Farming experience

[Jotham79]

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.

[pigeonjake]

great story,

i just wish i could write like that,, i know what i want to say but getting it down in writing is another thing for me,,lol

but very good i enjoyed that,,

jake

[Canada]

I like to read about others" experiences over here. Thanks for sharing. I think that when you know some of the history of an individual, it gives a different perspective of him than if you knew nothing of him but what he just posted.

As far as "rude" behaviour....hmmm. In this world we seem to get what we give. There are exceptions but generally, If I experience someone as being rude, I need to look at my own actions first. The problem often lies there, but not always. Some people just have a problem that they like to pass around.

Anyways, thanks for sharing your story. I think it takes guts and a certain perspective on the world and "life" to move out to the middle of nowhere and start farming in some strange foreign country on the other side of the planet from "home".

I almost suffered "great injury" at the helm of my own iron buffalo as well. Trying to get it out of the cane field loaded with about a ton of cane on slippery cane leaves. MIL and SIL were watching and I was not going to unload it, drive it out and then reload it...not in front of them. A great battle ensued...left and right.... the wheels turning without mercy, left clutch, right clutch, the thing damn near threw me off to the side but I hung on. I got it out finally, but I was beat. They brought me the water bucket to drink when I sat down to rest with small smiles.....

I bought the thing in town. The owner of the store was quite alarmed when I told her I would drive it home. They all gathered to watch me get a lesson from one of the guys and then watched my drive off. A foreigner driving an edek...they'd never seen that. My first intersection I suddenly realised that I forgot to ask where the brake was... I role through the intersection and the approaching car stopped for me. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but I finally found the brake.

I love the adventure parts of this experience. You don't get adventure unless you step out of your comfort zone.

[somo]

Great post J79
You sure are persistent.
My story is shorter. I have lived in Thailand about 16 years now although I first visited back in the 70's - different world then.
It is only in the last 6 years or so that we have got round to building a house in my wifes village and just fell into a bit of farming without really thinking about it.
It was always going to be a sideline and I just wanted it to at least pay for itself. I wasn't going to be around enough to do any animal farming + to be honest I didn't want to. Too smelly and hard work:) Cassava is the thing around here so that's what we did. We were lucky getting some land at a decent price and lucky again getting some fairly decent people working for us.

I soon realized there was no point in me doing any of the manual work just to save 200 Baht/day or investing in expensive equipment which I would only use a few days/year. I am good at organising things, getting on with people and number crunching so did that.
We now grow about 40 rai but still consider it a hobby as except for a few spurts of activity each year we mostly just watch it grow. It gives us about 200K profit/year so not a big deal but it pays for my beer + some. The extra we have reinvested locally. I get a big kick out producing healthy plants which produce such an amazing harvest.
Just imagine only 1 rai with all those green leaves just sucking matter out of the air. 5 or 6 tons of it in a year! Plants are simply the most amazing machines that work almost for free and convert air into so many different things we can eat. Almost on a par of water into wine!
I would love to expand if only I could get more land at a reasonable price but those days seem to have passed.
We now spend most of our time in the village as at long last I have an internet connection here so can run my business from here but that only takes up a few hours/day.

As a result we have got into financing some of the locals and solving some of their cash flow problems. I know from another thread that this is a contentious issue but as I also said in another more recent post I don't give a stuff what most other people think. I wouldn't be here if I did.

The point is that I have another village biz outlet almost exclusively financed by my cassava profits. One good example of what I do is loan the deposit money to a guy who used to be a manual worker so he could buy a tractor. In return he does most of my tractor work for free and now has his own team of workers and earns a lot more money. (some of it from me as I employ himto take care of all things cassava) It;s rewarding to see. Again it was something I just fell into because land has become too expensive to buy for farming.

Anyway that's my farming/village experience and what a great one it has been so far.

I have had a few PMs asking for more info re cassava so will post something soon on the fixed thread above.

[Jotham79]

We did a little village lending way back when and I am working on a post about it and lending in the markets. It will be nice to compare notes.

I didn't move out into the middle of a foreign country.......I found my home. I don't really understand why, but it is where I am supposed to be.

I think a few other souls feel the same way.

[David48]

Great story, I really appreciated the time taken to share it ...

I've 'broken' my back twice (Hospital, traction etc) but have recovered and 100% functional.

You must have done some serious damage there.

How did you do it?

[elgordo38]

Truly a great adventure. I am a armchair farmer and love to hear stories like yours. I hope your wife recovered from cancer as I have a good friend dying from the disease. City dweller now in Chiang Mai till the end of my days.

[Jotham79]

Truly a great adventure. I am a armchair farmer and love to hear stories like yours. I hope your wife recovered from cancer as I have a good friend dying from the disease. City dweller now in Chiang Mai till the end of my days.

She's been totally clear for 10 years. We were lucky in a way.

[cobbler]

Well done, legend effort.while writing this post, were you singing the song"I did it my way"lol

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[JohnDodd]

Well done to JT79 great post, well written and informative. I dabble in farming and under stand just how difficult it all can be. I admire the PO's persistence and what He has achieved. JD.

[Issangeorge]

We did a little village lending way back when and I am working on a post about it and lending in the markets. It will be nice to compare notes.

I didn't move out into the middle of a foreign country.......I found my home. I don't really understand why, but it is where I am supposed to be.

I think a few other souls feel the same way.

I'm the same, I first came to Thailand on vacation 28 years ago, came back the next year, and after that twice a year progressing to three times, spent two years here in 91 and 92, and then in 2003 moved here permanently, at first I was going to spend 6 months in my home country, but I never spent more than five months there and that got to be less and less and since 07 I have spent less than 6 weeks there. The last time was four and a half years ago for a week. My sisters are putting pressure on for me to visit this summer, but I really don't want to. Thailand is my home, I'll never be Thai or truly understand them, I don't even speak Thai, but I except them and their ways, and realize that it is their country so if anyone is going to change it is going to be me. I also know that in reality no culture is right or wrong. God willing I will die here, be burnt here, and hope to be remembered as that crazy farang with a good heart.

I am too lazy to be a real farmer, but I finance a small casava holding that never makes money and a few cows, that may make money, but I never see it, but at least I'm not paying in anymore. And then of course the family rice farm, which sometimes I think it would be cheaper to buy from the market. I do believe it is possible to make money farming, even with the ridiculous price of land today, but it would take a lot of capital, energy, and fluency in Thai and preferably the local dialect.

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[Bernard Flint]

A great s story, thanks for sharing. What amazes me is that no one has come on and asked if u have got a work permit, incredible

[Jotham79]

A great s story, thanks for sharing. What amazes me is that no one has come on and asked if u have got a work permit, incredible

It is simple.....I have never been paid. Way back when even my wife could not put the land in her name so we put it in her fathers. Our intent was for him to will it to our children, but we ended up having him give it to her a few years ago (you have to pay taxes even if it is a gift). Nothing is in my name. Hell, I don't even have a yellow card yet. So I go out and play in the dirt. I brought a chunk of money into that area and pay a lot of money in local wages and in the shops so why screw with me. I have never heard of anyone involved in farming being asked about a work permit.

[somo]

A great s story, thanks for sharing. What amazes me is that no one has come on and asked if u have got a work permit, incredible

It is simple.....I have never been paid. Way back when even my wife could not put the land in her name so we put it in her fathers. Our intent was for him to will it to our children, but we ended up having him give it to her a few years ago (you have to pay taxes even if it is a gift). Nothing is in my name. Hell, I don't even have a yellow card yet. So I go out and play in the dirt. I brought a chunk of money into that area and pay a lot of money in local wages and in the shops so why screw with me. I have never heard of anyone involved in farming being asked about a work permit.

Just one of the things that makes for a nice life in Isaan. No one is out to give you a hard time. If you have a good heart and go with the flow that is soon recognised and all is sabai sabai. Once you know the ropes you can bend the flow a bit

[cobbler]

Yes everything is owned by the wife.Im not working, its just a hoby , gives me something to do.Money , whats that?I live off my wife.

Cheers Cobbler

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[tim armstrong]

This is still the best TV forum. Great stories told with honesty and integrity.

[grimleybob]

A great s story, thanks for sharing. What amazes me is that no one has come on and asked if u have got a work permit, incredible

There's always one.

Thanks for the informative post. I'm sure the members will take notice

[DerkMR]

What amazes me is that no one has come on and asked if u have got a work permit, incredible

When only "helping out" on the family owned farm even a farang doesn't need a work permit.

(Info from Head of Immigration Udon Thani on presentation for the Udon Expat Club, 2013, July)

Bye,

Derk

[Issangeorge]

A great s story, thanks for sharing. What amazes me is that no one has come on and asked if u have got a work permit, incredible

It is simple.....I have never been paid. Way back when even my wife could not put the land in her name so we put it in her fathers. Our intent was for him to will it to our children, but we ended up having him give it to her a few years ago (you have to pay taxes even if it is a gift). Nothing is in my name. Hell, I don't even have a yellow card yet. So I go out and play in the dirt. I brought a chunk of money into that area and pay a lot of money in local wages and in the shops so why screw with me. I have never heard of anyone involved in farming being asked about a work permit.

Just one of the things that makes for a nice life in Isaan. No one is out to give you a hard time. If you have a good heart and go with the flow that is soon recognised and all is sabai sabai. Once you know the ropes you can bend the flow a bit

[/quote

I knew a Farang a few years back that was obviously working as a farmer and everybody disliked him, Thais and Farangs alike, yet he never ran into any immigration problems. In Isaan even if you are jai dam, people just leave you alone, and if you are jai dee people will protect you.

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[jonnyscot]

Excellent post jotham, I haven't been reading up on the farming forum as I sometimes did, been busy helping around the house since the builders finished up,, but this post just shows what I've been missing

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