for re-seeding next year, they they have to go and buy more rice from other local farmers to take to the depot - the bank does not ask you for money back, they want the rice. Normally one has to pay about 15B per kilo. Those that have not signed up to the government scheme have to sell locally and depending on the quality of the rice will get between 10 to 15B a kilo.

Being here and seeing the amount of work that goes into rice farming plus the expenditure for preparing the land, buying rice food, then paying for the machine to cut the rice, I do wonder how these local villagers survive on the small amounts of rai that most of of them have.

[cooked]

My wife got ฿17.- /Kg last year. Outside the rice storage near us (Buriram) the figure 16.2 ฿ has been posted up since January. I have seen ฿16.0 in another province North of here. She says that nobody in the village has signed up for the rice scheme, but they like it as it tends to push prices up. There will be a smaller harvest this year so prices for good quality rice will tend to rise.

http://www.oryza.com/ gives information about rice prices, USD per US ton

[Pormax]

"There will be a smaller harvest this year so prices for good quality rice will tend to rise".

Yes 'Cooked' I tend to agree with you that it will be a poor harvest this year - not enough rain in the North East.

However not sure that this will push the prices up but lets hope so.

[swissie]

According to my wife who is a 'farmer' and has 40 Rai of rice land which she lets other members of the family work for a 50-50 split. if you have signed up to use the government scheme ( which as a post above states you must have a chenote/land papes to do) then you are given 20B a kilo. Problem is that when they come to assess what you have the rice is still full of water. Soon after you go to the bank and get the money. When you later get called to bring in the rice it has dried out so there is 10-15% less weight at the time and sometimes if the farmer has not kept some in reserve other than for the yearly family consumption plus so many kgs for re-seeding next year, they they have to go and buy more rice from other local farmers to take to the depot - the bank does not ask you for money back, they want the rice. Normally one has to pay about 15B per kilo. Those that have not signed up to the government scheme have to sell locally and depending on the quality of the rice will get between 10 to 15B a kilo.

Being here and seeing the amount of work that goes into rice farming plus the expenditure for preparing the land, buying rice food, then paying for the machine to cut the rice, I do wonder how these local villagers survive on the small amounts of rai that most of of them have.

Yes, for all the effort it takes to grow the rice, 20 Bht per Kilo seems to be a small reward. The more I understand, that at least 1 family-member has to supplement the family-income by seeking some sort of other income in BKK of as the case may be, in some tourist-spot. Probably more often than not, the decision of "hitting the big city" is not "I want to" but "I have to". Of course, once having lived and worked in those new surroundings, life in the village back home may not appeal to them much anymore.

If put in the same position, I myself would probably opt for "the big city", instead of the rice-patty.

Cheers.

[Michael Hare]

20 baht/kg is a good price. Very good indeed. That major problem is the low rice yield per rai. At 300-400 kg/rai rice farming is extremely marginal. Yields have to be increased through better management. This is very difficult on the poor soils in Isaan, the erratic rainfall in the first part of the wet season and the low yielding cultivars farmers use. Yields have to increase to at least 800-1000 kg/rai before farmers can start making good money.

[chantsurfer]

With reference to the above post, what would a typical modern irrigated rice farm in Australia or America produce per equivalent of a rai?

[OOTAI]

With reference to the above post, what would a typical modern irrigated rice farm in Australia or America produce per equivalent of a rai?

I found this statement, "Australian growers produce the highest yielding crops in the world, around 10 tonnes per hectare"

on this site http://www.rga.org.au/about-rice.aspx

There are 6.25 Rai in a hectare so this equates to 1600kg per Rai produced in Australia.

[onni4me]

Here many seem think rice as some set value produce. It has a lot of variation, the quality, moisture, type of rice etc. etc. all these affect the price.

Anyway, the whole scheme is a rip off. There might be someone benefiting from government spending (read:splashing money all around) but not The Farmer.

Here at the village level they offer about 12 B/kg. I am no expert but my Mother-In-Law is after worked on rice fields all her life. She generously paid 13B/kg to satisfy our needs of gorging on rice. So, it is common knowledge that the middleman rips off the farmers.

I once asked since everyone seemed to complain, why they not simply open a store to sell it directly themselves? It doesn't cost much to buy a cheap mill and the rest. The answer was that villagers don't trust eachother to that extent...so the scam will go on and on...

Now, I think more profitable and easy is to grow sugarcane. No much work, just plant it and later cut it down. And the factories pay per weight and don't much complain about the quality or whatever.

Edited October 21, 2012 by onni4me

[IsaanAussie]

20 baht/kg is a good price. Very good indeed. That major problem is the low rice yield per rai. At 300-400 kg/rai rice farming is extremely marginal. Yields have to be increased through better management. This is very difficult on the poor soils in Isaan, the erratic rainfall in the first part of the wet season and the low yielding cultivars farmers use. Yields have to increase to at least 800-1000 kg/rai before farmers can start making good money.

This is the hub of the issue, yield per rai. This year I have looked very closely at the fertilisers being used near me and tried to find the nutrient needs for local Hom Mali 105 rice. I ended up using some reference material for IRRI which lists NPK per hectare as 110,28, and 32 kgs. The best I have had in the past was 550 kgs per rai. Hopeful of seeing more this year, so far so good the rice is heading up nicely with strong green plants.

[Gary A]

Many guys give no thought of the difference between paddy rice and milled rice. A hundred kilos of paddy rice will yield maybe 65 kilos of milled rice.