Rice farmers urged to sell directly to consumers

[webfact]

Rice farmers urged to sell directly to consumers
By PRATCH RUJIVANAROM

THE NATION

 

A poster for the “Farmer’s Children” campaign initiated by Kasetsart University professor Decharut Sukkumnoed invites farmers’ children to help their parents by selling rice directly to consumers.

 

Academic addresses plummeting prices

 

BANGKOK: -- ACADEMICS have proposed that farmers employ relatives sell to rice to friends to remove middlemen and help to tackle falling prices. 

Since the price of paddy had dropped to just Bt5 per kilogram, and was expected to drop further once the harvest season ends in November, Kasetsart University economics lecturer Decharut Sukkumnoed said farmers’ families should help to bring rice directly to consumers.

“The main reason for the low price is that the market is monopolised. As we can see, the price of paddy is dropping but the price of polished rice is still high. Therefore, in order to address this problem, we have to let the producers and consumers meet each other through farmers’ children,” Decharut said.

 

Full story: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/politics/30298395

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2016-10-26

[khwaibah]

The price is in the crappers. 5 baht per kilo. What idiot came up with that idea.

[worgeordie]

 tackle falling prices. ?, the prices at retail level have not fallen at all,

for a major grower of rice,the price of rice seems very high,due I suppose

from someone paying the farmers twice the World market price,and the

prices have never came down since.

regards worgeordie

[ExpatOilWorker]

Looks like the farmers better get use to low prices. It has been a long and slow decline.

 

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=rice&months=120

[RichardColeman]

10 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Looks like the farmers better get use to low prices. It has been a long and slow decline.

 

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=rice&months=120

Maybe they should switch to growing potatoes. My local big c just put then up 25% !

[maoro2013]

Easily said, but not so easy to accomplish, anyone growing a decent sized crop would not be able to employ this method, and these are the people with most to lose.

 

 

[robblok]

They should get big cooperatives and get more power bargaining with the traders. They are partly to blame themselves in other countries farmers have a better position because of this.

 

Sure its hard to find trustworthy people to run those.. but as we see now farmers are not really winning. 

[adhd]

150-200 baht for 5 kilo in any supermarket

 

who is taking  / making all the profits ?

[bark]

Farmers riding tractors on Sukhumvit; making deliveries to Landmark and Westin Hotels.

Great Idea.

[Time Traveller]

Great idea. Now each of these farmers just need to find a thousand or so consumers each week who want to buy a couple of kilograms of unmilled and unhusked paddy that may or may not contain  insect larvae, mould and or fungus. 

Who needs those damn middle men!

[Time Traveller]

49 minutes ago, adhd said:

150-200 baht for 5 kilo in any supermarket

 

who is taking  / making all the profits ?

 

49 minutes ago, adhd said:

150-200 baht for 5 kilo in any supermarket

 

who is taking  / making all the profits ?

When governments give subsidies out, the inefficient producers - who should not be in business- suddenly become viable. The result is overproduction and This also affects the efficient producer as the oversupply forces market prices lower. 

Sad to say this but many farmers shouldn't be farming. Unfortunately decades of incompetent governments and self sufficiency propaganda has only kept the poor rural people impoverished.

[anon467848]

No doubt, the middlemen will send their enforcers to meet with the local Poo Yai Ban and discourage direct selling by the rice farmers. Or else...

Edited October 26, 2016 by merlin2002

[The man from udon]

Rice soup,rice cakes,rice wine,rice on toast,rice showers,rice flip flops there's so much you can do with the stuff.mixed with cement it makes a good concrete.god knows how this country works.complete balls up and the people will now be left deep in the poo.

[Emster23]

So they want to eliminate the middlemen.... "... we have to let the producers and consumers meet each other through farmers’ children,”

Ah, the kids will be new middlemen, and being children, will work for free. School? Could be argued they might learn more being out of school... I can just see a stream of kids coming by my door trying to sell rice. Very efficient. Even if they tried this, some mafia would easily take them over through intimidation, etc.

 It takes great intellectual prowess to come up with these schemes that an unlettered person would immediately recognize as codswallop. 

[williamgeorgeallen]

3 hours ago, Time Traveller said:

Great idea. Now each of these farmers just need to find a thousand or so consumers each week who want to buy a couple of kilograms of unmilled and unhusked paddy that may or may not contain  insect larvae, mould and or fungus. 

Who needs those damn middle men!

what they need is an uber app for selling rice for the farmers to find buyers.  some egg head out there should be able to code something up.

[sbf]

We grow and sell about 20 tonnes of rice a year which is surplus to our family food requirements. At 5 baht a kilo and even I dare say 10 baht it is not an economic proposition, at least not if you are farming well, and putting some fertiliser on. However alternate crops during the wet season are few, there is little realistic alternative to using the land for rice growing. Try growing potatoes in this heat on land which is frequently waterlogged, you will not make a single baht. Milling by my reckoning takes about 45% with the machines available to most of us in the villages. This service is free, with the machine owner making their money from selling the waste. So at 5 baht a kilo for the paddy the milled rice would be under 10 baht a kilo. Most rice in supermarkets is around 40 baht per kilo, so 30 baht is going to the millers, transport and retailers.  

 

Our strategy with our rice fields have been partly what the good Professor has suggested. We tend to grow specialist cultivars, which receive a higher price, we grow organically so receive a premium for that, and we market as much as we can ourselves direct to consumers or to retail outlets as he suggests. We seldom start selling until Songkran as the price is normally lower as the harvest comes in and rises as the year goes on. Even with all this I can assure all there is not much money to be made in rice. It is hard work to produce, just like any agricultural crop there are a multitude of potential problems, from weather, pests, weeds and so on. Even though we receive from 20-45 baht per kg for our paddy. there is little profit in it.

 

I agree with the above comments about agricultural cooperatives, I have long thought this is a way ahead here, but vested interests are strong and entrenched here, so I cannot see it happening unless there was strong governmental support.

[elgordo38]

5 hours ago, worgeordie said:

 tackle falling prices. ?, the prices at retail level have not fallen at all,

for a major grower of rice,the price of rice seems very high,due I suppose

from someone paying the farmers twice the World market price,and the

prices have never came down since.

regards worgeordie

Yes the middleman gets it all. Maybe like Mennonite country farmers should set up roadside stalls and sell rice by the bag to passers by. 11 to 12 bahts a bag. Some margin growers should just quit pouring good money into the ground for no return. You cannot get blood from a stone. Just take the money and buy from your neighbor. Its time to buggar the middle man. Modern day carpetbaggers. 

[Srikcir]

In September the government temporarily stopped holding state rice auctions to avoid oversupplying the market ahead of the annual crop harvest in November. But now it advises farmers to sell directly to consumers?

When there is a market oversupply, it doesn't matter to whom the product is sold.

[kickstart]

11 hours ago, Time Traveller said:

Great idea. Now each of these farmers just need to find a thousand or so consumers each week who want to buy a couple of kilograms of unmilled and unhusked paddy that may or may not contain  insect larvae, mould and or fungus. 

Who needs those damn middle men!

First  of the farmers need to find a  rice mill  .to mill  there rice most  villages  have one ,some are  big some are small ,some are full time some are  part  time ,in my area  of not so many rice farmers, they will be queuing to  the end of the soi  to get there  rice milled  .most do it for free .and keep back  the rice bran  and the small  and cracked grains that fall though the  grading sieves ,which they sell them selves   ,and after a while they will think we are  on to a good little earner here and start  charging farmers for the service, which will cut  the farmers margin  even  more , and some of these local  rice mills  do not make a  good job of milling rice ,still  a lot of crap in the final sample ,may be ok in a village  ,but for other markets  it will not work.

The BKK academics  need to think again on this one.

.  

[tomyummer]

Economics professor doesn't mean he knows business.

Cost 5kg of raw material: 25 baht....
Processing, bagging, transport (trucks and gasoline), distribution, marketing, damaged goods or returns, etc.

Every drop per baht of rice in the farmers hands wouldn't translate to a huge reduction of shelf pricing. All other costs in the chain from producer to retailer remain. Rice is a bulk commodity.

Sure, the kids of farmers could create direct mail websites or neighborhood distribution centers, but those transport costs would make them price their product possibly at a 15 to 25 baht discount when compared to retail. For quality control and convenience I'd rather pay for the extra baht. Reduce by 50% then we can talk.

[fruitman]

13 hours ago, adhd said:

150-200 baht for 5 kilo in any supermarket

 

who is taking  / making all the profits ?

 

Today the wife bought 5 kg jasmin for 156 at the Makro...is that cheap?

[Xircal]

15 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Looks like the farmers better get use to low prices. It has been a long and slow decline.

 

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=rice&months=120

 

Looking at the growth rate it looks like Thailand is used to these kind of fluctuations: http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=th&commodity=milled-rice&graph=production-growth-rate

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

5 minutes ago, Xircal said:

 

Looking at the growth rate it looks like Thailand is used to these kind of fluctuations: http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=th&commodity=milled-rice&graph=production-growth-rate

 

 

Interesting that there have been zero net growth for the past 16 years.

[Xircal]

4 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

 

Interesting that there have been zero net growth for the past 16 years.

 

If you switch to "Quantity" (link above the chart) it gives a better picture.

[Gary A]

Upcountry where I live, no one buys rice at the supermarket. Rice is sold bulk by the kilo at local fresh markets. Supermarket rice is thought to be inferior. There are many small rice mills in every village. The reason there are so many is because farmers with chickens and livestock don't want to give away the bran and cracked rice. They need it to feed their livestock. After milling, you are lucky to get 60 percent of the gross weight of the paddy.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Gary A

[rickudon]

You can buy rice from the supermarket for 15-20 baht a kilo (5 kg bag). Maybe taste ok to us, but not Thais. But for 30 baht easy to get good rice. If you are paying 200 baht for a 5 kilo bag it must be really posh stuff.

[fruitman]

All over Thailand i've visited shops/stands along the road, they all sell local produce but i've never seen them selling bags of rice. Why is that?

Edited November 1, 2016 by fruitman

[rickudon]

They sell direct from the sack or an open tub. You can easily check the quality and make sure no or very little foreign matter. If you bagged it up, customers would still want to check the weight and probably still ask for a carrier bag to put the bag of rice in. So bagging a waste of packaging.

[fruitman]

6 minutes ago, rickudon said:

They sell direct from the sack or an open tub. You can easily check the quality and make sure no or very little foreign matter. If you bagged it up, customers would still want to check the weight and probably still ask for a carrier bag to put the bag of rice in. So bagging a waste of packaging.

 

So the customers don't trust the weight of a bag of 5kg.....that's the issue why selling online won't work...In japan 5kg is 5kg i guarantee.

 

But rice should be sold in a heavy duty clear plastic bag, if it breaks in the car that's no fun.

 

Those shops along the roads never show the price, also that works against them. Well it's time they grow up and stop cheating customers so they can just buy without worries. But of course they found a better way now, just ask loads of money from the government so the Bangkokians will pay them anyway. Again, nothing will change in Thailand while the rest of the world develops more and more.