Too Much RICE

[khwaibah]

Keep checking.. Thailand is the same latitude as Hawaii..Do pineapple like Sandy clay soil?

Aloha

Pineapples are grown by the thousands in Thailand primarily about Rayong south of Pattaya and east of Chiang Mai. I'm in Surin on the border. The soil is shyt. (sandy). These pineapples were planted in May and are doing fantastic.

[CLW]

Plenty of slightly insulting remarks about Thai farmers here. In our part of Isaan, it's one crop a year, rice. There is no water available after the rainy season so other crops are out of the question. Even if there were, the pump would get stolen. The soil turns into concrete. Ducks, chickens etc, are you joking? Fence it all in and have a guardian to prevent theft out there day and night? Son in law had all his shading net stolen plus most of his vegetables from a small plot. He has tried melons, tobacco, all sorts of crops. The cost of fertiliser and pesticides put paid to that little revolution.

Cows: we have four and it gets difficult to get them sufficient fodder in the dry season. Zucchihi was good for us last year, this year everyone is growing them and nobody wants to buy.

It depends where you are, we aren't all in the central plains. There is generally a good reason why people only grow rice, or cassava or maize or sugar.

I understand most of your points. Just wonder who is stealing the stuff? People from your village, jealous farmers? And how about saving rainwater or make a borehole?

Regards

[cooked]

Plenty of slightly insulting remarks about Thai farmers here. In our part of Isaan, it's one crop a year, rice. There is no water available after the rainy season so other crops are out of the question. Even if there were, the pump would get stolen. The soil turns into concrete. Ducks, chickens etc, are you joking? Fence it all in and have a guardian to prevent theft out there day and night? Son in law had all his shading net stolen plus most of his vegetables from a small plot. He has tried melons, tobacco, all sorts of crops. The cost of fertiliser and pesticides put paid to that little revolution.

Cows: we have four and it gets difficult to get them sufficient fodder in the dry season. Zucchihi was good for us last year, this year everyone is growing them and nobody wants to buy.

It depends where you are, we aren't all in the central plains. There is generally a good reason why people only grow rice, or cassava or maize or sugar.

I understand most of your points. Just wonder who is stealing the stuff? People from your village, jealous farmers? And how about saving rainwater or make a borehole?

Regards

Oh dear. Lazy good for nothings. People from the next village, where they no longer talk Lao but Cambodian, sometimes people actually from Cambodia, buffaloes and iron buffaloes vanish. Saving rain water, well goodness me we never thought of that. Our 7 metre deep fish pond is nearly empty in January. As I mentioned, boreholes need pumps and pumps get stolen.

[CLW]

3rd world country

[swampdonkey]

When Manchester United sacked David Moyes, I thought he went to Spain not a rice farm in Thailand. Look at the picture above.

That's not David Moyes. It's his brother Paddy

[apetley]

sugar cane

Not a hope.

Really? Where we are a lot of the sugarcane was switched to rice a few years ago to take advantage of the subsidy and this last year just about all of them have switched back to sugarcane because the bottom has fallen out of rice and because of the shortage of water.

[BudRight]

Interesting. My partner (a nurse in Bangkok) whose family farms rice around Chaiyaphum seemingly has never considered what else to grow. I asked her about the suggestions made here and all I get is a blank stare Not considered or "what are you talking about"?

It seems that perhaps more education among rice farmers is what is needed for a starter?

Exactly my experience,

It is impossible for the farmers to imagine that they can grow anything else.

I am an Engineer working in Bangkok and my family and their friends upcountry

ask me all the time why I not work,,,,

Their definition of work is working in a paddy field.

If you not work in a paddy field…You not work…

You cannot change them, but it is nice to see that the young generation think different.

Only time can change this.

Most farmers are simple people, very direct when they talk but they have very big hearts.

Engineers can have big hearts. It really has nothing to do with making intelligent choices about what crop to grow. It's not like someone can only be either nice or smart, but not both.

My grandparents were farmers....and I'm not. It's not like this takes 10 generations or something.

I think Thais have a dim conception of social mobility.

[Mudcrab]

sugar cane

Not a hope.

Really? Where we are a lot of the sugarcane was switched to rice a few years ago to take advantage of the subsidy and this last year just about all of them have switched back to sugarcane because the bottom has fallen out of rice and because of the shortage of water.

Please post some photos of cane growing in rice paddies.

Must be the special root rot free type not known anywhere else in the world.

[apetley]

.

[apetley]

sugar cane

Not a hope.

Really? Where we are a lot of the sugarcane was switched to rice a few years ago to take advantage of the subsidy and this last year just about all of them have switched back to sugarcane because the bottom has fallen out of rice and because of the shortage of water.

Please post some photos of cane growing in rice paddies.

Must be the special root rot free type not known anywhere else in the world.

The sugarcane in these pics was planted in paddy last Dec/Jan.