Bangkok Post: Opinion

As a foreigner myself, I am pleased that my Thai wife and her family still maintain and grow rice on the local fields - and - yes, Veera is quite right, we do need to look after rice farming land and keep it that way, even if it is supported by foreign investment. Once it has gone to industrial development, it is very difficult to reverse that trend. Scientists predict that food will become much more scarce in the coming years and therefore there is every urgent need to protect what is growing, fertile land now. Co-operation bewteen nations may be the only way to survive in the future.

If I were a Thai rice farmer I would be very angry at just the thought of letting any foreigners trying to invest in their most important agricultural production.

I'm a commercial fisherman in Alaska, and due to our former U.S. senior senator's (Ted Stevens) shennanigans Japanese trading companies control half of the Bering Sea pollock, crab, and salmon fisheries products. If the forefathers of our country were still around this evil senator would have been hanged for treason. Don't let your politicians or high ranking officials get away with selling your land to foreign investors and steal your rice production. In the future food will be more important than money, and Thailand is going to need every speck of rice to keep it's people fed. Stand your ground Thai rice farmers!

I think farmers would be better off turning the land into real estate, Importation of rice will be allowed in 2017 thanks to ASEAN, so the rice will be brought in from Vietnam for a much cheaper price, the farmers are better off selling their land now as there won't be much rice growing here in the future.

I absolutely agreeded with you since I have spent my life time in ricefield (hands-on) for 15 yrs before studying in BBK and working as management in chemicals industry so I do believe this will be an serious issue of our country unless doing something to enhance farmers' quality of life.

My Gosh! I dare say this is one of the best article I ever read and the first I've commented on bangkokpost. Truly looking forward to brighter future and hope somebody do something about the situation

How many foreigners own land or farmland in Thailand by using nominees?

I agree with you, we should rethink our position in the future. Our farmland is essential for food production to our people. We also need other things too.

I agree with you, we should rethink of ur position in the future. Our farmland is essential for food production to our people. We also need other things too. yes, indeed it could be mutually beneficial.

Oh yeah that's a great idea. Let the Arabs buy land in Thailand. Just what Thailand needs is more muslims. Don't you have enough trouble in the deep south. Next thing you know the Arabs will want to install islamic law sharia.

Save your land for yourselves.....
If you think that letting foreigners use your land to grow their own food will give you the tilt in buying oil from them think again ,
Thailand aint that big , youll run out of land before alot of other countries do and then who will have more to bargain with when it comes to buying oil huh ?
technology might not be the greatest yet but by the time you have to worry about obtaining the last of diminishing fossil oil supplies from couuntries youve made farming deals with you wont need it .
Grow organic oil producing crops, such as canola and other crops that can be harvested for their oil , youll be able to run machinery on it by the time you need to....and get ALL the profits ..

Totally agree with Mr Veera that we should protect farmland for food production. Thai government should bring a law that will ensure Thailand can feed her self, and have surplus of rice to trade.

The government should focus on long term benefits rather than short term gains.

This new trend of out-sourcing food production that Arab, Chinese and South Koreans are practicing needs to follow American techniques of rice planting without human hands! Americans in Texas & Louisiana are using irrigation control of water for weed control and aircraft planting of sprouted rice!Then harvesting is by machines into trucks.

I believe that Thai's should continue to protect the farmland and keep the foreign investors out. My wife's family are rice farmers and we as a family will do what is necessary to keep the farm productive and in the family

"Show me any farmer who has become rich from rice farming!"

Nice column Veera and I agree with the bottom line. But to answer your (rhetorical?) question: come and visit me in the heart of rice growing Thailand, the province of Chainat to be precisely, and I will show you at least 30 rice farmers in this village of 2,000 people whom I would call rich. Even for farang standards.

Regards,

David.

This will never happend if the Thai farmers had a fair price for the rice.

I agree in your article that they should be open minded for this.
Many things changed in the rice business and there will be in the future new players. Thailand has some value in hands and even can benifit from better farming technoligies. As you know the yields are very low in Thailand. If we can have 6 mt per hectare the production will increase a lot. You do not need to give away the land.
The biggest stop on this projects is the old group of rice traders which have in this system great benifits.
The are not interested in smart farmers.
If farmers realy united and work in the right system they will have very big benifits. They can be a member/share holder with a partner who will increase yields and reduce costs. Many examples of big cooperations. Even all together they can make their own electricity and maybe produce new products from the rice, such as rice bran oi, special animal feed and even if you press the rice stalk together you have excellent material to build houses. Rice protein is a very high product for animal feed with a very high value. To do all this you need an investor with money and vision. This kind of investors are only few in Thailand. Please Thailand open your eyes.

In Canada the farms are owned by every one Chinese, Germans, British, French, Americans and Thai people, but all Wheat sales are handled by the Canadian Wheat Board no chance any one will steal the food supply.

Grow up Thailand and quit hating people from other countries and allow people to live here and have rights like they allow us to live in there countries and have rights.

What do you suppose would happen to any Thai person or company trying to buy Arab oil lands with which to secure Thailands future power needs?

"Grow up Thailand and quit hating people from other countries and allow people to live here and have rights like they allow us to live in there countries and have rights."

This, from a Canadian, is simply funny ...

I suppose you are not from the "first nations" of Canada ? LOL

"While the Arabs are worried that they may not have enough food to feed their peoples in the future and start looking for farmland to produce food for their peoples"

That's why rice and other food products are promising in the future. Thais should keet them under their control.
Think why they are so eager to take over (by long time lease contracts maybe) the farm land? Because, other than the concern over their food security, they want to procure them at cheaper price should the food prices in the world are skyrocketted.

I don't oppose the land purchase of foreigners' spouses, but I think Thai should not allow the systematic land grabs by foreign investers. They are stealing the future benefits which are supposed to go to Thai people.

Chinese merchants have migrated to Thailand and set up thousands of rice mills to process and trade rice for local consumption and for export worldwide, including to China. No Thais have ever complained about this. Thais have even elected sons and daughters of these Chinese tycoons into the Thai Parliament. Three of them became prime ministers: Chuan, Banharn and Thaksin.

Why do we discriminate against the Arabs, but not the Chinese?

We have food... They have fuel ... we should position ourselves properly. Food and Fuel which one is crucial for life.We should protect our invaluable natural resources.

Khun Veera, if I *ever* happen to meet you, I sure want to shake your hand. Yet another excellent piece -- as usual, coming from your pen -- um, computer, I meant!

As others have mentioned in one way or another, a central problem in considering this issue is that it involves multiple strands that get all twisted up together, the end result being something messy that they individually are not. Sure, some strands may be messy in their own right, but they're still different from the "collective mess."

A geometrical concept might be usefull here: a Venn diagram. This is a diagram using overlapping circles to distinguish features unique to each item under consideration, and those features shared by more than one of the items.

Let me use a simple example. Let's say one circle represents an American of one race, while a second circles represents an American of a different race. We can draw two overlapping circles, and in the parts that don't overlap, write (for instance) "Latino" in one circle's unshared area and "Asian" in the other circle's unshared area.

Now we address that the Latino and Asian are both Americans. To do this, we write "American" in the *overlapping parts of the circles.

This approach, even if we use it only in our minds without taking out pencil and paper could prove useful in helping us untangle the many strands involved in the question for foreigners owning agriculture land in Thailand.

Of course, considering this topic won't be nearly as simple as the simplistic example I gave above.

But it can help us avoid falling into this mindset: "My mind's made up! Don't confuse me with the *facts*!!!"

Is there anything inherently or fundamentally "wrong" with a foreignerer owning land, of any kind, in a country other than his own? I would suggest "No." Is there anything wrong with a country wanting to ensure its food supplies for its own citizens? I wouldn't suggest but would shout from the rooftops, "Of course not!"

Khun Noi (Comment #16) points out an excellent way to allow foreign ownership of agrucultural land while ensuring the host country's short- and long-term food supply and security when she wrote, "In Canada the farms are owned by every one Chinese, Germans, British, French, Americans and Thai people, but all Wheat sales are handled by the Canadian Wheat Board no chance any one will steal the food supply."

Her further observation -- exhortation -- to "[g]row up Thailand and quit hating people from other countries and allow people to live here and have rights like they allow us to live in there countries and have rights.." is, in my view, a very valid point as well. It hinges on the notion of reciprocity -- which is a fancy way of saying "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," or, more simply, "if it's good for one of us, then it's good for the other."

Every country I know of violates this concept regularly (and often self-rightesously), including my own homeland, the U.S. I remember our banning some Thai seafood imports -- shrimp, I think? -- and trying to take some idiotic lofty position, never mind our obligations under those pesky little treaties like the WTO. But when Thailand moved to ban US beef in the wake of the mad-cow scare, we raised holy hell.

Of courswe, Thailand shouldn't rush to the mirror, not just yet . . . the difficulties surrounding foreign ownership of land is but one reason.

In my country, contrary to what a news presenter on a local station seems to believe in earnest, Thais can own just about anything, and own it 100%, without an American nominee or group of nominees. One of the most successful horse farmers in my home area is a Mexican national, not a US citizen nor a US green-card holder. When he bought the land, as far as his being a foreigner was concerned, no problem.

True, horses aren't a fundamental source of food in America, nor anywhere else, I suppose, not even in places such as France, where horse meat is, or was (not sure which) a delicacy. But that same guy could go out and buy up half a million acres (roughly 1.25 million rai) of corn or wheat land -- or, indeed, of rice land. Shuffle the legal paperwork properly, fork over the money, and it's a done deal.

What's the problem? Any country can have laws in place to protect the national food supply -- see Comment # 16 again -- while allowing an influx of foreign exchange for land purchases. (Or for houses, cars, anything at all.)

There are legitimate concerns all around, for Thais and foreigners alike. Neither is "wrong." But they need to discover where their shared Venn diagram overlaps, then work from there.

This is hardly a novel idea; it is the basis of diplomacy and, indeed, business negotiations: find areas where you agree and/or have shared interests, then work out to and through the thornier issues from there, ideally arriving at a quid-pro-quo arrangement, to both sides satisfaction. Maybe not *100%* satisfaction, ind you -- but good enough. And there's a growing "good enough" movement afoot in the world today, as people by force of circumstance, design, or both, decide "good enough " is, well good enough!