Water Buffalo Vrs Tractors

[Flashermac]

I always chat up the taxi drivers. One the other day told me that with the price of LPG so low he'd made 2000 baht the previous Sunday, after deducting the taxi rent and LPG. Helluva lot of hours driving for it though.

 

I hear very mixed comments for cabbies. Some complain about their income, but others seem happy with it. Many tell me they oppose an increase in fares, saying it would reduce the number of customers and thus reduce their income.

 

My driver yesterday told me the taxi increase actually is in effect right now. But with around 70,000 taxis in Bangkok it will take a long time to reset the meters.

 

p.s. I remember when farmers used a high yield rice and a petroleum based fertilizer. Problem was the rice didn't taste as good and now the increased cost of the fertilizer has priced it out of their range.

[HSTEACH]

Thanks Cent....damn good post!!

[Neo]

Many are starting to use natural fertilizers....

That is encouraging and good to hear.

 

I've seen how they do this in the rice fields...

The organic herbacide is to let plaa chawn (snakehead fish) and crabs into the fields. They munch any critters and when the season is over they become valuable food for som-tam and the like. Doesn't get easier than that! For fertilizer, it's all about enriching the soil, building it better year after year. Problem is now the chemicals have harmed the soil so severely it isn't capable of growing much. A farmer from Khon Kaen once told me it takes about 6 years to convert from a chemically ruined field to an organic one that is as profitable and there aren't any farmers that can take that. So the downward cycle of using more fertilizer making for poorer soil and repeat continues.

 

[Tiger Moth]

A few weeks ago, I spent a couple of hours working in a rice field. Very difficult, back breaking work. My gf's mother and father are in their 50's and are out there all day. I can't imagine how they do it - and always smiling and pleasant in the evening.

 

I too have watched construction workers in amazement. Another favorite of mine, are road workers. I've seen lots of 6 pack stomaches and bulging muscles.

 

While there may be some Thai slackers, there are many, many very hard working people.

[Flashermac]

The Thai women are the ones who amaze me. There are far more male slackers than female. I remember watching a work crew lining a klong with concrete and huge slagstones. The only man in sight was the foreman. All of the workers were gals.

 

It's a tribute to Isaan morality than such a small percent of the women actually do end up in the nightlife scene.

 

 

[CTO]

Cent as you know education in rural areas is my work - you know too well

 

Buffalo's working - only when reporters come out.

 

Vast majority of Buffalo's don't work - it's a game like collecting stamps - the value keeps going up so they keep collecting. The beast in most cases does nothing. Because traditional forces have decided the soul of the country is buffalo's working (and it conveniently keeps the poor poor) the poor aren't stupid - they keep and make more buffalo - but frankly use tractors and chemical fertilizers.

 

Lazy whore making Isaan men - while it's a common myth that's it - I agree with you in fact and would go far higher. The numbers of hard working is a lot higher percent than you say.

 

Because the government actually DID do something - with the village funds as ill managed as they are - we now see kids being kept in school and NOT being sent off to work in factories etc.

 

Comments on chemical fertilizers 100% right on the nose.

 

The Isaan people have learn over the last 100 years and especially last 3 years to make hay while the sun shines. Never know when the elete will want their maids/labourers and slaves back.

 

So lots of chemicals give the quickest return.

 

HOWEVER long term that is short sighted and damaging to the soil. However the Isaan have learnt long term planning never works because as soon as they get ahead someone will chop it off.

 

Back to buffalo's - what we have witnessed is what I predicted about 7 years ago. Consolidation of farming plots into larger plots as unemployment forces families to move away and plots become too small. (Ironically unlike Australia they do WANT to remain though in the villages)

 

Rather than those lawn mowers they call tractors we now see many REAL tractors - mostly low cost Chinese - that are far more efficient ONCE small family plots have been amalgamated into large plots that can be serviced by a real tractor.

 

That's the real change. Doesn't make good stories for a number of reasons I can't go into here.

[Central Scrutinizer]

TM,

 

"A few weeks ago, I spent a couple of hours working in a rice field. Very difficult, back breaking work. My gf's mother and father are in their 50's and are out there all day. I can't imagine how they do it - and always smiling and pleasant in the evening."

 

I did the same years ago. Now imagine doing this for weeks on end, 9 hours a day, in the extremely hot sun with little to no shade for the bulk of the duration of the work being done! Imagine the toll that work has on one's body over forty or fifty years.

 

And, to keep it on-topic for the thread, imagine now doing this without the help of mechanized tools like the rice tractors, the threshing machine trucks, etc. Imagine using a water buffalo for the majority of the work.

 

And yes, it amazes me how happy these people are. Many a night after the wife's family was working the rice fields all day I've sat and ate with them and offered a few cooling beers to the rice farmer gatherings at the end of the day. Those evenings are always sanuk. The people/family/extended family gather to eat their combined meals, sharing, chatting, laughing and joking before going off to sleep a well deserved sleep, to rise again in the morning before the sun is up to do it all again. Lazy? Hardly.

 

Cent

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

CTO,

 

[color:blue]"Cent as you know education in rural areas is my work - you know too well"[/color]

 

Yes and I am waiting for that e-mail attachment! Where is it you lazy cnut! 555555!

 

[color:blue]"Buffalo's working - only when reporters come out."[/color]

 

To this day, after all the years up here in Isaan, I have never seen a water buffalo used for plowing, and there are many buffalos around here that could be used.

 

[color:blue]"Vast majority of Buffalo's don't work"[/color]

 

As said, I've never seen one working, although I have seen them used to pull a car or truck from a ditch before. :smirk:

 

[color:blue]"- it's a game like collecting stamps - the value keeps going up so they keep collecting. The beast in most cases does nothing."[/color]

 

Exactly, they are worth money and the price keeps rising, but their value is not seen by me, as like you say, they do nothing but eat and shit!

 

[color:blue]"Because traditional forces have decided the soul of the country is buffalo's working (and it conveniently keeps the poor poor) the poor aren't stupid - they keep and make more buffalo - but frankly use tractors and chemical fertilizers."[/color]

 

I do think that is part of it. They do (many but not all) use the beasts for food as well.

 

[color:blue]"Lazy whore making Isaan men - while it's a common myth that's it - I agree with you in fact and would go far higher. The numbers of hard working is a lot higher percent than you say."[/color]

 

Well, I didn't give a real percentage except to say for every one lazy fucker there's ten working their asses off. I agree, much more actually working hard.

 

[color:blue]"Because the government actually DID do something - with the village funds as ill managed as they are - we now see kids being kept in school and NOT being sent off to work in factories etc."[/color]

 

You mean TRT? If so, I agree. Taksin might have been 'gin baht mahk mahk' and feasting off the people, but at least he gave back some scraps for the poor in Isaan. The other governments did the same, ate loads of baht for themselves, BUT GAVE BACK NOTHING at all. Taksin, yeah, he's corrupt and feeds off the people/country and makes loads of money for him and his any way he can/could, but he gave back some to those who helped get him elected... more than anyone else ever did.

 

[color:blue]"Comments on chemical fertilizers 100% right on the nose."[/color]

 

Higher crop yield, easier to use, more kilos of rice to sell and make money from. It is that simple as to why it is used.

 

[color:blue]"The Isaan people have learn over the last 100 years and especially last 3 years to make hay while the sun shines. Never know when the elete will want their maids/labourers and slaves back."[/color]

 

True, and for a while they were actually doing much better than I had ever seen pre-Taksin. New paved roads, million baht village fund (which in my village and others I saw during his 'reign' this was used for many good projects for the Isaan villagers). Our village made a water tower and large underground water cistern and pumping station to save water from the lake during the rainy season for the dry season, they've made concrete drains/gutters along the streets that all lead down to the lake to help catch the rainwater that was being wasted, they made a new village water system that pipes into every house in the village, many kii leg trees were planted along the highway into the village to beautify the area, and many other things were done in the short time this village fund was being done. No other government has/had done so much for Isaan and the villages. Toxin's a cunt, but he was their cunt, and that is why they were angry enough to, after the coup, vote back in TRT's proxy party PPP and Samak. What do they, the Isaan vilagers voting for Toxin, care if the gov/Toxin was stealing from the middle class Thai/Chinese Thais in BKK? As far as many Isaanites are concerned it was about time someone did! And gave to them some of that money that they had every right to but had never seen a satang of over the decades. It doesn't take a doctorate in political science to see what was going on, and why. :smirk:

 

[color:blue]"So lots of chemicals give the quickest return."[/color]

 

Exactly.

 

[color:blue]"HOWEVER long term that is short sighted and damaging to the soil. However the Isaan have learnt long term planning never works because as soon as they get ahead someone will chop it off."[/color]

 

Exactly true.

 

[color:blue]"Back to buffalo's - what we have witnessed is what I predicted about 7 years ago. Consolidation of farming plots into larger plots as unemployment forces families to move away and plots become too small."[/color]

 

And many of these rice farmland consolidations are now owned by Chinese conglomerates using Thai nominees/holders. Mechanized modern day share-cropping really. The middle men are buying into the land ownership. They want to control it all. And there's Samak asking the Thai people to eat the shitty rice so they can sell the 'good' rice to China so his cronies (Taxsin's) can make even more money from being the middlemen and from the huge increase in the price of rice, which China (and the world to be fair) is clamoring for. Yet the farmers get no increase once the inflation costs are figured in, less now actually.

 

[color:blue]"(Ironically unlike Australia they do WANT to remain though in the villages)"[/color]

 

I'd say most Isaan villagers would rather live in the villages with their families than move to the cities to work. One reason the villages are so bad at times is because so many of the fathers are gone working elsewhere (leaving the village at the mercy at times of the worst lot of men left, the lazy drunken buggers), and the young people in their teens leave as soon as they get out of school because there is nothing for them to do, no work. Whereas with some intelligence and some seed money many small to medium sized businesses could be started that would provide jobs that would allow the men and whatever young folk that wanted to to remain living with their families in the villages and they would be able to make the equivilent (sic?) of income once you take out the money they need to spend working and living away from their families and the villages. Most would much rather remain with their families in the villages.

 

[color:blue]"Rather than those lawn mowers they call tractors we now see many REAL tractors - mostly low cost Chinese - that are far more efficient ONCE small family plots have been amalgamated into large plots that can be serviced by a real tractor."[/color]

 

Which the village fund could pay for (the large 'real' tractor) to be used in a 'collective' fashion by the villagers, using less fuel overall if you factor in all those lawn mower type rice tractors being used now. Much in the way many use the threshing machines you see during harvest.

 

[color:blue]"That's the real change. Doesn't make good stories for a number of reasons I can't go into here."[/color]

 

Yes, but do try some day. I think it would be very interesting to hear, even if alluded to rather than outright.

 

Cent

[Central Scrutinizer]

I always chat up the taxi drivers. One the other day told me that with the price of LPG so low he'd made 2000 baht the previous Sunday, after deducting the taxi rent and LPG. Helluva lot of hours driving for it though.

 

I hear very mixed comments for cabbies. Some complain about their income, but others seem happy with it. Many tell me they oppose an increase in fares, saying it would reduce the number of customers and thus reduce their income.

 

My driver yesterday told me the taxi increase actually is in effect right now. But with around 70,000 taxis in Bangkok it will take a long time to reset the meters.

 

p.s. I remember when farmers used a high yield rice and a petroleum based fertilizer. Problem was the rice didn't taste as good and now the increased cost of the fertilizer has priced it out of their range.

 

 

 

Flash,

 

It sounds like he had a good Sunday. 2,000 baht is a good take for a taxi driver in one day. But some drivers do a good job working their asses off. I doubt he makes this daily though. And, Sundays are the day most Thais are out and about shopping and such. I'd think Sundays are a good day for the drivers who hussle. I wonder what an average weekly take after expenses is for these guys, the average taxi driver who actually cruises the sois looking for fares, or the guys who frequent the airport, bus depots, and train stations.

 

I also have had some great conversations with taxi drivers (some actually can be fun to chat with). As I don't live there in BKK though I don't get this as often as you do. In Surin we only have Samlors and Tuk-tuks!

 

Cent

[Central Scrutinizer]

Neo,

 

"The organic herbacide is to let plaa chawn (snakehead fish) and crabs into the fields. They munch any critters and when the season is over they become valuable food for som-tam and the like. Doesn't get easier than that!"

 

I've seen that as well years ago, but not recently. All I see now use chemical fertilizers.

 

"For fertilizer, it's all about enriching the soil, building it better year after year. Problem is now the chemicals have harmed the soil so severely it isn't capable of growing much. A farmer from Khon Kaen once told me it takes about 6 years to convert from a chemically ruined field to an organic one that is as profitable and there aren't any farmers that can take that."

 

Exactly, and no rice farmer I know of up here could go six years before having their fields return an income. They'd go broke waiting.

 

"So the downward cycle of using more fertilizer making for poorer soil and repeat continues."

 

Yep, but now the cost of the fertilizer makes this an expense many would want/like to forego IF they could easily go back to the organic ways. That's the problem like you have stated. They can't, many of them, most of them. At least without some sort of government help to be able to let them change over during the interim. Lying fallow for six years just is not an option for most farmers.

 

A catch 22.

 

Cent