Economics of Rice Farming

[Guest]

Check with the neighbors. If it was me, I would check on how much urea they use. In one area, I was totally surprised to find out they were using this. This, to me, is an indicator of poor soil. Also, urea does not come cheap.

[Stickman]

Flyonzewall is the man you want for help on this thread.

[MikeN]

Hi, I work for a state agricultural dept, so i looked up some facts on rice growing here in Oz, which are not of course directly relevant, but here we get around 10 tonnes of unmilled rice/hectare, which works out around 1.6 tonnes per rai, with one harvest a year.

[Guest]

MightyMouse said:

This, to me, is an indicator of poor soil. Also, urea does not come cheap.

 

not neccesarily poor soil rather than the soil type in question may be deficient in some part realtive to the requirements of that particular crop or to the desired production output. It should be noted that Urea contains up to 46% nitrogen present as NH4+ which is readily oxidised into NO3-. The amount of N present in the soil will be affected by the balance of gains (organic inputs and atmoshpheric Noitrogen fixation) and losses (leaching, plant removal and gaseous loss) Very little NH4+ is derived from parent material.

 

In other words where there is heavy organic losses (harvesting) and leaching due to high rainfall/irrigation then the plant available N will drop to a level that requires an additive which in the past was usually achieved by the application of ammonium nitrate but these days more often by the aplication of Urea.

 

This then of course raises the issue of eutophifcation of waterways causing undesirable offsite effects but that issue is beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[rickfarang]

10,000 baht per rai seems to be near the low end of land prices upcountry, without telephone or electricity nearby. I suspect she got a pretty good deal, that is if the land if productive.

 

 

RickF

[Guest]

>>>So, how profitable is rice farming .<<<

 

 

first of all, 20 rai of farmland for 200 000 baht is very cheap (i got mine even cheaper - 33 rai for 260 000, and we have very safe sor por kor 401 papers. very lucky! now, after 3 years it's worth about 400 000 baht. and rising.), but the importance is which papers the land has (if it has proper ownership papers.

how profitable the land is depends on more factors than i can list, so no way to come up with any sort of number. one thing though is that 20 rai are not enough for commercial farming, but enough for at least 2 families doing selfsufficient farming (again depening on the quality of the land).

pure rice farming depends formost on wateraccess. then one has to decide if one wants to use chemical fertilisers (necessary in commercial farming), or organic methods (better quality, but generally only one harvest - not suitable for commercial farming).

then it depends on the weather. monsoon to early, too late, too weak, to strong can destroy the whole harvest. if you just have 20 rai for commercial farming that can easily get you into a debt trap where there is no escape (hence the huge amount of prostitutes an taxi drivers from upcountry trying to pay off debilitating debts).

and the kind of rice you plant, and the momentary worldmarket price, and if you have to sell the rice wet (cheap) or dry (good money). and how you plant it - by machine or by hand. if by hand even the handtemperature can make a difference - some people simlply cannot get it to grow properly - in our land we can clearly see the difference where my missus planted something (grows great) and where other familymembers planted (in descening order from great to useless).

basically - every year will be different.

[vision25]

After speaking to the BiL I have found out that 1 rai will produce about 1 ton of rice that sells for 4000bt.

 

Now all I have to do is find out what costs go into producing this. Anyone know ::

 

My wife has plenty of relatives in the area who already own a fair bit of land so I don't think she is paying an exhorbitant price.

[Guest]

that is the max you get. if you do commercial farming, if you use chemical fertilizer, if the weather is perfect.

to get that you will have to invest about 1000 baht in fertilizer, pestizide. not yet counted are wages for labourers.

if the weather is not perfect (which it is not all the time) you will get considerably less or nothing.

[Guest]

I like to think about the movie "The Beach" where the Thai people are growing all that Marajuana. Forget pig farming or rice farming, grow some fats buds and you have a cash crop!! Of course, you would have to have connections with the local cops so you can pay them thier tea money and you do not end up in the "Bangkok Hilton" ha ha ha

 

You guys can thank me later for the bad advice

[vision25]

Some further details, all for 1 rai.

 

Planting . 1man 2 days = 400bt

 

Rice seed 700bt

 

Threshing machine hire 100bt

 

Harvesting 1man 3 days = 600bt

 

Therefore costs are 1800bt

 

Assuming an average harvest of 2300bt 3 times a year gives a yield of 15%, not allowing for cost of capital. This is about what I would expect.

 

I imagine being a rice farmer is a bit of a precarious occupation. Interestingly the wifes family left Petchabun 10 years age when the crops failed repeatedly.