Thailand's Dismal Rice Yield

[parrot]

My wife and I know a family out in the Nonghan area who still plant rice the old-fashioned way, stooped over by hand. You can usually tell a plot that's been planted by hand, as compared to one where the rice seed is merely scattered. Our friends tell us the yield on a scattered plot is substantially lower than where it's planted stalk by stalk by hand.

I've known for a number of years that countries like Vietnam are poised to take over as leading rice exporters in SEA.....but until I saw this graph on rice yield by country, I had no idea Thailand was so low down the list.
https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/ ... raph=yield

I remember when we first moved to Thailand, it was still common for Isaan workers in Bangkok to return home to help with planting, then later the harvest. Those days seem passed. I get the impression that the newer generation isn't inclined to work in the field....especially if they've been spoiled at a job working indoors.

BREAKING NEWS: https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Thailan ... e-exporter

Anyone out there with a close neighbor/family member rice farmer care to share their thoughts?

[FrazeeDK]

my relatives do little of the old hand transplanting of bundles of seedlings. They hand scatter and yes, get a smaller yield but not that much. Same with harvesting, they'll pay a small Kubota combine to harvest their fields in a couple of hours vice 12 hour days of harvesting with a hand sickle.. Less folks to work since the younger ones rarely are here to do it. Paying old folks 400 baht a day and meals adds up... Times have changed for the small family farms. Now, what are the mega agri-businesses getting for yield figures? There are some mighty large rice plantations in Central Thailand as well as in the Sea of Tears plains north and east of Khorat...

[rick]

So Thailand's average rice yield is about 500 kg per rai. Wish my families rice got that yield! F-in-L still plants rice (scattered) but doesn't use any pesticides/herbicides or chemical fertilisers - and precious little manure. Weeds sometimes are far more frequent than the rice plants themselves. Last year's rice was about 25 sacks - 18 from a 3 rai field and 7 sacks from a one rai field. Sack about 30-40 kg, so about 200 kg a rai .......

[tamada]

I thought it was a two-part planting process anyway with an initial hand scattering in 'nursery' paddy followed a month later by the pulling and replanting in rows in the proper growing paddy? If they're letting it all grow from the dense hand-scattering, it seems logical that the yields would be less as the replanting in rows gives each bunch more room to grow than if it was left in the nursery.

[Drunk Monkey]

The youngsters of today aint interested in planting rice the old fashioned way ... they cant do it and be glued to their i phones on twatter n face booking. ..

Old style farming just one of many things that will be lost as the generations die out ..

An early bah humbug

Dm

[stattointhailand]

Amazing that there is now a lack of low paid workers to do the farming work ......
. I didn't even realise there had been a Thexit

[tamada]

The inevitable result of the shift from agrarian economy to one based on the service industries. Tourism, retail, health, communications, transportation, manufacturing including car assembly, hard drives, cement and building materials. These make up about 40% of the labor force these days.

Until recently, the really cheap labor came from Myanmar. Probably still does in reduced numbers but still controlled by corrupt people.

Thailand has a huge middle class that didn't really exist when most of us first pitched up here. They're still controlled by corrupt people too.

[Stoeger]

Some years ago, I visited my wife's sister's family in a village southeast of Nong Khai! It consisted of her older sister, "Poom", her husband "Boy", his father "Paboy" and a little girl named "First"! It definitely was a rural area and I noticed that there was no mechanized equipment in the barn! The rice field was plowed and planted by hand!

So, I asked my wife why her sister didn't have a diesel-powered Kubota like many other farmers? She said that they didn't have the money for a down payment! So, being an ex-U.S. Navy problem-solver, I took the family that afternoon to the Kubota dealer in Udorn, let them pick out a beautiful, new diesel tractor/water pump! I also bought a towed plow rack and extra metal wheels for slogging in the mud! Cost me about 80,000 THB! The shiny red Kubota was delivered to the village that afternoon and it felt good to help the family! Problem goes away; at least I thought!

Fastforward about one month: My wife's sister's huband "Boy" got drunk, took some of her jewelry, cashed it in at a town gold shop, bought a gun, came home and threatened to kill her! He and his father "Paboy" stole some other things, took two motorcycles and skipped town! Wow, what a change in the domestic situation! The wife went to the Amphur and got a divorce in one day; imagine that! Divorce took me a little longer in America!

My wife and I drove out to the village the next day and I see my shiny new red Kubota sitting in the yard completely covered in about two inches of mud and dirt! Now, that pissed me off! The bastards didn't have the appreciation to thank me for buying the machine and keep it washed and maintained like new! This is the reason why usually it is not a good idea to buy a car, truck, motorcycle or Kubota from a Thai owner!

The Kubota was put up for sale and quickly some lucky farmer got a basically new machine (10 hours) with extras for 55,000 THB! The honest sister gave back most of the money to my wife! Now that I think about it, I never got my money back!

Welcome to Thailand!

[noosard]

This year my family plant 7 and 10 rai by machine

[glalt]

Farmers will never get rich. My wife works her little butt off planting and harvesting rice the old fashioned way. Other than the tilling, everything is done by hand. With all the rain, her rice has all fallen over. There will be a loss of production and a lot more work trying to salvage the crop.

[parrot]

Farmers will never get rich. My wife works her little butt off planting and harvesting rice the old fashioned way. Other than the tilling, everything is done by hand. With all the rain, her rice has all fallen over. There will be a loss of production and a lot more work trying to salvage the crop.

It seems the recent rain came at the worst possible time for a lot of rice farmers.....stalks heavy with seed now fallen and wallowing in muddy fields that would optimally be drying out for harvest season.
I tried my hand one time at carrying cut rice slung over a bamboo pole to a central location 100+ meters away. And one time cutting rice in the field.....most of the rice had fallen from rain. In both cases, I didn't last long.....and in the case of carrying rice on a pole (only one time!), I went home with sizeable black and blue marks on my shoulders.

[glalt]

Farmers will never get rich. My wife works her little butt off planting and harvesting rice the old fashioned way. Other than the tilling, everything is done by hand. With all the rain, her rice has all fallen over. There will be a loss of production and a lot more work trying to salvage the crop.

It seems the recent rain came at the worst possible time for a lot of rice farmers.....stalks heavy with seed now fallen and wallowing in muddy fields that would optimally be drying out for harvest season.
I tried my hand one time at carrying cut rice slung over a bamboo pole to a central location 100+ meters away. And one time cutting rice in the field.....most of the rice had fallen from rain. In both cases, I didn't last long.....and in the case of carrying rice on a pole (only one time!), I went home with sizeable black and blue marks on my shoulders.

A couple years ago I was watching the ladies cut rice. All the workers were ladies, not a man among them. They were teasing me to come and work with them. I yelled at my wife and asked her if She would pay me 300 baht per day. She yelled aback at me and told me that I was not worth 300 baht a day. The gals got a good laugh out of that.

[pipoz4444]

Planting in Early July

Harvesting at the End 19 Oct 2021: Better to rent the Kubota for B 750 per Rai

DRYING

WETTING

DRYING AGAIN

It's a tedious process.

Let's hope they look at the weather forecast, this time, as it needs at least two days of warm sunshine, to dry out

pipoz4444

[tamada]

Maybe they need to use Myanmar rice farming labor? I worked there for three years and was amazed at the work needed to fit two rice crops into a year where the monsoon is solid and heavy for almost five months of it. No automated planting either but whoever has the Kubota franchise there must be banking big time.

[glalt]

For a number of reasons, you will very seldom see farmers using the Kubota combines in this area. Maybe the number one reason is that the rice paddies are too small. Secondly, if the moister level is too high, the rice needs to be dried. If the rice is too dry, there is a lot of shatter loss. Finally, If the rice has fallen down because of too much wind or rain, the Kubota does not do a very good job of picking it off the ground.

Farming rice is very labor intensive. A couple years ago one farmer used a modified corn planter (close rows). That eliminates broadcasting the seeds and pulling them up to replant. His yield suffered so much that the next year he was back to the old fashioned way. I gave him credit for at least trying. I should add that using a row planter causes other problems. The ground has to be fairly dry for planting. Then it costs money to pump water into the field, not to mention a large water source to be close by. Solar irrigation systems are now popular. They too are expensive to install and even the larger systems cannot pump the amount of water that the diesel pumps provide, not to mention that you also have to have a good bore hole. My wife has a fairly large solar system that does a good job but it is a pain moving the pipe from paddy to paddy and hoping for sunny weather. One of her farms has a fairly large pond and the pond gets pumped dry nearly every year using the 11 HP tak tak to pump the water. It is also a lot of work keeping the tak tak full of diesel to run 24 hours a day. Those tak tak diesels are amazing machines. My wife's Kubota is probably about ten years old and other than changing the oil, has never needed any maintenance. Fortunately they are bullet proof and seem to run forever.

[Doodoo]

AS I explained to the wife years ago regarding the financial gains of farming.

How many rich Farmers do you know or see??
How many rich Implement Dealers do you see or know?
How many rich Fertilizer Suppliers do you see or know?

[rick]

It is the cost and availability of labour which stops many small farmers do the transplanting. Also only one field dries out enough to plant/harvest reliably - the other is often flooded and always needs to be hsrvested by hand as water can be up to 1 metre deep at harvest time - only get a real harvest 50% of the time - government planting incentives are more important!

[pipoz4444]

It is the cost and availability of labour which stops many small farmers do the transplanting. Also only one field dries out enough to plant/harvest reliably - the other is often flooded and always needs to be hsrvested by hand as water can be up to 1 metre deep at harvest time - only get a real harvest 50% of the time - government planting incentives are more important!

You don't make any money out of rice farming, as a small property owner.

F...knows how the small Thai Rice Farmer survived in years gone by. It could only have been, because he used his wife and kids to do all the labour, for free, and then they lived off eating all that rice for the 12 months, occasionally trading a bag of rice for a Chicken and some Vegetabes, for his Tom Yum soup, during the winter months.

It could only have been subsistence living, at best, for the small time rice farmer and family.

pipoz4444

[rick]

Yes, you couldn't live by rice alone as a small farmer. I have witnessed the foraging behaviour of my F-in-L and others in the village. They eat weeds and leaves from the trees, frogs, fish if they can catch them, birds from mist nets, red weaver ant pupae, tockay's and snails.

[glalt]

I have a Thai friend who likes to say that Thai people eat anything that walks, crawls or flies, even a wandering monk once in a while. I am not a fussy eater but I draw the line at insects and rats. I had to put up a fluorescent and a black light with a big basin of water under them to catch insects. She likes to go "fishing". They catch hundreds of small fish about 2 inches long with a net attached to bamboo poles. She says they are better than big fish because you can eat the whole fish, bones, heads and all, not to mention making that horrible stinking rotten fish stuff called pala.