The Big Problems Of Farmers

Farming is a very fun career for people who love farming. And many farmers, they develop so many techniques, many ways of farming. They can produce a lot. So to be a farmer is not hard. It's fun and easy. But whenever a farmer wants to do business on farming, they grow monocrops. They grow for sale. They always have complicated problems. Before that, people don't do monocrops like this. They enjoy their life. They have a lot of fun. But now, most farmers suffer so much with a big debt on their shoulders. The biggest thing now is the complicated market. Because everywhere, there's always someone who monopolizes the market. We cannot avoid that. Even if we think about free trade, think about the real idea of capitalists. No body controls the price. Everything has to let it go freely. But it never happened like that in the real world, in the real life. Always somebody monopolizes the market. And now, it's even more serious when there's a big money coming from outside to monopolize the market and make most farmers in each country have a big trouble. A lot of people suffer. A lot of farmers suffer. For example, in Thailand now, many Thai farmers grow durian. And durian is so popular in China, in many countries too. We export quite a lot of durian. When the big money from outside comes to Thailand, they control the whole circle of durian. They bought durian from farmers directly and export by themselves. And they bribe government officials. They bribe politicians so they can do things easily, illegally. And when they take over the whole thing, they control the price completely. Now, the price of durian drops very low. Most farmers suffer. And the same story happened to Longgan. Longgan is one of the most popular plant or fruit that northern people in Thailand grow as a main crop. So it happened with Longgan. And farmers who grow Longgan cannot make profit more than three or four years in a row. So many of them have a big debt now. And lately, it happened with coconut. Young coconut juice is so popular. And Thailand has one of the best coconut juice. Because the juice from coconut is so sweet and has some fragrance, smell. Smells so good. That's so popular. And the price is pretty good at the beginning. It's about 10 cents per one coconut from the farm. But when the money business people from outside came in with a big amount of money, they used the same technique that they use with durian and Longgan. So now, less than one cent per one coconut, fresh coconut from the farm. So farmers cannot survive because the cost of their investment is about five cents per one coconut. But they have to sell one cent per one coconut. This is a big problem. So a lot of farmers are in debt. They cannot keep their farm anymore. Many of them have to sell their farm. And then the business people from outside, especially from China, they set up a company with Thai nominee. And they start to buy land from farmers. When they bought the land from farmers, they grow coconut by themselves. They grow durian by themselves. And then they grow banana by themselves. And then they export by themselves. So everything they control 100%. So Thai people will not get anything from the business anymore. But we need to pay tax. To be a monocrop farmer, to be a cash crop farmer, it's impossible to survive easily in Thailand now. I think in many countries it will be similar. So what is the solution for us now? Because it's not easy to solve this problem. Because it's bigger than farmers can solve the problem. And it will be the job of the government. But the government is happy to get rights from business people from outside. Because their money is so big. It's so hard to resist the big amount of money. So nobody helps farmers exactly. Everybody just focuses on taking advantage of farmers. This is what happens. And how can we survive? I think in this situation, we cannot expect help much from outside. Especially from our government. It's not easy anymore. Because the government does not work for us anymore. Because we have no money for them. They work for the corporation. They work for the business people who have more money to pay them. So what we can do now? We need to come back to stop to grow for ourselves first. Stop growing monocrop. If we want to do monocrop, we need to find our own market. Don't think about to rely on the main market. We need to create our own market. And then in the same time, we need to come back to grow for ourselves. To make ourselves have enough food to eat. This is the most important thing. If we can survive with no debt, it's better than have a lot of debt. Start from zero is better than start with big debt. Farmers need to think about this more and more now. Self-reliance is the solution. The easiest solution for farmers. If not, we're gonna lose everything. Lose our land. Lose our freedom. Lose everything. We'll have nothing. Many Thai people sold their land. Lost their land. And then at the end, there have to be a cheap labor in the city. That is the future of farmers who do cash crops or monocrop in Thailand. I think in another country, we maybe have similar problem like us too. So, we need to be aware about this problem. We need to look at the big picture more and more that they will control. They monopolize the market completely. It's not easy to survive nowadays.