"Remote" farming

[kuma]

Anyone out there had / have experience with ownership of land that they visit only occasionally but have crops of some sort growing?

Does it work? Can you have the land tended or do you just end up with dead crops or just taken once ripe/ready?

Currently still live and work in bkk but pondering a future further out and would like some land to do a little hobby farming later, and wonder if this is an option to do in the meantime.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Jotham79]

This really depends on your particular situation and how reliable your help is. I would say you would more likely be successful with cassava, rubber, or sugar, but the only sure way to make a profit is to lease the land out. Many Thais work really hard, but I have not had good experience getting workers to work as hard for me as they do on their own land. In the beginning I had very bad experiences with just about every fruit and crop you can grow around my area and the closer I am to the farm, the better it does. It makes a little money, but for it to reach it's potential, I will have to live there. (I only live 20 km away) Buy the land now if you want, but wait til you can live there to farm it yourself.

[kuma]

This really depends on your particular situation and how reliable your help is. I would say you would more likely be successful with cassava, rubber, or sugar, but the only sure way to make a profit is to lease the land out. Many Thais work really hard, but I have not had good experience getting workers to work as hard for me as they do on their own land. In the beginning I had very bad experiences with just about every fruit and crop you can grow around my area and the closer I am to the farm, the better it does. It makes a little money, but for it to reach it's potential, I will have to live there. (I only live 20 km away) Buy the land now if you want, but wait til you can live there to farm it yourself.

Jotham

Understand and understandable, thanks for the feedback. I was thinking of low maintenance crops, like you mentioned, but can see how there would be issues. The lease idea would be of interest though.

Cheers thanks for responding. Wonder if anyone else has had lease experience?

[soidog2]

Generally speaking it only works when there is an incentive for the people doing the actual farming.

Such as your unusually responsible immediate family on the wife side or share cropping.

If you speak Thai; are very familiar with what you choose to grow, understand village culture; you also could get results.

Short of above you will be lucky to break even.

Best regards.

[tw25rw]

Some people plant food forests. They provide food all years and need minimal maintenance. Would need to be planned carefully though.

[Canada]

Well, it didn't work well for us, but we bought too much and tried to do too much. Damn near killed the in laws. They are farmers, not managers.

Probably depends on what you choose to do, how much of it that you do, and the availability of labour in that area. Labour is hard to find in our village because it's so small and people don't like to go to neighbouring villages looking for help.

You could get lucky, or really unlucky. Speaking thai would be a huge asset or you will understand nothing. Don't expect good record keeping.

As the other guys said, you could lease it out for easy small money until you move to it yourself.

Or profit sharing, but that would depend on the ability of your crew. Incentives work pretty good with Thais. It'll still depend on their ability.

One of the hardest things I've had to deal with is the inability of thais to just tell the straight facts in an understandable way. No means no. Maybe means no. And yes means no. You need to be perceptive and have good intuition. You'll probably still be wrong.

Anyways, having tried that route already, I wouldn't do it again. But that's me.

[somo]

I have been an absentee farmer for a while and it worked for us but I think we were lucky.

We grow cassava which takes very little attention time as long as you get the basics right.

We were also fortunate in getting a good team together to take care off things. We are now much more hands on

and that is for sure better as you can get the details right and make better profits.