Rice Selling 2014

[urleft]

I have been predicting for years that the Rice Subsidy will crash.  What is its status after the coup?
 
Last year there were almost kilometer long lines to sell rice, this year I don't see the lines.
 
 
So what is up with rice selling and subsidy? 
 
 

[davureborn]

Nobody in our village was signed up for the rice subsidy scheme, part of the scandal was that only bigger landowners (such as a certain family up towards Chiang Mai , Toxin I think their name is) profited. These made up the majority of the people that had their trucks queued up for days outside the rice facilities. The rice subsidy scheme didn't crash, it was dismantled. Prices have dropped recently from ฿16 to ฿14 / Kg. so only the desperate are selling now.
Anyway, people around here only rarely went to the big places, they would sell a few sacks after the harvest to get some cash and then store it hoping for better prices, which is what we ourselves are doing now. If we sell then it is to smaller dealers who themselves also wait for better days. We also get ฿1000.- per Rai subsidy as owners which seems more just to me.
The military tried to stop the rice harvesters from demanding 'extortionate' fees (which resulted in them all disappearing for a few days) but that's another story.
PS: I have noticed rice land for sale around here, some quite sizeable chunks, but that may be more connected with the building boom (and bust0 that is going on at the moment.

[DeputyDavid]

Davu, which area are you talking about "bust?"  I wonder because after coming to Buriram this year and seeing the prices of land which were outlandish, and all of the overbuilding, I would like to hear what is happening now.  Thanks.

[davureborn]

Well obviously a bust is coming, but predicting when it will happen is very difficult. Jesse Colombo is highly respected and predicted the fall in fuel prices (commodity prices) a few months before it happened. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2013/11/04/thailands-bubble-economy-is-heading-for-a-1997-style-crash/ He himself admits that the 'when' bit is difficult.
I see expensive, tiny houses and now condos being built in Buriram. I see land prices, even for rice land, becoming ridiculous. I see new hotels being built that are generally under occupied (not just in Buriram, I never, ever book a hotel in Thailand), on the same stretch of road I see Home Mart, Homepro, Thai Watsadu, Global House coming up next door to IQ store that are generally empty and useless, there also is Robinsons, BigC and Makro, ....   I cannot see the logic in all this. How about, for example, all the places selling roofing material? You just drive up, choose a colour and get your stuff on the truck inside of an hour or so. New places still being built.
This is so similar to the Thai custom of opening roadside stalls that only sell melons for a Kilometre or two, or chicken, or rat fricassee, and so on, and obviously not making any money (witness the stretches of abandoned stalls in some places) that I can't help drawing my own conclusions. Everybody is out for a quick buck, not only in Thailand, but a lot of people are going into heavy debts without hesitating.

Just my opinion, driven by wishful thinking about the exchange rate!

[DeputyDavid]

I appreciate the reply.  I wondered if the prices had started to come down or not.  I just don't see soccer or a racetrack sustaining all the new building.