Anyone know much about casava farming?

[Kenny202]

Live in Isaan 50km east of Chaiyaphum, casava country. Just wondering if anyone can tell me approximate yield per one rai of land? I believe Chaiyaphum not great farming country and I guess yields variable on area / actual land but looking for an approximate. I think they get two crops here a year. Land here is extremely cheap and for example if I buy 10 rai of land for say a million baht, and get a 10-20% return and retain the land value with minimal outlay that would appear to be a good investment. Please, the figures I am quoting here are merely speculation....I don't have a clue. Should we go into something like that it will be fully researched and will be with the aid of a local guy I implicitly trust particularly his farming knowledge. We would own the land, he would work for a wage and share some of the profits. Again please don't flame me with the evils of trusting Thai people in business etc. Aware of all that. Just trying to ascertain if buying and running a small farm like that a viable return as opposed to sinking a lot of capital etc into a business that may easily fail.

[loong]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap

10 or 20% return would require 10,000 or 20,000 profit per rai and that is extremely unlikely with cassava

There is a pinned thread about cassava and I think that there is a spreadsheet early in the thread.

Many people around here have given up on farming cassava as they cannot earn from it. The workers all want the minimum wage now and although it seems to be a minor amount at 300 Baht a day, the farmers cannot afford to pay it and still make a profit.

If I were you, I would keep your money on deposit.

[BHW]

Forget it, if you don't have the kids, mun & dad, grandmar & par to work it, there's no way you will make 1 THB out of it.

[billd766]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap

10 or 20% return would require 10,000 or 20,000 profit per rai and that is extremely unlikely with cassava

There is a pinned thread about cassava and I think that there is a spreadsheet early in the thread.

Many people around here have given up on farming cassava as they cannot earn from it. The workers all want the minimum wage now and although it seems to be a minor amount at 300 Baht a day, the farmers cannot afford to pay it and still make a profit.

If I were you, I would keep your money on deposit.

That biggest cost of any farm is labour and if you have no family to work the land the minimum rate (if you can find workers) will be 300 baht per person per 8 hour day.

1. The land needs to be cleared and ploughed (if it cleared that is a bonus) About 1 hour per rai by tractor.

2. All the cassava stalks need to be cut to about 30 odd cms and normally dunked in a bath of fertiliser mix

3. 1 person can plant 1 rai of cassava in 1 day

4. fertilise it once

5. apply weedkiller once

6. go away for a fair time and come back every so often to see it grow

7. at harvesting time get your team out to cut the tops from the stalks and then cut the stalks

8. get the tractor crew in to plugh up the cassava

9. get the harvesting team in to pick the cassava, load it into baskets, take the baskets to your transports and load them, than transport the cassava to the factory where they weight the full transport in and the empty one out. The difference is the weight of your cassava.

10. the factory then log "your" weight and usually pay you when you have cleared all your cassava.

11. you will be paid the going rate of the day, usually 2,000 to 2,500 baht per ton, less a percentage for wet and/or dirt perhaps 10% or so.

12. If you are lucky you will get perhaps 5 tons of cassava per rai so you may get up to 10,000 baht per rai. A little more or less depending on who else is harvesting at the same time.

13. Meanwhile back at the farm there maybe several other people scavenging for the cassava you didn't harvest, you team will be harvesting the stalks ready for the next planting and waiting for their money. You also have to pay the teams for the earlier work they did at the time plus ofcourse the tractor driver.

14. You could end up with about 5,000 baht per rai after all expenses are paid.

15. The good news is that the stalks you cut down at harvest time are your planting stock for next year.

16. The bad news is that if you don't have family and have to hire people in then you probably will have to wait your turn for a crew and most of them are ladies who are older and are in dwindling supply especially at 300 baht a day. None of the youyh want to work in an area of no shade with a temperature of over 30 IN the shade and it IS back breaking work to do.

17. The cheapest way is to have a large Thai family, your own tractor and a lot of land, 50 or more rai, preferably in the same block so you don't have small parcels all over the place.

We did it the hard way for a couple of years a few years ago and rented everything in. Sure we made a few thousand baht but we didn't need to make a living at it. My wife now rents out the land and other people do the farming. We don't make much out of it but there is no effort on our part.

I think that the future will lie in bigger farms and contract farming where you pay an agreed price and a company does it all for you but it won't be cheap.

[Kenny202]

I agree with you 100% as far as the future of farming. These kids don't want to work farms. The parents will die and the land will be cashed in. Big companies will come in with machines etc and be more efficient. Price will go down. I don't know if other countries grow this crop but Thailand will have to compete. It's happened every other country in the world and will happen here. Family farming in Australia became almost impossible 20 years ago and now only the very smart boutique farmers with a niche product survive. The day of the little subsistence farmer on a few Rai of land is gone. The kids will sell the family land, have a big party to show off and all the money will be gone in 2 months. It makes me wonder if investing in farm land here for the future would be a good or bad idea. If there's a glut of land the price will go down. My missus ideas of how much land is and potential returns are starting to seem far from reallity

[somo]

As the above post says you can make 4-5k/rai/year. More if you use an 18 month cycle. There is loads of info in the pinned thread. Worth a read.

Bottom line is that if you buy land at 30k/rai + invest 6k in labour, tractor hire, fertilizer etc then a 5k profit is a 14% return/year.

if you leave it in the ground for another 6-8 month you will more than double your harvest for an additional investment of about 2k. spent on weeding and fertilizer.

I wouldn't advise buying land for more than 25k/rai.

If you can rent land for say 2000/year then you can earn around 50% on your investment/year. That's the way to go.

I live about 50 miles west of Chayapoum and wages in my village are still 200/day but I allow 250 as contribute some food for lunch and some booze in the evening. Tractor hire is also cheap at 300Baht/rai and I rent land for 1000/year when I can find it.

[pigeonjake]

i personaly think all crops are very risky here in thailand, the weather,,, we havnt had a good drop of rain for ages, and i see crops in the fields round us just wilting away,

ill stick to my pigs,

i do agree land prices in my opinion again will come down even more as the old folk die off and the young ones sell it off,

but whats the point in having loads of land if you dont have the workers to farm it,?

we have 2 rai and we do ok out of it, im from farming stock in the uk and was always told the more land you buy the more work your buying, and its true in any country, we can get our work done in 2 hours in the morning and evening,

just my thoughts

[billd766]

As the above post says you can make 4-5k/rai/year. More if you use an 18 month cycle. There is loads of info in the pinned thread. Worth a read.

Bottom line is that if you buy land at 30k/rai + invest 6k in labour, tractor hire, fertilizer etc then a 5k profit is a 14% return/year.

if you leave it in the ground for another 6-8 month you will more than double your harvest for an additional investment of about 2k. spent on weeding and fertilizer.

I wouldn't advise buying land for more than 25k/rai.

If you can rent land for say 2000/year then you can earn around 50% on your investment/year. That's the way to go.

I live about 50 miles west of Chayapoum and wages in my village are still 200/day but I allow 250 as contribute some food for lunch and some booze in the evening. Tractor hire is also cheap at 300Baht/rai and I rent land for 1000/year when I can find it.

I agree with you completely but on the proviso that you are a "gentleman" or hobby farmer and don't need the money to live on. If you are lucky to rent/buy land at the prices you say and you can still get people to work at that rate then good on you.

The problem as I see it is that there are fewer farm labourers every year as the older farmers quit or die off and none of their children are interested in working the land so the labour pool gets smaller every year.

Perhaps you could be lucky and find some legal Cambodians/Laos/Myanmar people to take on the work for the same price and still make money.

[fred Kubasa]

If, as you suggest, You have a lot of capital, keep it in an offshore bank,

forget going into any kind of business and go about "further damaging Thailand's

image !

[sanuk711]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap---loong

I am not so far away from you Udon, T & that land price (subject to access etc) seems reasonable priced to me. Saying that Udon is a bit of a Boom real estate area, But the posters about labor costs are correct, a few years ago all the rice farmers around here planted their rice by hand---now they (a good 50% of them) just scatter the seeds, the crop return is so much lower, however if you do not have family to come up & help--then they do without the labor costs that way.

Like many of the Shinawatra family schemes the minimum wage seemed like it was helping people at the time......... its having quite an affect on the rural industry,

Edited June 11, 2015 by sanuk711

[Kenny202]

If, as you suggest, You have a lot of capital, keep it in an offshore bank,

forget going into any kind of business and go about "further damaging Thailand's

image !

Huh?

[nev]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap

10 or 20% return would require 10,000 or 20,000 profit per rai and that is extremely unlikely with cassava

There is a pinned thread about cassava and I think that there is a spreadsheet early in the thread.

Many people around here have given up on farming cassava as they cannot earn from it. The workers all want the minimum wage now and although it seems to be a minor amount at 300 Baht a day, the farmers cannot afford to pay it and still make a profit.

If I were you, I would keep your money on deposit.

That biggest cost of any farm is labour and if you have no family to work the land the minimum rate (if you can find workers) will be 300 baht per person per 8 hour day.

1. The land needs to be cleared and ploughed (if it cleared that is a bonus) About 1 hour per rai by tractor.

2. All the cassava stalks need to be cut to about 30 odd cms and normally dunked in a bath of fertiliser mix

3. 1 person can plant 1 rai of cassava in 1 day

4. fertilise it once

5. apply weedkiller once

6. go away for a fair time and come back every so often to see it grow

7. at harvesting time get your team out to cut the tops from the stalks and then cut the stalks

8. get the tractor crew in to plugh up the cassava

9. get the harvesting team in to pick the cassava, load it into baskets, take the baskets to your transports and load them, than transport the cassava to the factory where they weight the full transport in and the empty one out. The difference is the weight of your cassava.

10. the factory then log "your" weight and usually pay you when you have cleared all your cassava.

11. you will be paid the going rate of the day, usually 2,000 to 2,500 baht per ton, less a percentage for wet and/or dirt perhaps 10% or so.

12. If you are lucky you will get perhaps 5 tons of cassava per rai so you may get up to 10,000 baht per rai. A little more or less depending on who else is harvesting at the same time.

13. Meanwhile back at the farm there maybe several other people scavenging for the cassava you didn't harvest, you team will be harvesting the stalks ready for the next planting and waiting for their money. You also have to pay the teams for the earlier work they did at the time plus ofcourse the tractor driver.

14. You could end up with about 5,000 baht per rai after all expenses are paid.

15. The good news is that the stalks you cut down at harvest time are your planting stock for next year.

16. The bad news is that if you don't have family and have to hire people in then you probably will have to wait your turn for a crew and most of them are ladies who are older and are in dwindling supply especially at 300 baht a day. None of the youyh want to work in an area of no shade with a temperature of over 30 IN the shade and it IS back breaking work to do.

17. The cheapest way is to have a large Thai family, your own tractor and a lot of land, 50 or more rai, preferably in the same block so you don't have small parcels all over the place.

We did it the hard way for a couple of years a few years ago and rented everything in. Sure we made a few thousand baht but we didn't need to make a living at it. My wife now rents out the land and other people do the farming. We don't make much out of it but there is no effort on our part.

I think that the future will lie in bigger farms and contract farming where you pay an agreed price and a company does it all for you but it won't be cheap.

Excellent summary, exactly why we rent out our farm land, we get 1000 baht a rai and not have to risk and lose money on sugar cane or cassava, all we was doing in the end was keeping the workers in the village in work and losing money.

And the thanks we got from these workers was to find out they was stealing bags of fertilizer to sell, stealing diesel from our big truck to sell, and if we or our foreman was not around would take long breaks.

[gaijinsomchai]

I grew up on a farm in the US. 2500 acres. It was considered a smaller farm. I knew there was no way to make a living there so I left. The land is now leased out to a corporation with massive resources and equipment. Corporate farming is the future globally. It's hard work and not profitable for just a family operation.

[eliotness]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap

10 or 20% return would require 10,000 or 20,000 profit per rai and that is extremely unlikely with cassava

There is a pinned thread about cassava and I think that there is a spreadsheet early in the thread.

Many people around here have given up on farming cassava as they cannot earn from it. The workers all want the minimum wage now and although it seems to be a minor amount at 300 Baht a day, the farmers cannot afford to pay it and still make a profit.

If I were you, I would keep your money on deposit.

That biggest cost of any farm is labour and if you have no family to work the land the minimum rate (if you can find workers) will be 300 baht per person per 8 hour day.

1. The land needs to be cleared and ploughed (if it cleared that is a bonus) About 1 hour per rai by tractor.

2. All the cassava stalks need to be cut to about 30 odd cms and normally dunked in a bath of fertiliser mix

3. 1 person can plant 1 rai of cassava in 1 day

4. fertilise it once

5. apply weedkiller once

6. go away for a fair time and come back every so often to see it grow

7. at harvesting time get your team out to cut the tops from the stalks and then cut the stalks

8. get the tractor crew in to plugh up the cassava

9. get the harvesting team in to pick the cassava, load it into baskets, take the baskets to your transports and load them, than transport the cassava to the factory where they weight the full transport in and the empty one out. The difference is the weight of your cassava.

10. the factory then log "your" weight and usually pay you when you have cleared all your cassava.

11. you will be paid the going rate of the day, usually 2,000 to 2,500 baht per ton, less a percentage for wet and/or dirt perhaps 10% or so.

12. If you are lucky you will get perhaps 5 tons of cassava per rai so you may get up to 10,000 baht per rai. A little more or less depending on who else is harvesting at the same time.

13. Meanwhile back at the farm there maybe several other people scavenging for the cassava you didn't harvest, you team will be harvesting the stalks ready for the next planting and waiting for their money. You also have to pay the teams for the earlier work they did at the time plus ofcourse the tractor driver.

14. You could end up with about 5,000 baht per rai after all expenses are paid.

15. The good news is that the stalks you cut down at harvest time are your planting stock for next year.

16. The bad news is that if you don't have family and have to hire people in then you probably will have to wait your turn for a crew and most of them are ladies who are older and are in dwindling supply especially at 300 baht a day. None of the youyh want to work in an area of no shade with a temperature of over 30 IN the shade and it IS back breaking work to do.

17. The cheapest way is to have a large Thai family, your own tractor and a lot of land, 50 or more rai, preferably in the same block so you don't have small parcels all over the place.

We did it the hard way for a couple of years a few years ago and rented everything in. Sure we made a few thousand baht but we didn't need to make a living at it. My wife now rents out the land and other people do the farming. We don't make much out of it but there is no effort on our part.

I think that the future will lie in bigger farms and contract farming where you pay an agreed price and a company does it all for you but it won't be cheap.

Excellent summary, exactly why we rent out our farm land, we get 1000 baht a rai and not have to risk and lose money on sugar cane or cassava, all we was doing in the end was keeping the workers in the village in work and losing money.

And the thanks we got from these workers was to find out they was stealing bags of fertilizer to sell, stealing diesel from our big truck to sell, and if we or our foreman was not around would take long breaks.

You forgot to mention the lao kow before they'll start work, the cost of lunch + more lao kow and some more food and booze when they finish. I was in Thailand in 2010 when we got nearly 3.40 baht per kilo, so despite everything we made a little money, but now at 2.05, not a chance, it's a big loss maker.

[Dannyboy666]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap

10 or 20% return would require 10,000 or 20,000 profit per rai and that is extremely unlikely with cassava

There is a pinned thread about cassava and I think that there is a spreadsheet early in the thread.

Many people around here have given up on farming cassava as they cannot earn from it. The workers all want the minimum wage now and although it seems to be a minor amount at 300 Baht a day, the farmers cannot afford to pay it and still make a profit.

If I were you, I would keep your money on deposit.

That biggest cost of any farm is labour and if you have no family to work the land the minimum rate (if you can find workers) will be 300 baht per person per 8 hour day.

1. The land needs to be cleared and ploughed (if it cleared that is a bonus) About 1 hour per rai by tractor.

2. All the cassava stalks need to be cut to about 30 odd cms and normally dunked in a bath of fertiliser mix

3. 1 person can plant 1 rai of cassava in 1 day

4. fertilise it once

5. apply weedkiller once

6. go away for a fair time and come back every so often to see it grow

7. at harvesting time get your team out to cut the tops from the stalks and then cut the stalks

8. get the tractor crew in to plugh up the cassava

9. get the harvesting team in to pick the cassava, load it into baskets, take the baskets to your transports and load them, than transport the cassava to the factory where they weight the full transport in and the empty one out. The difference is the weight of your cassava.

10. the factory then log "your" weight and usually pay you when you have cleared all your cassava.

11. you will be paid the going rate of the day, usually 2,000 to 2,500 baht per ton, less a percentage for wet and/or dirt perhaps 10% or so.

12. If you are lucky you will get perhaps 5 tons of cassava per rai so you may get up to 10,000 baht per rai. A little more or less depending on who else is harvesting at the same time.

13. Meanwhile back at the farm there maybe several other people scavenging for the cassava you didn't harvest, you team will be harvesting the stalks ready for the next planting and waiting for their money. You also have to pay the teams for the earlier work they did at the time plus ofcourse the tractor driver.

14. You could end up with about 5,000 baht per rai after all expenses are paid.

15. The good news is that the stalks you cut down at harvest time are your planting stock for next year.

16. The bad news is that if you don't have family and have to hire people in then you probably will have to wait your turn for a crew and most of them are ladies who are older and are in dwindling supply especially at 300 baht a day. None of the youyh want to work in an area of no shade with a temperature of over 30 IN the shade and it IS back breaking work to do.

17. The cheapest way is to have a large Thai family, your own tractor and a lot of land, 50 or more rai, preferably in the same block so you don't have small parcels all over the place.

We did it the hard way for a couple of years a few years ago and rented everything in. Sure we made a few thousand baht but we didn't need to make a living at it. My wife now rents out the land and other people do the farming. We don't make much out of it but there is no effort on our part.

I think that the future will lie in bigger farms and contract farming where you pay an agreed price and a company does it all for you but it won't be cheap.

Excellent summary, exactly why we rent out our farm land, we get 1000 baht a rai and not have to risk and lose money on sugar cane or cassava, all we was doing in the end was keeping the workers in the village in work and losing money.

And the thanks we got from these workers was to find out they was stealing bags of fertilizer to sell, stealing diesel from our big truck to sell, and if we or our foreman was not around would take long breaks.

. Nobody gets 300 a day in Moobaan, 200 baht outside Korat...

[redandyellow]

Anyone know much about casava farming?

I know sweet Fanny Anny about it - but I read somewhere that they love casava in Africa - but they have little nutrients apparently. Do check on this.

I'll give this post a 1.5 out of 10 - mine that is

[Dannyboy666]

Fried Casava and Chicharron, El Salvadorean Food, Yum...

[nev]

100,000 Baht for 1 rai of farm land is not cheap

10 or 20% return would require 10,000 or 20,000 profit per rai and that is extremely unlikely with cassava

There is a pinned thread about cassava and I think that there is a spreadsheet early in the thread.

Many people around here have given up on farming cassava as they cannot earn from it. The workers all want the minimum wage now and although it seems to be a minor amount at 300 Baht a day, the farmers cannot afford to pay it and still make a profit.

If I were you, I would keep your money on deposit.

That biggest cost of any farm is labour and if you have no family to work the land the minimum rate (if you can find workers) will be 300 baht per person per 8 hour day.

1. The land needs to be cleared and ploughed (if it cleared that is a bonus) About 1 hour per rai by tractor.

2. All the cassava stalks need to be cut to about 30 odd cms and normally dunked in a bath of fertiliser mix

3. 1 person can plant 1 rai of cassava in 1 day

4. fertilise it once

5. apply weedkiller once

6. go away for a fair time and come back every so often to see it grow

7. at harvesting time get your team out to cut the tops from the stalks and then cut the stalks

8. get the tractor crew in to plugh up the cassava

9. get the harvesting team in to pick the cassava, load it into baskets, take the baskets to your transports and load them, than transport the cassava to the factory where they weight the full transport in and the empty one out. The difference is the weight of your cassava.

10. the factory then log "your" weight and usually pay you when you have cleared all your cassava.

11. you will be paid the going rate of the day, usually 2,000 to 2,500 baht per ton, less a percentage for wet and/or dirt perhaps 10% or so.

12. If you are lucky you will get perhaps 5 tons of cassava per rai so you may get up to 10,000 baht per rai. A little more or less depending on who else is harvesting at the same time.

13. Meanwhile back at the farm there maybe several other people scavenging for the cassava you didn't harvest, you team will be harvesting the stalks ready for the next planting and waiting for their money. You also have to pay the teams for the earlier work they did at the time plus ofcourse the tractor driver.

14. You could end up with about 5,000 baht per rai after all expenses are paid.

15. The good news is that the stalks you cut down at harvest time are your planting stock for next year.

16. The bad news is that if you don't have family and have to hire people in then you probably will have to wait your turn for a crew and most of them are ladies who are older and are in dwindling supply especially at 300 baht a day. None of the youyh want to work in an area of no shade with a temperature of over 30 IN the shade and it IS back breaking work to do.

17. The cheapest way is to have a large Thai family, your own tractor and a lot of land, 50 or more rai, preferably in the same block so you don't have small parcels all over the place.

We did it the hard way for a couple of years a few years ago and rented everything in. Sure we made a few thousand baht but we didn't need to make a living at it. My wife now rents out the land and other people do the farming. We don't make much out of it but there is no effort on our part.

I think that the future will lie in bigger farms and contract farming where you pay an agreed price and a company does it all for you but it won't be cheap.

Excellent summary, exactly why we rent out our farm land, we get 1000 baht a rai and not have to risk and lose money on sugar cane or cassava, all we was doing in the end was keeping the workers in the village in work and losing money.

And the thanks we got from these workers was to find out they was stealing bags of fertilizer to sell, stealing diesel from our big truck to sell, and if we or our foreman was not around would take long breaks.

. Nobody gets 300 a day in Moobaan, 200 baht outside Korat...[/quote

]

250/day for work farm is what we paid and as was added to my post, extras like Lao kao food loans ect.

[Kenny202]

I thought the casava they grow here (if it's the same thing) is poisonous without a lot of heat processing? Apparently a few different types

[soidog2]

A lot of naysayers here; it may be true for them but it is far from what can be achieved growing cassava.

An experienced grower will get a yield of 5-7 tons per rai or more, depending on fertilizer and weather; occasionally we got as much as 10 ton per rai.

It is relatively easy to achieve a 30+% profit on investment excluding land costs.

The difficult part for a new grower is experience.

You need a feel for your land to know when to plant, when to fertilize and critically, how much.

After sucesfull planting comes weeding, again experience is critical for deciding when and how.

Most newcomers overspend on both or do it at the wrong time than have nothing to show for themselves at harvest time.

Another very important issue is picking a suitable type of cassava to grow according to your micro climate and type of soil. Just because somebody else is doing well with a type of tree it does not automatically make it good for you. When you do settle on type and ready to buy your first trees, freshness and age is also critical.

In dry conditions, (not enough rain, like now) soaking the sticks in root hormone and mild fertilizer is a good idea.

Finally, your potential workers are also critical in the beginning, since you do not have the knowledge to tell them what to do it will be the other way around. Family or not it does not matter, most times it is difficult to work with your family because of ego problems and no one want to admit they do not have a clue regardless of how experienced they advertise themselves.

If you are not the easily discouraged type, and are willing to take a few years to learn: cassava is one of the few steadily profitable cash crops in Thailand.

Yes, the commercially grown cassava we are talking about is poisonous raw, another type is grown for eating.

Good Luck

[luk AJ]

If you want good yield and 2 crops per year, it is necessary to install watering system. This morning there was an article in Bangkok post "business section) about cassava and increasing export and improved price (2.7-3thb/kg)

[billd766]

If you want good yield and 2 crops per year, it is necessary to install watering system. This morning there was an article in Bangkok post "business section) about cassava and increasing export and improved price (2.7-3thb/kg)

The biggest problems farmers have for most crops is the access and availability of year round water. The article in the BKK Post assumes that farmers have all year access to water which in the North, North east an North west is not necessarily correct.

The monthly rainfall in Khampaeng Phet city (the only official Thai weather station in the province) for January to May in 2013, 2014 and 2015 so far. All in mm.

2013 2014 2015

Jan 6.4 0.0 40.1

Feb 1.6 3.8 2.7

Mar 24.8 1.4 7.6

Apr 19.3 23.9 71.8

May 167.8 145.0 50.2

Totals 219.9 174.1 172.4

This does not of course take into account the rainfall for June to December of the previous years which used to fill or at least partly fill the reservoirs. I have attached an Excel file for those who are interested of the records from the Thai weather Bureau on a daily basis over a number of years.

Hopefully I will get a home weather centre for my Xmas present this year as Santa Claus seemed to have lost my address or he can't read Thai. This year I will put the GPS location of the house up for him.

The previous government made a complete c0ckup of that as could be seen from the floods of 2011 and the drawing down of the reservoirs in later years.

daily weather for KP v1.xls

Edited June 12, 2015 by billd766

[somo]

If you want good yield and 2 crops per year, it is necessary to install watering system. This morning there was an article in Bangkok post "business section) about cassava and increasing export and improved price (2.7-3thb/kg)

You will need a lot of water to irrigate for 6 months of the year. It is doable but you run the risk of having the gear stolen at night so you have to live on site or employ a trustworthy guard - very tricky! I know some reletively wealthy farmer who tried it and gave up. If you want to increase production rent more land. Also don't scrimp on the feritlizer. I apply 50kg of 46-0-0 prior to ridging so it all ends up in the ridgess not in the gully. About 3 months in I apply about 35kg of 0-0-60 by hand directly to the bases of the plants. That way it all get used. Once planted spray all the land with sumisoya to hinder weed development.

If the OP is serious about things I will post a step by step process of what works for me to the

pinned cassava post above as it does need a little updating

[loong]

If you want good yield and 2 crops per year, it is necessary to install watering system. This morning there was an article in Bangkok post "business section) about cassava and increasing export and improved price (2.7-3thb/kg)

You can't rely on the price being at that level when you harvest.

It also depends on whether you can transport your crop to the processors.

Many farmers sell their crops to an intermediary buyer who then transports to a processor, you will get about 500Bt per tonne less from them, minus another 10% for dirt or whatever.

[Kenny202]

If you want good yield and 2 crops per year, it is necessary to install watering system. This morning there was an article in Bangkok post "business section) about cassava and increasing export and improved price (2.7-3thb/kg)

You will need a lot of water to irrigate for 6 months of the year. It is doable but you run the risk of having the gear stolen at night so you have to live on site or employ a trustworthy guard - very tricky! I know some reletively wealthy farmer who tried it and gave up. If you want to increase production rent more land. Also don't scrimp on the feritlizer. I apply 50kg of 46-0-0 prior to ridging so it all ends up in the ridgess not in the gully. About 3 months in I apply about 35kg of 0-0-60 by hand directly to the bases of the plants. That way it all get used. Once planted spray all the land with sumisoya to hinder weed development.

If the OP is serious about things I will post a step by step process of what works for me to the

pinned cassava post above as it does need a little updating[/q

Thanks for all the advice but I talked myself out of it 10 posts ago. I thought I may have even provided some work for the locals but on reflection any attempt at kindness here ends in someone taking advantage, getting offended for some thai reason or thinking Ur an idiot

[somo]

Thanks for all the advice but I talked myself out of it 10 posts ago. I thought I may have even provided some work for the locals but on reflection any attempt at kindness here ends in someone taking advantage, getting offended for some thai reason or thinking Ur an idiot

Probably just as well. If you are letting a few negative post get to you then for sure you won't have the staying power to overcome the inevitable problems that will come your way.

I wish you all the best.

[Kenny202]

Well they all sound like they've been farming for a long time and struggling. I have no experience whatsoever and we also have major water issues in our area. It's not what I'd call a good foundation for starting this type of venture

[somo]

Well they all sound like they've been farming for a long time and struggling. I have no experience whatsoever and we also have major water issues in our area. It's not what I'd call a good foundation for starting this type of venture

Those of us who have stuck at it make a healthy profit. I suspect those who cannot have not persisted long enough and now write discouraging things here perhaps to justify failing.

There are a few who do very well from it but the trouble is whenever they say positive things they are attacked by those that simply refuse to believe it is possible. I have had a lot of negs on my back in the past but don't give a stuff and that's the attitude you need to make a go of farming here.