Academic stretches incomes for rubber farmers

Nantakan Muensit, a lecturer in the science faculty at Prince of Songkhla University, had examined research reports into nano technology and, after teaming up with friends, began applying the technology to produce an improved cup that the farmers can use when they collect latex from their rubber trees.
The company that Nantakan and her partners established for the venture is now pulling in average monthly sales of Bt200,000.
“I would see many research papers that are submitted to the university and I started to think about what techniques would be required to bring one such innovation to commercial development," Nantakan, 55, said in an interview with The Nation recently. “This would also support the government's policy to drive forward the country's economic growth by the use of technology under the Thailand 4.0 campaign. 
"This inspired me and my friends to select the research work of Dr Chalongrat Dangham as the basis for the development of my product that went on sale last year."
The research paper by Chalongrat dealt with how to produce a chemical for surface coatings with the use of nano technology. 
Nantakan said that, based on Chalongrat’s research, she and her friends developed a coating made from nano technology for the cup that is used by farmers to collect the latex. The coating reduces the layers of dried-up latex that would stick to the surface of the traditional collection cups
The farmers typically use cups made of ordinary plastic or even coconut shells to collect the latex. But, after several uses, the layers of dried latex grow thicker and this reduces the volume for the latex collected from the trees. This means that farmers, using the traditional methods, have to change the cups frequently.
But not any longer. With the cup devised by Nantakan and her team, the coating produced from a chemical process under nano technology is applied to a plastic cup. The coating achieves a lotus-like effect. 
 This description refers to the self-cleaning properties that are a result of ultra-hydrophobicity as exhibited by the leaves of the nelumbo, or lotus flower. 
Dirt particles are picked up by water droplets due to the micro- and nanoscopic architecture on the surface, which minimises the droplet's adhesion to that surface. 
When farmers use the cup, which Nantakan markets as Wonnatech Latex Cup, they succeed in collecting all the latex from the rubber trees, as some of the substance is no longer lost to production when it sticks to the old cups, she said. With the improved efficiency, the farmers can generate more income from the same plantation size, Nantakan said.
Nantakan and her friends established Wonnatech Co Ltd, with registered capital of Bt1.5 million, in 2014. But it took more than two years for them to develop the Wonnatech Latex Cup before bringing it to the market in 2016. 
The market launch proved difficult, as the pricing of about Bt6 per cup made it more expensive than the cups that the rubber farmers were used to.
Compounding this problem, latex prices dropped in 2016, making it even harder to persuade farmers to make the switch to the Wonnatex Latex Cup, Nantakan said.
However, she and her friends persevered and continued their development on the product, finding ways to reduce the production cost and lower the price hurdle for farmers.
In 2017, Nantakan and her partners opened a production plant at Rubber City Industry Estate in Hat Yai district of Songkhla province. The plant gained the support of the government with a low leasing price, and the company secured a Bt3 million loan from the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand.
With this support, the company was able to halve the price of the cup, to an average of Bt3 paid by the farmers.
With the cheaper unit price, the company began enjoying sales of about Bt200,000 a month to farmers in the South. The company is negotiating with an importer from Sri Lanka for sales of the cup to that country.
 “We expect to begin exports this year when our new machine to increase production is fully set up in the middle of this year,” Nantakan said.
She said the company also will offer its nano-coating technology for use with others products that can benefit from the improved surface.
Once the new machine is fully set up in the middle of this year, the company expects sales to increase to up to Bt500,000 a month. Nantakan said she takes pride in knowing that the Wonnatech Latex Cup is helping rubber farmers to boost their output and provide higher income over the long term.