Farming In Northeast Thailand

[plachon]

V. briefly to Maikaojai, you're right agriculture would be unrecognisable from its current state if man hadn't dragged domestic animals and exotic plant material with him/her around the world.

Plachon, you have a valid point here, but for the most part these problems are the result of mistakes made in the past. People recognize that you just can't import any plant or animal into any country anymore.

Again, sorry to beg difference, but i'm afraid you're off the mark.

If only these mistakes were of the past.................but I'm afraid the same mistakes are being repeated daily worldwide, and what recognition there is of the scale and nature of the problem tends to be limited to the organic and alternative agriculture movement, which is strongest in Western countries. But even there, the checks and balances are still not as strong as they should be, but granted are a vast improvement on a few decades ago. One of the problems though, is that with improved communication and globalization of agricultural markets, the Western consumer now doesn't look on exotic food in their supermarkets as occasional luxuries, but as every day "necessities" (like tropical fruits and tiiger prawns for example), which has just tended to promote and accelerate the movement of exotic plant and animal stock around the third world/developing countries. I am horrified by the quantity of green vegetablesin our local supermarket in UK from Kenya or Zambia, which have often been grown using unsustainable methods at the expense of local peoples and environment, so the wealthy minority of the world can have their green beans at a "cheap" price 12 months per year.

Other might say: "Well that's the wonder of modern transport methods- Nairobi to London markets in just 6 hours" or "It's promoting consumer choice, which is a good thing", but I say "Bullshit", because the real costs are not being accounted for, and are being externalised all the way along the supply chain. This is a very superficial look at a massive great problem, which is still little appreciated by the vast majority of folks, and forget govts. that mostly bow down to the corporate giants and dollars these days. (Vide Thailand and the CP monster and US and Monsanto/ Cargill).

So geting back to your second point Maikaojai, the sentence may hold true for the Western world and is very well policed in places like Australia, where you have problems even bringing plant material from state to state, but still the rest of the world is largely oblivious to the potential damage that can be done from by taking exotics from one part of the globe to another. Thailand is a particularly bad offender in this regard, not only quite happily importing just about anything and everything from anywhere round the world (including GMOs), but also quite often actively promoting it at policy level. Hence, grapes, dates, oranges, holstein-friesian pure breeds and a lot of the other things talked about in the preceeding pages being regular features of the farming landscape here, often at the expense of local varieties and breeds. Bina makes some good valid points on this. The demise of the buffalo in the Isaan landscape (and it's valuable roles in promoting healthy farming) would be another good example.

I'm not saying there are only positives to existing breeds/varieties and negatives to exotic breeds/varieties, but we have to know and appreciate all the pluses and minuses before making an introduction or replace the old with the new. That is called wise conservation in my book.

[RamdomChances]

Hi all, I've been on hol's

Now you've brought up this topic Wash, it would be interesting to hear from Random and anyone else who are farang farmers, how much problem there is with either out and out organised theft/rustling or small time filching/scrumping of fruit by jealous neighbours,etc? Especially interested to know if it occurs with cattle in some places and what is/can be done to avoid/minimise it. All anecdotes welcome

Hi Pla, yes it does go on, I've only heared of one actual case though, rustling is not that easy, if you have ever tryed to get one of my cows to go where you want it let alone into the back of a lorry/pickup, its not that easy and to do that at night with no one noticing would be very difficult (but not imposible). The only case that I know is of one man who stole 2 cows from a nearbye farm, he was caught but reconed the other guy owed him money.

There is a mango orchard accross the road, and they have never had any prob's. I'm sure it goes on small scale. My mother-in-law is constantly worried about it, but I've no first hand experiance myself.

On the subject of dog farming, I know that strays are rounded up and sold for meat but I dont think it goes on around here, I'm too far from the dog eating markets. What do you think dog sell for per/kg I was under the impresion that it was a cheap meat (but could be wrong).

Anyway I cant see how the numbers would work for breeding dogs for sale as they are meat eaters and the cost of rearing one from a puppy to a saleble carcuss would make the cost of the meat proibitive.

So, very much like intensive and extensive livestock rearing systems for a niche market in Thailand and a mass export market in Vietnam. It also wouldn't surprise me if some find their way as far as southern china. Then there is an active trade in their pelts too, some possibly ending up as driving/golf gloves.

How would they transport them, its really expensive to transport live meat, esp meat eaters, they you have customs or pay offs = more cost, I really dont see how this is possible.

There are kennels around here that breed thing like Lab's, rotwielders, alsations ect but this is purly for sale as pets, they sell for about 3-5000 a head, I dont see how you could use them for meat!!

I wounder what Lab Lab would tast like

holstein-friesian pure breeds

We dont keep any pure breeds and I don't know anyone who does, even if we have a cow at around 80% pure we dont use 100% HF seaman because the calf would be "too pure" thay dont cope well with the heat and are very suseptable to parisites/dieseas''s, also the breeding life is shorter, if they survive that long.

Oh one last thought chilli is'nt indigious to thailand either.

Anyway cheers bye for now

RC

[plachon]

Good to see yer back Random. Thought you'd got the hump over draconian banning of Bluecat and were boycotting, or sommat like that? But hols sounds much better, especially for a dairy farmer - who do you get to cover the milking while you're away? Go anywhere nice? Like the new avatar btw. Must look for a toothy plachon one of these days to paste on.

Yeah, I'd figured that rustling can't be too bad round you or it would've probably come up before. Do you brand your cows by the way, or just tag their ears? Supposing a few cows did go walkies one night, is there much of a local network of farmers who'd help look out for their neighbours' cattle, or would it be be looked on unsympathetically? Most theft, i'd imagine, would be conducted by locals and somebody would be bound to hear sooner or later who pinched them, so keeping good neighbours has got to be good long term policy. (am not sure about the wisdom of putting high walls and vicious dogs between you and your neighbours, like Pnu is suggesting)

Dog meat...................not sure on the Sakhon nakhon market price for pooch steak, but heard it fetches $2/kg in Vietnam, which explains the healthy trade in them between Thailand, thru' Laos to Vietnam. I'll try and post a picture of the transport method sometime. Gruesome sight and sound of howling fear.

Remember they're not fattening up pure breeds. The mangy mongrels, given some deworming tablets are pretty good converters of low quality protein to meat and so the economics I'd say are pretty good, if you can buy a dog of a villager for the price of a bucket. That's about 20 baht and let's say you fatten up the dog to 20 kgs from 15kgs on market waste (i.e. pig swill) and low quality rice. That's negligible costs and if the price is say, 40 Baht /kg (i.e half of Vietnam cos less demand) , you'll maybe get 5 - 8 kgs of good meat off the carcass. That's 200 - 320 baht, without considering a few baht to be made from the skin and bits. Not bad for an outlay of less than 100 baht tops, eh? Maybe you should be considering diversifying your farm!

Haven't tried Lab laab yet, but can vouch for neua maa det deiow being quite tasty.

[RamdomChances]

Hi again, just replying to my own post, sad in'it

Ok apparently dog meat is expensive and considered a delicasy, but I could not find much referance to the farming of dogs in Thailand, or whether it is legal.

heres two links on the subject

http://www.yourdog.net/dogs_in_asia.htm

http://www.aapn.org/fooddogs.html

The last one has some pretty disturbing pics if you are a dog lover (and I dont mean the meat)

The first one when I started reading it I tought it was promoting dog farming, going on about how expensive they are in Vietnam and China, and then how much more profitable it was to farm than chickens X3 and pigs X4, but its not it wants to stop people eating dogs, but puts a really good buisiness case for the farming!!

Anyway I prefer my dogs running around the farm, but would not be agains people eating dog as long as they were reared and killed humanly (how do you kill something humanly??)

Saying that have any of you seen how they raise chickens and pigs in "human" countries all for the sake of a few pence/cents a kg saving in meat.

Bye again

RC

[RamdomChances]

Pla, we must stop posting at the same time!!

Yea been on hols my sister was out, BKK and Hua Hin nice, I've got staff to look after the farm and don't usually milk anymore (I'm a spare) and we are on the phone every day, but thats mostly about the lorry. The farm runs quite smooth as long as there are no probs (which sometimes happens )

Yea did have the hump about BC (but we can't mention it)

Can't see me getting into dogs, do you know anything about the legal side of that in Thailand ?

Haven't tried Lab laab yet, but can vouch for neua maa det deiow being quite tasty

Is that sun dried dog or horse, can never tell when they are writen in english

Cheers

RC

[plachon]

Nice one mate. Looked at the second of the two links and it both confirmed my fears about the trade (including the bit about the use of dog skin for golf gloves) and grossed me out with some of the photos. the one of the St Bernards turned inside out was particularly sick. Just like other livestock, it's all about FCR's now in China, which is bad news for cuddly Beethoven's! Wonder if the wondrous CP group have broken into the dog farming market yet - they've cornered just about everything else.

QUOTE

Haven't tried Lab laab yet, but can vouch for neua maa det deiow being quite tasty

Is that sun dried dog or horse, can never tell when they are writen in english

I'll give you two clues what it was - "woof! woof!"

Horse, I've yet to try anywhere, though it's a standing joke amongst the French that the Brits eat horse meat without realising it, while they are more open about their tastes and have licensed horse butchers.

As for the legality in Thailand, I would hazard a guess that it's one of those big grey areas where there is no relevant law and so it just goes on apace. I did hear that during the APEC meeting last Oct., the number of dog trucks going to Vietnam doubled, so BKK would be kept mutt free for the duration.

Ah a relief milker on one's own farm - you've got it sorted!

[davidmmurin]

Hello out there! Just to add to the forum my side of the farming business. When I got married last year my wife's father had a rice mill operation going so we decided to incorporate a hog operation as well. He already was contenting with so chickens and ducks and a few turkeys. The cost was nominal due to feed. The rice left over from the mill (lum) is the main substance for feed and can also be sold to other poultry producers. The hulls can be used for making charcoal and burned in the oven for making rice noodles,lao spagetti,or kanom gene....So everyting so far has been pretty cost efficient except for the the starter pellets after weanin till 3-4 months. The pork prices are down considerably now because no more chicken problems but their is still a market and the key is to have your own food supply and brood sows. We also started a welding shop for making agricultural gates and animal pens and farm equiptment repair as well as storage sheds for the farm.. Last year we stocked a farm tank with pla tap tim which is a restaurand grade fish and started out feeding them the fish pellets then added the lum...they are about 1 kilo...ALOY!!! We took about 7 rai and planted Som O on 6meter spacing with irrigation canals and use the chee moo hog shit from the farm for spread. So nothing is wasted. At the present we have drilled a well and filled property for a lathe house & herbal greenhouse and dok mai.

[RamdomChances]

Hi Dave

Sounds a nice set up, good to hear from someone else actually involved in farming here. Where are you by the way. Is you welding shop up and running, if you not too far I might be able to put some buissiness your way.

We used to feed "lum" as an suplement to the cows, they love it, how much do you sell it for? I think we were paying about 4 bht/kg for thr good stuff (like a white powder).

There are two types ones the white powder and the other is much courser, can remember the names off the top of my head long time ago.

"Geap" the husk's of the rice is used a lot in the chicken industry as well, a bit like we used saw dust back home, we used to sell it by the lorry to chicken farms, they use it a lot in brick making as well.

How many pig's have you got?, how much do they sell for? ect (come on share with us )

Have you thought about buying a small scale pellet making machine?

If you mix lum with any sort of vegitable matter ( the pond weed is supposed to be good) churn it up and make pellets you can then feed this to your fish ( how big is the tank)

As for no chicken probs, its back big time here, no one can move any chickens.

Cheers RC

[chuchok]

RC,

I've been reading your posts with great interest.Her are a couple of web sites that you may be interested in.

Quick question.NZ Dairy farmers sometimes use maize in the winter months for feed.All they do is use a movable electric fence so that the cows only get a cartain amount each day etc.Can you grow maize here? I would have thought that it would grow like stink in the Thai climate and can handle the wet weather.

just a thought.

http://dairy-farming.nzpages.co.nz/Agricul.../dairy_farming/

http://www.dexcel.co.nz

[RamdomChances]

chuchok

Thanks for the links.

Asd for maize, yes it grows well here, we currently have about 55 rai if it growing, but its for sale not feed. We also use "electric fence" well its wire really conected to a regulator box. It can give uo quite a kick especially if you try to cock your leg over it and your #### brush against it, but thats an other story

To be honest I have'nt got into the "farming" side of things to much yet. Until March this year the bulk of the land was rented out, so we only had about 7 rai left which I used to open the farm. We are extending the farm by an other 7 rai with new milking palour and buildings, so I just let my mother-in-law grow what she wanted on the rest.

Now I'm looking out at 50 odd rai of lovely looking maize (corn on the cob?) and thinking Hmmm my cows would love to eat that. So the next project is sorting out whats the best to grow, any ideas anyone (pla)

My current thinking is leaning to what they call here Yaa Jumbo, its like a really tall grass, looks a bit like immature sugar cain when grown, it gets to about 6-8 foot, anyone have any ideas on what it reall name is ?

The other option is cow fang (forgot again what its called). Maize is a bit expensive to grow, just for food and it does'nt grow back so I belive, the yaa jumbo just grows back after cutting. Its best to cut it by machine or hand and shread it, cos if you let the cows out to eat it, they trample it, only eat the leaves and you have no idea how much they are eating a day.

Oh the other prob with electric fence as used here is that if the cows dont see it, or run through it, the rest will follow them. When I first opened the farm we only had electric fence around the out side, one night there was a thunder storm, the cows panic'd and through they went. At the time they we're growing sugar cain on the land and it was nearly ready for cutting about 8 ft tall. So we had a night of running through the cain p!ssing down with rain trying to find the cows I've got a proper fence now

Ok bye for now cheers RC

[chuchok]

RC,

You have actually got to train cattle about elec fences.A good way to start is to tie ribbons etc evey few metres along the fence.(We used to use coloured/braided string/wire..this was mainly due for the reason you pointed out...taking a leak in the wrong place )When they get their first jolt, you can be rest assured that they will not do it again.However a real elec fence does not have the jolt like mains power If you give them a really good shock, then its amazing they didn't end up in Laos.

The maize we used to plant in NZ was really big stuff.the actual corn was at least twice the size of the normall eating variety.The cows used to eat the lot too.

I'm going back many years as to when I was young, so my limited knowledge is somewhat limited in todays high tech world.

Another fodder with really good nutrients was silage...I imagine you could make from the waste of rice etc.

I have a mate who is a dairy and dry stock farmer coming up here next year for a visit.If he evntially shows up, let me know any quetions you want answered and I'll put it too him.Dairy farming in NZ wld be totally different to here tho,but it may be interesting to hear what he has to say.

cheers

[bannork]

Dear happy fellow farmers,

We're waiting on the promise from the village headman for electricity in our fields, we have a house and pond there, I'm thinking of putting up an electric fence around our 20 rai but a relative tells me the electric shock will sterilise the cows! Has anyone heard of this or is it another old,(or young), Thai wives' tale?

Yours, bannork.

[chuchok]

This is definatly an old wives' tale.

[RamdomChances]

Yea an old wifes tale. or all mine would be sterile

[sbk]

What would you think of a Farming/Gardening/Animal Husbandry forum for us country folks? I don't live in Isaan so most of your concerns aren't mine but if we had our own forum we couldl share our experience. What do you think??? I've posted it in the forum support forum but if we could get others interested in it, George might go for it.

[RamdomChances]

What would you think of a Farming/Gardening/Animal Husbandry forum for us country folks? I don't live in Isaan so most of your concerns aren't mine but if we had our own forum we couldl share our experience. What do you think??? I've posted it in the forum support forum but if we could get others interested in it, George might go for it.

I"d check which forum you posted it in its actually in the "Pub" one , why dont you PM George. ( you've been here longer than me )

I to don't live in Issarn and think this sort of thread could do with being opened out more.

Cheers RC

[sbk]

Actually ramdom, that is also the "food" section, and I figured since I my original post about grapefruit I thought it might be the most appropriate. Boo has already mentioned it in the forum questions section, so perhaps a PM to george would be an idea.

Just curious how much support there would be for such a thing is all. If there is little to no interest then I won't pursue it, but if others show an interest (besides 2 or 3) then I will make an effort to push the idea.

[RamdomChances]

Ok sbk, did'nt see the one in the forum support, and to lazy to write the full name of the "pub' one out

I think if anyone wants to know wether there is support for this sort of forum, they only have to look here, 12 pages, 166 replies,(all with no "flaming"/name calling) that must make this the most popular non BG thread on the forum and probably half the members dont even know its here!!

Any way, it takes more than just me and you so I would suggest any body that reads this just to make a little post in the support desk thread that sbk started.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16832

Cheers RC

[stoneman]

My Thai wife and I just bought 19 rai about 30 kms southwest of Nong Khai. We now have a total of 64 rai...all of it farm land. We currently have 20 rai in rubber trees...just finishing their 2nd year, 15 rai of sugar cane and 10 rai of tapioca. The latest addition has 13 rai of rice, which is rented by some of the locals.

I do not believe in planting rice. For the cost of preparing the fields, planting the rice, harvesting the rice, etc, I can go to Lotus and buy more there than we can produce and it is a lot less trouble.

We live and work in BKK and have bought the land for an investment and a place to retire. We have hired locals to take care of the crops for us and we pay each family a small monthly salary. Which is more than enough for each family to live on. It is much better than seeing them sit around and drink whiskey. And so far, I have had no problems. I doubt very seriously if I will show a profit on this project, but profit was not the motive.

The new 13 rai of rice will be harvested and then I plan to bring in many loads of topsoil and fill in the paddies. I will then have it plowed and contoured for water runoff and then plant sugar cane. The remaining 5-6 rai, I plan on trying to plant avocado trees. The govt has a program to expand the avocado market here in Thailand and I am trying to get additional info on availability of trees. Have a name and phone number but have not made contact yet. Sure planting will not be done until next Spring.

The amount of land being put into rubber trees in the NE is amazing. It seems to be the fastest growing crop in terms of number of rais planted.

Stoneman

[sbk]

That's really interesting stoneman, I thought rubber was primarily a southern product. I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that it was believed that in a few years (10-20) the price of rubber would skyrocket because of the falling availability of petrochemicals.

We bought our avocado trees in Mae Sot, Tak outside the agriculture research center there. I read somewhere that Nakhon Ratchasima had quite a few too. You could try the agriculture dept of your province. As for Avos, they like poor soil and good drainage, if your land is even remotely swampy they will develop root rot. Also, they don't like it windy. Maybe it hinders growth?? Anyway, the California Avocado Growers has a good website with lots of info:Calif. Avocado Growers Let me know how they turn out, we planted our trees about 7 years ago but only got fruit this year (thanks to father-in-law spraying herbicides on the weeds every year ) but they sure were tasty!

[RamdomChances]

Stoneman

I if you are buying the land for investment and are and "absentie" landlord who is not that interested in making a profit, why not just rent the land out. then you have no worried with employies, selling the crops ect and would have a definate profit (all be it not much)

Sugar cain should make a decent profit of about 4000 bht a rai a year, but ois relitivly expensive to plant (need to replant about every 4 years) and need very little work or mantanance, usually the harvest is done with contract labour.

Rice is not really that worth while unless you have ample supplies of cheap water, here they can grow 3 crops a year using irrigation water from the Chao Praya river.

Tapioca I have no idea, whats it called in thai ?

An idea if you want to grow something as a long term investment is Eucaliptus which you can just plant and leave grow, after about 5-6 years you can get about 1000 bht a ton ( i'm not sure on those figs, it was a while ago I was talking about it). It does have its enviromental issues though and basically sucks all the goodness out of the soil.

Even better would be a teak plantation, you have to wait somthing like 10-15 years for the crop though and be sure to register them with the local forestry department, or you wont be able to cut and sell them.

We turned ours over to maize this year from sugar cane and we are going to try sun flower next. If ther are many beef of dairy farms in the area grass is good to grow on old rice paddies as long as you have a year long water supply.

The growing "stuff" part of the farm is'nt my fstrong point though as most of my efought goes into the cows.

Cheers RC

Oh forgot here's some good info on avocado farming in thailand

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/X4565E/x4565e10.htm#P0_0

[plachon]

Agree with some of what RC says, but definitely NOT the part about planting eucalyptus. Plant anything else, BUT eucalyptus. They're a weed and a curse in Isaan. Not only do they suck the water out the water table, they kill other surrounding vegetation, due to the oils in their leaves and vigorous competitive growth, increase erosion and generally destroy the local ecology. Not only this though, but they have rapidly decreasing returns after the first harvest (6 - 8 years), an increasing labour requirement and will eventually leave you with crapped out exhausted soil good for nothing. And that's being kind to them! RFD now no longer promote them like they once did, but seedlings are still disturbingly common in Isaan, both though local nurseries and natural seeding. At this rate the whole of Isaan will be covered by them and other aggressive alien weeds, like mai arab (Mimosa pigra - a fast spreading thorny weed going mental up here) in about 10 -20 years time. By then there'll be few native trees left (not that there are that many now!).

Tapioca, by the way, is another name for cassava, another forest destroyer (but not in the same league as eucs).

Please Stoneman, if you're going to do anything with the land, plant trees and the more fruit and natives species the better. If the paddy land is high terrace paddy you probably won't need to fill it in with soil, but just let the bunds go and plant away. If it's low lying land paddies, you'll probably cause flood problems on others land if you just fill it in with soil. Depends on the existing local drainage patterns.

Again, would be interested to kniow if you can provide any examples of avocados doing succesfully in Isaan, apart from at high altitudes like in Loei. sbk, anyone?

[RamdomChances]

Hi pla

I had a feeling you might have something to say about the eucalyptus what do you mean you dont agree with me I did say it was bad, just left it to you to fill in the details

Cheers RC

[bannork]

plachon,

I see your reference to "mai arab", is this a tree or bush\plant promoted for its wood or is it a weed as you describe?

I ask out of curiosity because in some of our fields near a Tamarine tree we have a problem with a virulent thorny weed, the stalk is very thin but long and tough with countless offshoots, the flowers are purple and the thorns are ###### sharp, it stays close to the ground but wraps itself around grass and bushes, deterring our cows, getting rid of it seems impossible, dig up the roots and it comes back again.

It's not a bush though, and probably native, do you know what I'm describing?

yours,

bannork.

[RamdomChances]

Bannork

Is it "don ma cam ted" sorry about the spelling, it starts off a a bush but if you leave it it will grow rapidly into trees with really sharp thorns (sounds equally like plachons mai arab), anyway we used to chop them down regularly, but have found that if you let them grow they provide excellent shade for the cows most other things we plant the cows eat them before they get a chance.

[plachon]

Sorry to disagree RC (again! ), but what banokr describes sounds more like "Mai arab". It's a fast spreading weed, thorny as ######, cows and buffalo will only touch soft new shoots, reaches about 12 ft tall, flowers and seeds about this time of year, resists nearly all forms of control (bar agent orange!) and is a bugger if it gets on your land. It seems to be spread by a/ streams and rivers and b/ seeds attached to vehicles, like in tipper trucks. Only benefit I see is that bees like its pink flowers.

"Dton makham ted" on the other hand is benign and makes a bloody good wood for "kiang" (chopping boards) once it gets yay big. The fruits can be quite tasty "ahaan waang" too.

By the way, RC, mentioning eucalyptus to me is like waving a red flag in front of a bull - so quit it! Chop all the buggers down and dig up the stumps is my advice to all! Bloody white trailer trash wood.

[RamdomChances]

Ok I posted it wrong, should of been "Is it" not "it is" curse this dyslexica i've edited it now, never came across mai arab, thought it might just be a reginal name for the same thing ( the wife has'nt heard of it either).

By the way I remember you posting about "the tree that can not be named" before, that why I said i thought you'd have something to say.

I did think about planting some once, long ago before I did any research on them, just giving some options

[sbk]

Sorry ramdom, your link goes to TEAK farming in thailand! Something I wanted to try but my husband says we are too far south and too wet for the best kind of teak to grow. Apparently there are different kinds ( ) and the kind that grows in the South is not the one used for building.

Plachon: no idea how avos would do at lower elevations in Isaan, check out the orchards in Nakhon Ratchasima. But I'll tell you, our trees are at sea level (we're on an island, how much more sea level can you get?) and we are just about 10 degrees north of the equator, so although we are a bit milder than Isaan weather we certainly don't ever get cool temps. And, if it hadn't been dad with the chemicals (apparently avos are very sensitive to herbicides; didn't kill em but they didn't flower) we would have had fruits after 4 years. Avos don't need a chilling period at all.

[RamdomChances]

Opps sorry wrong link try this one

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X6902E/x6902e0b.htm

I've got links here for all knids of stuff, after spending hours looking for dairy farming, trouble is it noew takes ages to find the link i'm looking for.

[Thaicoon]

I think the same as Stoneman, just bought another 32 Rai in Buriram, i have mostly rice land, it is all bordering on to a road and not altogeather, so in the future maybe i will build some houses and sell a few plots, as there are more ferangs coming this way looking for land, bought for investment, we now have over 100 Rai, and i do get a return on rice, it cost me nothing as my family farm it and we are on 60-40 40% for me, had a good amount last year, kept the rice untill the price rose and then sold, this year i think we will do a lot better as more land and a better harvest, also we have dug big lakes so have plenty of water and fish, and it is great to have a day fishing with a few beers with your mates.