Farming experience

Jotham79 · May 14, 2014

Warning: This is a long post. The numbers are my best remembrance. The order is not exact, but should give a general idea of how things went

In a previous thread my farming knowledge and experience were called into question so I thought that since some people have not been reading my old posts or topics I would lay some things out. To some extent we are a collection of our experiences and these shape the way we perceive things. Different experiences- different perspectives.

Much of this is already known by those who have read my posts.

I came to Thailand 22 years ago. I was basically without any assets, but had a good paying job that gave me 4-6 months a year off. I got married and settled in a small village just north a couple of clicks of Petchabun city. It is a small village and at that time was mostly on a single dirt road with maybe of maybe 60 or so families. In the rainy season the road was only open one way. There was only one family with a phone line and only a few trucks. There were tons of motorcycles and unlicensed farm type vehicles and wagons pulled behind Kwai Leks (iron buffalo). There was a water tower and a well that was shared by the village but we collected rain to drink and cook and drilled a well. I would see another farang every week or 2 (maybe) on Saturday when I went to town to make phone calls from the post office and shop in the old Topland. This is well before farang corner in the market or Toffee’s. There was only a handful I would see more than once a year. It would be 3 years before I could get a phone line and almost 5 before I got a truck (20 years before I got aircon). Basically, when I was home, I was immersed. Everything I learned was from Thais. Later on I did meet a guy that had a patch of teak and he coached me a little, but because he and I both worked away and didn’t live near each other I didn’t see him but a couple of times a year. For fun I would have the wife take me to visit farms. Layers, broilers, pigs, limes, papaya, it didn’t matter. Back then CP hadn’t developed the choke hold they have today. There were lots of layer farms with only 200-500 hens, broiler houses that only took a few hundred, and pig farms that had 50- 150 pigs. Almost all of the chicken farms were elevated over ponds or pits with fish in them to eat the manure dropped. 80% of the fish in the local market were farmed this way. You could still buy broiler and layer chicks and ducklings in town at the feed store. (That got banned during the bird flu scare). With no Lotus or Big C all of our shopping was done in the markets. The markets were my wife’s and her families’ background. Half the families in the village made their money the main wet market.

As I earned money we built a house on land her father gave us. Her brother did all the building for free, but I gave him a couple of new power tools (it was taking forever) and gave him a gift later on. I have a great Thai family. When we first got married, my FIL had 8 cows. There was a guy who started at one end of the village and came through and picked up everyone’s cows and took them out in the fields to eat. 5 baht a day per head is the number I remember, but I couldn’t swear to it. He brought them back and dropped them off around 5 pm. Anyway, I left my wife 5,000 baht (more than enough) and told her to buy a really good calf and put it in with her father’s. I come back there is no calf….what the …….? My wife said her father sold all of his cows because the price would drop and my money was in the bank. Now, I would have happily bought his 8 cows and would have lost my %^%. The price stayed down for years.

Eventually we started getting ahead. I planted gardens and finally 140 teak behind our house as a trial. About 18 years ago I rented some land down the road, bought a Kwai Lek, some attachments and started very small scale farming. If you want to really appreciate Thai farmers you really should get behind a 2 wheel tractor (kwai lek) and disk a field and try to keep up with the farm workers in the hot season. Thank god I was only there a few months at a time. Everything I learned the hard (expensive) way. I was always trying new things. During this phase I had several very good learning experiences. I had a guy (wife’s cousin) that did all the work on my truck and had him and 2 guys trying set up a new pump on a field. They tried for 2 hours and kept telling me my new pump was bad. Finally I took over and tightened the bolts in an alternating manner so it would seat well and we could get suction. I started the motor and the sprinklers worked. NOTE: I and another farang were some of the very first to use sprinklers. After that he didn’t come to work on my truck any more as he had lost face. It was 2-3 years before he would set foot in my yard. It took a few more events before I learned that often a less direct approach was better in the long term.

I went to Lamnalai (Wichianburi) to buy a very used Kubota tractor as that was the closest place and at the time I bought used because new ones were not sold. The kwai lek was killing me….I mean literally! I almost backed over myself on a small patch on a slope near a small river. I changed my skivvies and decided to buy a tractor. There were a few large Fords around but I had the only small tractor around for several years.

Eventually I realized that if I really want to lose some serious money I would need my own land. Originally the plan was to buy some land, put teak on it (the government was paying people to plant it) and let it sit. My wife bought me 13 rai 22 km away from our house next to the other farang we knew and planted corn. We made money on our first crop and like a gambler I was addicted. 13 rai grew to 37. I put about 7 rai of teak and decided fruit trees, ponds, wells, and fields of crops would be nice. So we hired a guy from the village to go live out there. I made the mistake in knocking down 5 rai of paddy dikes. I know the general view is that money cannot be made on rice, but I have different experience. We share cropped the fields the first year.

I lived on a farm in Missouri for 5 years when I was young, but it was mainly corn, cows, and soy beans. Again, there was no internet and no one to talk to in my village. My wife’s family new about working in the market and some crops (peppers and greens), but nothing about fruit. I fenced the land, dug 3 ponds and 2 wells and started planting trees. This is where I would look at expensive fruit prices in Topland and make a bunch of assumptions about how profitable it would be and out how much money I should be able to make. My first mistake was selecting too many species of trees. My reasoning was that diversity would help protect me…….big mistake. I started with 200 limes, 70 jackfruit, 100 wood apples, and 60 Lamyai, 200 guava, 22 jujubes, and 6 manila tamarind. The last 2 were my wife’s choice. A month after we planted limes the government gave 30 limes to every farmer in our district that wanted some. We slowly discovered that some trees just did not grow well in our area or required too much care to be profitable. I wasn’t there so most of the trees weren’t properly planted. The guy living out there was lying about how he was taking care of things and while the trees grew ok they never did what they should. Finally we surprised him one day and a friend of his had one of my chickens down by a pond getting ready to kill it. We said nothing except that he shouldn’t eat the chickens and a few weeks later at new years we got my BIL to live out there. Eventually all of the original fruit trees were scraped. At one time or another we made money and lost money on all of the different trees except jackfruit. First ones to go were the Jackfruit (except for 3 trees) because they were the worst and they were replaced with rose apples. The limes did ok and when they had run their course they were replaced. We replaced the rose apple with noi na (no idea why) and those with jujubes (long story, no idea why I haven’t mentioned incidental trees like coconut, banana, star fruit, kee lek, bread fruit, som oh, Pak cha om, papaya, magawp, miayuhm, maiyohm, bamboo….ect that we had around that made us a little money after we ate what we wanted. The manila tamarind di well so we put in 100 and then another 70. Somewhere in the middle of all this I hurt my neck and back working and had a year off, but I was pretty worthless as far as heavy physical work. I had a very uncertain financial future. I got into I poultry with 100 quail and ended up with 1000 quail laying, several breeds of chickens, geese, ducks, pheasant, and silkies. We got internet a couple of years earlier and that is where I picked up a lot of help on forums. I formulated my own feeds. Things were finally improving.

Finally I had to make a career change to where I was gone 9-10 months a year. I got on the road. My wife got cancer and was in bed almost a month and was really weak for a while after and again, the farm went to hell. 9 years on we have another few rai to total 45. We have 100 or so Manilla Tamarind, 70 Ma prang, 60 mango, and 200 jujubes with 2 ponds with tilapia and the third is for fun. At one time or another back then we did fish in nets and ponds. For crops in addition to field corn we have had sweet corn, coriander, several types of eggplant, tomatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin, onions, garlic, fennel, peppers, cucumbers, gourds, and too many others to remember. We have made and lost money on all of those crops at one time or another depending on the market and weather. Oh yea, we did frogs a couple of times and played with mushrooms way back when. I am getting back into poultry and will be hatching a very large breed of quail, a few of breeds of chickens and maybe ducks and probably rabbits (I know they aren’t poultry). All of this is just a brief outline of my experiences and I would be happy to answer specific (polite) inquiries.

I have banked enough to stay home after July 1^st. I have just had 3 disks removed and replaced with titanium and in 2 weeks I will have another titanium disk and one silicon put in my lower back. I should be able to do a lot more work around my farm and house.

So except for some info from the internet and this, and a couple of other forums, everything I learned was from locals and trial and error. There are a few foreigners around now and a few fancy themselves as farmers, but I have such little time with my family, I don’t socialize much.

I will never be Thai, but my cultural values have shifted. I have a different opinion on what constitutes rude behavior and how acceptable it is. Different experiences and culture give us each a different perspective and values and I hope everyone can find a way to be more tolerant of differences. At least a person’s whole lexus of farming knowledge should not be judged on a single post.

So do I have any experience farming? At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. I don’t claim to be an expert on any particular aspect, but I think I should be able to express my particular opinion. If someone disagrees, fair enough, but I feel there is a polite way to express those views. Anyone who blindly accepts what they see on any forum without doing any homework will find a way to lose a great deal of money.

I hope all those who are expressing such strong opinions will give us some information on their experience, location, activities….ect. I would be happy to show anyone what I am doing after I get things settled in July.

gerry123 · May 14, 2014

i read your story with good intent plenty of fact and musings as all this went on over a period of many years i thought mmmmmmmmmmm doable with an awful lot of goodwill from friends and family was it all worth all that effort was it done for profit /satisfaction??

any way a good story maybe consider offering the film rites