The figures will never add up
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One marketing study I found showed that Thai rice went from the farmer to a commission agent, local assembler or farmer's organisation, and then to an exporter or wholesaler, retailer or consumer.
At each step the percentage of profit was shown. For instance, in one three-year period, the profit-to-cost for farmers went from more than 46 per cent to less than 10 per cent, while for millers it went from less than 3 per cent to more than 21 per cent.
Unfortunately, the percentages (like so many things in Thailand) did not add up to 100 (more than 50 per cent of the profits were unaccounted for).
This is the problem for Thai journalists unfamiliar with economics: How do they present all the facts while also being understandable to a public that might be just as unfamiliar with economics?
One thing is certain: if the profit-to-cost for farmers fell by 36 per cent in a three-year period, then those profits went somewhere else, probably to that more than 50 per cent of profits unaccounted for.
So this is another problem: How do you get to that mysterious 50 per cent and then get everything to add up to 100?
Guy Baker
Bangkok
