Making Big Money With Only 5 rai And Rainfed.

[RedBullHorn]

To members still searching for a profitable farming business, may i present to you...

The Humble Pineapple

This is my neighbour's pineapple plantation. Husband and wife team. Plantation is 5 years old on a rotating batches system. You won't make money on the first year but doing the foundation work so you can start profiting on the second year onwards. They started off with 3 rai and further expansion accordingly to 5 rai plus. Mountain slope land.

This is not a highly labour intensive and doesn't require much care and it is rainfed. You can work 1 day picking the pineapple and rest for 3 days if you like. Or if you need some cash, just go and pick up a truck load of pineapple, sent it to the wholesaler and collect 10sss of thousand ฿.

Now into the 5th year, they are making ฿30'000+ per week... ฿100'000+ per month. Their annual profit is over ฿1'000'000.

1st year = foundation work, no profit.

2nd year = 2-3 shoots per plant, profited about ฿100'000/year.

3rd year = 7-8 shoots per plant, profited about ฿300'000+/year.

4th year = 10-14 shoots per plant, profited above ฿700'000 that year.

5th year = 13-17 shoots per plant, projected this year profit = ฿1'200'000. But they set their mark at ฿1'000'000.

6th year = clear the land, plough and replant with new shoots, sell the excess shoots at ฿1.5/shoot...

Estimate another ฿200'000 in profit by just selling the excess shoots.

They have 3 batches and 2 species of pineapple in rotation. The big pineapple Pataviar and the small pineapple Phu Lay. Wholesaler bulk price = ฿20/kg (currently). 2 small Phu Lay pineapple weight roughly

1kg.

One basket full profit ฿300. A truck load = ฿16'000.

Member Canada would be interested. Totally feasible money making with no well, just rainfed and morning dews.

Happy farming~

RBH

[Dario]

Sounds interesting. Any idea if I could get the plants/shoots in the Isaan, specifically in northern Surin province?

Edited May 4, 2014 by Dario

[RedBullHorn]

Check with the retailers selling fruits...and from there......track all the way up.

[Dario]

Check with the retailers selling fruits...and from there......track all the way up.

Thanks. I was trying to find something on the Internet about the two varieties you mentioned, but don't seem to find anything. Maybe in Thai language?

Edited May 4, 2014 by Dario

[RedBullHorn]

Yes it is the thai language... the big one they pronounce it Pataviar which i try to spell it in English. This are use by restaurant for the famous "Pineapple rice" which they split the pineapple half, empty the content, fried the rice with the pineapple and then fill back the fried rice into the empty halved pineapple shell to make a "pineapple boat". Or a company would buy them in bulk to can them or export to north of west Malaysia (southern Thailand borders)

Both species are pronounce by me and converted into english using listening of their pronunciation only...

Edited May 4, 2014 by RedBullHorn

[RedBullHorn]

On average of 5-6 years the profit is roughly ฿500'000. per year.

That ! To me is a a good profitable farming income...

Edited May 4, 2014 by RedBullHorn

[aussiebrian]

Thanks, sounds interesting. You say it is mountain slope land, but in the pictures the land looks quite flat. What area are they in?

Also you say "You can work 1 day picking the pineapple and rest for 3 days if you like" What happens on the other 3 days of the week? Or do you mean you can pick every 4 days?

For anyone interested this looks like an interesting site.http://www.saico.co.th/localpineaple.php In Thailand, there are 27 pineapple species

Edited May 4, 2014 by aussiebrian

[RedBullHorn]

Hi...you can pick them everyday to lighten the work load. Although it looks like a flat land but it is on a mountain slope land, behind the outhouse is steaper all the way down 300m at 60°angle.

Thanks for the link...now we have the correct name on the Phu Lae (pronounce as Pu Lay). Nang Lae pineapple is also well known and Nang Lae district is only 13km from where i live.

Sent from my GT-I9190 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Edited May 5, 2014 by RedBullHorn

[stickylies]

jup it's good business, i know plenty of thai who have pineapple land and they never even work on it themselves.

pineapples are extremely tough and survive long terms of drought.

[uty6543]

Sorry i don't believe those profit margins with so little land and so little work. If the financial rewards the OP claims were possible every Thai would be doing it. Remember if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

[ezzra]

Sorry i don't believe those profit margins with so little land and so little work. If the financial rewards the OP claims were possible every Thai would be doing it. Remember if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

I second that, there aren't copy cats like a Thai farmers whom will switch to a better crop in a blink

of an eye if those figures wore true and the country will be flooded with over supply of pineapples...

[somo]

2 years ago farmers were blocking roads demanding the government bought their pineapples for 4 Baht/kilo.

http://i-pineapple-a.blogspot.com/2012/05/thailand-pineapple-farmers-protest.html

Having said that selling on the roadside they are surely more than that.

[Jotham79]

For the nay sayers. So you have an opinion which is fine. I have a hard time believing you have any idea what you are talking about.

If you are offended then please think about how you came across in your posts, because that is basically what you said. There are lots of reasons obvious to anyone actually farming that Thais aren't doing this all over the place with the 3 biggest being soil, climate, and difficulty of the work involved. The original post was meant for people who are actually interested in becoming farmers. It gives an idea and as always ideas deserve careful research and consideration.

If there is one thing that frustrates me on this forum it is the people who argue with someone's first hand knowledge or experience. These same people have such a low and misinformed view of Thais and there work ethic. If you don't think it is a good idea for you then don't do it. If you are interested, but have doubts, then get off your duff and take a drive.

The original post is exactly what should be on this forum.

[alfalfa19]

For the nay sayers. So you have an opinion which is fine. I have a hard time believing you have any idea what you are talking about.

If you are offended then please think about how you came across in your posts, because that is basically what you said. There are lots of reasons obvious to anyone actually farming that Thais aren't doing this all over the place with the 3 biggest being soil, climate, and difficulty of the work involved. The original post was meant for people who are actually interested in becoming farmers. It gives an idea and as always ideas deserve careful research and consideration.

If there is one thing that frustrates me on this forum it is the people who argue with someone's first hand knowledge or experience. These same people have such a low and misinformed view of Thais and there work ethic. If you don't think it is a good idea for you then don't do it. If you are interested, but have doubts, then get off your duff and take a drive.

The original post is exactly what should be on this forum.

Nicely said, Jotham79.

[ttthailand]

Lets do the math... You say 16,000 baht a truck load. At 20 baht a pineapple that is 800 in a truck to get 16,000 baht. I do however think that the price would be more like 10 baht to the retailer or 20 baht each selling off the back of a truck along the road. So retailer would need about 1600 pineapples to payout 16,000 baht. A pineapple in most markets sell for about 20 to 30 baht depending on time of year and market location. How many pineapples can you fit into a truck ?

[ttthailand]

This is possible but I think the 10 or perhaps 12 baht a pineapple is more what you would receive on average. I was once a farmer here and taking a truck load of anything to the retailer to sell is a gamble. Sometimes the price is good and other times you should have stayed home and saved the gas. Difficult life but done correctly with some good connections and a little luck you can make money.

[mrdome]

Everyone understands that you are at the mercy of the market prices with all cash crops and that those prices may fluctuate quite a bit. If you can sell directly to the consumer, you will be in the most profitable position but I doubt one could do that with thousands of pineapples.

The yay sayers fall in love with the idea of making all that money (with limited work put in) but the nay sayers are more realistic, I would say. They are not saying it wouldn't work for you, just maybe not with the same projected returns.

[spidermike007]

I just came from pineapple country, and they told me they were only getting about 7-8 baht per kilo, wholesale. You are saying 20 baht? That sounds very, very high. I see pineapple for sale for 20 baht retail. How can this be?

[falang07]

I buy huge pineapples, I estimate several kilos a piece, at 25 baht in Macro, so I doubt you can whole-sell at 20 baht a kilo

[Jotham79]

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. You can make numbers say anything you want. Try this: 5 rai x 1600 sqm per rai for 8000 sqm. Let's say 2 plants per sqm for 16000 plants. if each plant has 4 fruits a year that is 48000 fruits......x 10 baht per fruit and walla! 480,000 baht.

Why doesn't everyone do it?

1. 5 rai x 150,000 per rai for 750,000 path plus 200,000 for the original shoots. Oh yes, don't forget that there would be no income the first year and maybe not that high.

2. If it is square then the field is about 90 meters by 90 meters. This means that you will have to carry bloody heavy baskets of fruit up or down very steep (and maybe unsmooth) ground up to 45 meters assuming you have a road on both ends. It would come out to a mean of 23 meters minimum average distance.

3. Lets say that it is only 400,000 baht a year gross and you are scoring 8 baht a kg. That means there are 50,000 kg to harvest. Figure with weather and what ever you harvest every other day and you are looking at 275 kg + per harvesting day. So maybe you are looking at 10 x 25 meter trips up or down hill carrying the equivalent of a sack of feed.

4. Pineapple leaves are sharp and you will constantly be getting jabbed. My point being that it will not be pleasant work.

5. Did we forget that every few years you have to cut everything and start over......no income for a year.

6. Much land would not have suitable soil or frequent enough rain.....there is no way I would try this on my farm in Petchabun.

7. You will have to develop a market.

The closer you look the more reasonable the original post looks. This is certainly not impossible. Now if you plan on hiring out all the work and you will live on the land or hire someone to do it for you then that would reduce your profits.

[deepcell]

Nice post, at least nice pics. Is it possible to plant in dry land (Nakhon Sawan, Uthai Thani, Lad Yao area)? I wonder if I could intercrop with rubber tree. Thanks.

[somo]

I too advocate a positive approach and have had a few exchanges with negs here.
However, any new biz idea I see I do my homework as everyone should do so.
The below is based on 30 mins research so is not final but does raise some serious questions.

The OP says the average profit is about 100,000 Baht/rai/year.
To gross that 1 rai would need to produce about 5 tons/year if the price was 20 Baht/kilo.
To make that profit you would need a much higher production of say 8 tons to cover costs.

There are 2 problems with this.
2 years ago the price was just 3 Baht wholesale. Is it really 20 now?
Even allowing that it may be Thailands average production is less than 1 ton/rai so although I know it is not difficult to improve on national averages 10 times is a bit much.

Interestingly the national averages seem to imply that farming pineapples produce around about the same returns as does cassava and a bit more than rice which kinda figures.
It seems to me there has to be something very special about a few aspects of the OP,s friends biz that may well not be easily reproduced.

More research is definetly called for.

Edited May 5, 2014 by somo

[Greg Nixon]

When you say profit i believe you mean income. A basketful of Pineapple would be about 10 pineapples at 30 THB each.

Profit is calculated after taking into account the cost of the land, the cost of labor even if it is your own, the cost of gasoline - etc. etc. The cost of selling in the market.

Even though the cash flow looks good, there has been no mention of costs or investments in land or seed. The costs are absolutely essential in understanding the business.

[soalbundy]

The missus says you need plenty of insecticide which aint cheap

[Seducedbytheseas]

In the Philippines, you can make twice this profit on a one-time investment of less than 100,000 Pesos. Also worth mentioning; you don't need to buy land and harvest the fruit- just buy from the farmers and rell to the converters/processors.

[Neeranam]

Hard to believe tbat someone earning 100k a month drives a 30k ancient pickup

[oxo1947]

Thanks for that RedBullHorn, very informative. Can one just use rice fields for that crop, or do you have to fill & bring the level up.?

I lived in Oz for some years, pineapples everywhere, but it wasn't until I went there as a kid straight from London that I realized that Pineapples don't grow on tree's as I had always imagined....Duh.

[VocalNeal]

Also worth mentioning; you don't need to buy land and harvest the fruit- just buy from the farmers and rell to the converters/processors.

It's a holiday so I am bored. Another brilliant capitalist idea. Buy a five tonne truck, visit many small farmers miles apart then when truck is full drive to the processor who will pay you for what? Transportation? Buy the time you have paid all the expenses what will be left? Ok I guess if you like driving and loading and unloading and...

[Seducedbytheseas]

@ VocalNeal: I was skeptical too, until I made the investment. The term is Agricultural Brokerage and I have made my initial investment after reviewing financials, supply chain, and market prices. The farmers have little interest in consolidating and selling direct to a processor. We dont get our hands dirty and only use contracted labor for 100 Pesos per day to load and unload the hired trucks. There is fantastic net profit without holding assets, such as land, trucks, etc.

[IsaanAussie]

Also worth mentioning; you don't need to buy land and harvest the fruit- just buy from the farmers and rell to the converters/processors.

It's a holiday so I am bored. Another brilliant capitalist idea. Buy a five tonne truck, visit many small farmers miles apart then when truck is full drive to the processor who will pay you for what? Transportation? Buy the time you have paid all the expenses what will be left? Ok I guess if you like driving and loading and unloading and...

Arh the old Irish joke about buying for 10 baht, loading the truck and driving to town to sell at 10 baht. After countless hours trying to work out why they were losing money they hit on the answer. BUY A BIGGER TRUCK!