Why are the prices of dairy products rising almost weekly?

[mogandave]

The EU is awash with cheap milk. Some of the shops are selling four pints for 80p - 39 baht. You'd think the Thais would encourage (by imposing no duties) cheese and powdered milk, because it's a cheap source of protein and calcium. 400g of dried milk retail price £1:15, or under 60 baht. This makes up to seven pints.

And put domestic diaries out of business, that's a great idea.

Does the EU in a free trade agreement with Thailand?

It's a very good idea. You don't do inefficiently what others can do efficiently, you do what you can do efficiently and then swap. It's called "comparative advantage" and the places which are rich got a hold of the idea about 400 years ago. The Thais still believe in things like "the lump of labour fallacy" - they think there's a fixed number of jobs to go around - and so the country remains poor. Good ideas make you rich.

Some loon is trying to grow tea in Perthshire in Scotland. It's quite pricey!

Again, I'm all for free trade, but when it comes to feeding the people I do not think being depedant on imports is such a good idea.

Trying to grow apples or salmon in Thailand would be foolish, no reason a decent dairy would not do okay.

[Craig krup]

Trying to grow apples or salmon in Thailand would be foolish, no reason a decent dairy would not do okay.

Vinamilk is the Vietnamese operation, and if they can do it so - presumably - can the Thais, but the European set up is so efficient you'd have to think that spending time and effort to enter a really tough market that people are trying to get out of is a bit of a wasted effort.