Has the new Prime Minister put A six months ban on rubber tree tapping?

[Bigfarang1948]

We have a small rubber tree farm in Isaan and this will be our first year of cutting and selling "cup latex". My wife has been hearing about a six months ban on all rubber tree tapping. Has anyone else heard of this ban and can shed a some more light on this topic?

If it is indeed true, how can these poor farmers afford to wait that many month before being allowed to sell latex again? At today's prices, the little profit we make will barely cover

the cost of yearly upkeep and it is also the only source of cash income for many small farmers like us. Just how will we and thousands of others survive if our only source of revenue is suddenly cut off?

[khwaibah]

Need to ask this question on this form. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/467163-rubber-trees/

[gerry123]

sorry cannot help with your questions but you maybe of some help to myself and many others

i am presuming you are not a thai national how do you get your visa purely on the income as you describe is there a farming visa that is not wildly known about

[Toknarok]

I've not heard of any official ban on cutting, however with the price of latex being so low at present (20 baht kilo and likely to fall even further) to some it's hardly worth their while. I did hear a rumour that the Govt. may encourage rubber farmers to abandon rubber, cut down their trees and plant alternative crops.

There's too much of the stuff on the World market at present. China is said to have established huge plantations that are said to be shortly coming on line, that will reduce the demand for Thai rubber. I'm afraid the outlook for rubber farmers does not look too rosy.

[yankee99]

I've not heard of any official ban on cutting, however with the price of latex being so low at present (20 baht kilo and likely to fall even further) to some it's hardly worth their while. I did hear a rumour that the Govt. may encourage rubber farmers to abandon rubber, cut down their trees and plant alternative crops.

There's too much of the stuff on the World market at present. China is said to have established huge plantations that are said to be shortly coming on line, that will reduce the demand for Thai rubber. I'm afraid the outlook for rubber farmers does not look too rosy.

Encourage the to cut their trees down? I hope it may be financial encouragement as most have been waiting year with dreams of being coming rich.

[maoro]

I have not heard of this ban, I strongly doubt that it is a fact.

We are cutting thousands of trees and selling the product.

My biggest question really is that the prices quoted on the internet average around 50baht/kilo for 2014. The farmers in Isaan get about 20baht at the moment. The middle men are certainly not missing out, but the farmers who do the work and own the infrastructure get very little. This is what the government should take a close look at.

What may happen is that, the price being so low, we won't be able to get people to cut for us. Why would someone work most of the night for a tiny pay, as we pay them 40% of the sale price. This is what will control the cutting, it is supply and demand.

Yesterday TV stated that the government had sold half of the 200,000 tonne stockpile and it seems this has not made the price drop again. There is still another 100,000 tonnes of this stockpile to sell, don't know what will happen then.

[starky]

I've not heard of any official ban on cutting, however with the price of latex being so low at present (20 baht kilo and likely to fall even further) to some it's hardly worth their while. I did hear a rumour that the Govt. may encourage rubber farmers to abandon rubber, cut down their trees and plant alternative crops.

There's too much of the stuff on the World market at present. China is said to have established huge plantations that are said to be shortly coming on line, that will reduce the demand for Thai rubber. I'm afraid the outlook for rubber farmers does not look too rosy.

Encourage the to cut their trees down? I hope it may be financial encouragement as most have been waiting year with dreams of being coming rich.

Up my way, not far from Udon many farmers have already gone into a bit of a panic and cutting all their rubber down. The King has always encouraged people to plant a variety of crops to ensure sustainability. Like most things Thai there was zero forethought and everyone just thought of the great dollar sign. Everyone started planting thousands of rai of rubber that was traditionally pretty much only down South. It didn't help that many farang moved here with the same idea bought land and again mostly planted rubber. Well like in all markets once there is an oversupply the price drops and will continue to do so the days of get 70 or 80 cents a kilo are long gone and won't return. I feel sorry for most but unfortunately for the most part they have no one to blame but themselves for following this pipe dream. In the years they spent dreaming of getting rich they should of instead planted sustainable crops that have always given a modest return instead of expecting that everyone with a rubber plantation would get rich.

[starky]

Its a nonsense anyway.I think you will find it is mostly farang or those married to them who will be griping. My family had a bit of land before I got married and I bought a fair bit more.We now have rice (of course) sugar, fruit, pigs ducks and fish all of which mostly make a modest return but it is and was always going to be for the family and not for me. All my personal wealth is created outside of Thailand I certainly wouldn't have moved here with so little money that I needed to rely on my crops to survive (which is illegal anyway unless you have a work permit). Truth be told many of the "poor" farmers up my way would never have even considered rubber anyway. How can someone that lives off the land afford to plant rubber in good land and then not produce anything while you are waiting the 7 years for the trees to start producing... its a long time without sticky rice.

[Toknarok]

The rush to grow rubber in Northern Thailand began when Malaysia stopped production. Many Malay plantations had reached their useful life, oil produced rubber was undercutting latex, production costs were too high. So they switched to palm oil production.

The Thais thought there was a gap in the market to be filled, the price was high and farmers were actively encouraged to convert to rubber. Rubber tree saplings by their million were either given away or sold for next to nothing. Farmers had to wait 7 years before cutting, but for the first 2 -3 years after planting the trees most grew another crop (usually cassava) beside the rubber.

Many borrowed money to cover themselves over the period that they had no latex production. Many did well, latex price was high, loans could be repaid.

Then of course in typical Thai style everybody climbed onto the bandwagon without thought to overproduction. They were given little or no advice from Commerce or Agriculture as to the pitfalls they were facing.

[Bigfarang1948]

I've not heard of any official ban on cutting, however with the price of latex being so low at present (20 baht kilo and likely to fall even further) to some it's hardly worth their while. I did hear a rumour that the Govt. may encourage rubber farmers to abandon rubber, cut down their trees and plant alternative crops.

There's too much of the stuff on the World market at present. China is said to have established huge plantations that are said to be shortly coming on line, that will reduce the demand for Thai rubber. I'm afraid the outlook for rubber farmers does not look too rosy.

Encourage the to cut their trees down? I hope it may be financial encouragement as most have been waiting year with dreams of being coming rich.

I heard from a farmer near our village who was having the older trees that were not producing any longer, I guess would be the reason for cutting a 20 year old tree down, that they sold for an average of 3,000 TB per tree; good money if you have a large farm but a heck of a long time to wait for the profit, if you can call it that. It is very discouraging and disheartening to see the anguish on my wife's face after planting, feeding, and keeping the undergrowth cut away for seven years to see the prices drop to 20 baht per kilo

[Issangeorge]

It was the man from Dubai, and his buddy (at that time) Newin, who encouraged rubber growing in the North East, at the time I looked into it, but at that time prices were just around ฿50 a kilogram, and at that time that was just a little above breakeven. Of course when the price went to the ฿100 range, people who were producing rubber were cleaning up, but they all had trees that were planted before Thaksin's initiative. It was when the trees planted under Thaksin's initiative began to produce that the rubber started its slope downward. I heard that furniture makers pay a premium for virgin rubber wood (wood from trees that have not been tapped). So perhaps farmers should consider that, the thing about selling them for wood is you can wait out your market.

[sgtsabai]

My wife is meeting with Amphur officials today about rubber trees. I'll know more tonight.

[SantiSuk]

Round here in Amphur Kantharalak, Sisaket the obsession with rubber took hold 10 years to 2 years ago with such ferocity that people were planting rubber trees on some of the most fertile 2-crops-a-year market gardening ex volcanic soil famous for making the Amphur rich in fruit and market vegetables. Completely nuts and I refused to let (code for fund!) my wife buy into rubber unless she wanted to go further away to forest soil land.

Luckily she recognised the folly of trying to run something at a distance after buying a few rai in Kemmarat and her family eventually getting pi$$ed off with driving 150km to clear it. She sold that land at a nice profit 2 years later for someone (who wanted to plant rubber of course).

[Toknarok]

You can't tell them can you? have 5 rai just outside my village, tried cassava for a couple of years then the missus wanted to plant rubber. Told her waste of time and money, like speaking to a brick wall all she could see was her sister who had mature trees on 50 rai making money. Next thing she's planted the bloody things on 1.5 rai surrounding our house. Won't be told 'we farangs don't know or understand' this is Thailand.

I gave up years ago.