Rubber riots escalate in the south

[buksida]

The government set the precedent and screwed up monumentally by attempting to buy off the rice farmers to secure their votes, now they have mountains of the stuff going to waste while people are still going hungry and every other farmer in the Kingdom wants a higher payout for their produce as well.

[STEVE G]

The government set the precedent.....

Agreed that they're no good at it but this government didn't invent agricultural intervention to support farmers, in the UK the Corn Laws in the early 19th century were about the same thing and had a similar effect of enriching wealthy farmers instead of helping the poor.

[Bamboo Grove]

Steve G wrote:

this government didn't invent agricultural intervention to support farmers, in the UK the Corn Laws in the early 19th century were about the same thing and had a similar effect of enriching wealthy farmers instead of helping the poor.

One more reason why history should be taught in schools.

[MrPlum]

Here's some useful background on the rubber market and why Thailand in particular is suffering.. http://www.thailand.com/exports/html/in ... rubber.htm

[Frank Hovis]

Just plain ridiculous if you ask me..... If rubber isn't profitable, start farming something else, and the same thing applies to all farmers, regardless of what they farm.

Except rubber isn't that kind of 'crop'. It's not like rice, cucumbers, sugar cane, pineapples etc where you can plant it and then a few months later harvest it. Rubber trees don't start producing a 'harvest' until they are about 5 years old and then they keep on producing for the next twenty or so years. It's the same with coconuts and palm oil trees.

If any farmers deserve subsidies it is those with long term investments and a long lead time to harvest**, not the rice farmers et al, who could readily switch their crop to the current 'prime' crop (but while the government pays way over the odds for it, rice is the prime crop). If tomatoes become expensive spend three months growing them, take your money, flood the market and watch the price of tomatoes drop as the price of corn goes up, grow corn, lather, rinse, repeat.

Perhaps they need to find a different outlet for rubber; it has a higher calorific output than coal does (30 million btu/ton which if my arithmetic is nearly right is 30,000 GWh per year or about 1/5th of the current electricity production**) and presumably burning it wouldn't upset the AGW people as it's carbon that's only been sequestered recently, but if they simply stopped growing rubber trees now it would be financially impossible for anyone to get back into the market given the lead time waiting for the trees to mature.

** I have reason to believe my beer may have been contaminated with a mutated strain of anthropogenic climate changeosis combined with the communismella virus.

[caller]

Here's some useful background on the rubber market and why Thailand in particular is suffering.. http://www.thailand.com/exports/html/in ... rubber.htm

That's an interesting article and there appear parallels / traits seen elsewhere in Thailand that suggests its something in the 'psyche' or incompetence of those in power, or industry, or whoever.

So to sum up, the rubber industry in Thailand hasn't kept up with the times and modern demand and its answer is, rather than adapt, to seek the international rubber producing community to artificially inflate the price, rather than deal with competition like for like, which they haven't done, so they have dropped out! Sounds similar to the rice issue, the poor infrastructure of the railways here, Thai Air's recent history, modern effective policing and so on.

In some ways, the Country appears to be moving on in leaps and bounds, but in others it is so clearly trailing. Such is life, I guess?

[buksida]

Phetkasem highway blockade continues
Rubber protesters on Sunday continued to block Phetkasem Highway and demanded the government raise the price for raw rubber sheet to 100 baht per kilogramme and for oil palm to 6 baht/kg.

The rubber growers started the highway blockade at Bang Saphan district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday morning, highway police told South-bound motorists to turn left at kilometre marker 400 to take a detour along the sea shore and back to Phetkasem Highway again at kilometre marker 423 before proceeding to south.

Bangkok-bound motorists were also told to turn right at kilometre marker 423 to use the road along the sea shore to take Phetkasem Highway again at kilometre marker 400 before heading for Bangkok.

The situation at the protest site in Bang Saphan district was still calm.

Tossapol Kwanrod, a coordinator of rubber and oil palm growers, said apart from the demand for 100 baht for a kilogramme of raw rubber sheet and 6 baht for a kilogramme of oil palm, the protesters also wanted the government to urgently amend the regulaltions for issuing land rights documents to rubber and oil palm farmers in the 16 southern provinces.

Full Story: Bangkok Post