Siam Kubota Industry Co Ltd is developing a reaper to help local farmers reduce

loss and improve the quality of their rice harvest while boosting their income of Bt6.2 billion per year, the company's president said yesterday.

Veerachai Chaochankit said Thai farmers presently lose more than 10 per cent of their rice harvest when they reap, due to the low-quality reapers they use. Japanese farmers, in comparison, lose only 2 per cent.

He said the new reaper would be launched next August.

In line with its goal of helping Thai farmers improve their products, Kubota launched a rice transplanter in March, with 60 of the target 100 units sold so far.

Most Thai farmers grow rice in pad-dy-sown fields while other countries

such as Japan and Vietnam grow by transplanting seeding rice, Veerachai said.

Paddy-sown rice is economical in terms of manpower and production costs, but farmers have problems with weeds and need to use more insecticide in the long term because, as the rice clumps together sunlight is blocked, he said.

The quality of Thai rice, he said, cannot compare with that of neighbouring countries, especially Vietnam.

Siam Kubota spent Bt20 million to develop its rice transplanter, which, Veerachai said, would increase efficiency.

This, he said, would persuade Thai farmers to grow by transplanting rice instead of using cheap, but labour-intensive methods.

He said farmers rarely needed to use insecticide if they grew using the transplantation method.

Because of this they would have organic products to match society's increasing demand for a healthy lifestyle, he said.

Somchai Kongmuong, a farmer in Sing Buri province, said he started using the new rice transplanter in September last year and that it had increased his profits by 50 per

cent from income of more than Bt2 million.

He said he had transplanted about 2,000 rai over the year and earned Bt900 to Bt1,000 per rai from the yield.

He said he could produce nearly 30 tonnes of rice per 30 rai using the transplanter, compared with 17 tonnes per 30 rai using the previous, labour-intensive method.

Kubota has also introduced three more direct-injection diesel engine models after launching the first model last year.

The firm said it developed and turned diesel engines from indirect injection to direct injection to help farmers decrease their fuel usage by 15 per cent.

Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul

The Nation