February 27 2005

Welfare to work: Isaan pig farm initiative

"I'm not one of those stupid farangs who buys her family a bloody house" says a friend of mine. Instead, he's set his girlfriend's mum on the road to financial independence by means of an innovative new welfare to work scheme - a pig farm.

Each week, he puts a thousand baht into his girlfriend's "pig bag" - a small canvas pouch with "MOO" scrawled across it in blue marker pen.

As any small child could tell you, "moo" is synonymous with cows but, displaying remarkable counterintuitive reasoning, the Thais have allocated this name to pigs. Non-Thai speakers who resort to making animal noises to indicate their desire for a steak dinner might end up with a pork sausage instead.

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The sty was completed last week and news of the arrival of nine piglets was phoned through by their overexcited new owner - at 5.30 am.

The piglets cost about 800 baht each but farmers who already have a sow can cut out the middleman by trucking in a short-time male. Breaking with the usual Thai custom, it's him that gets paid.

Fully grown, each pig could be worth as much as 6,000 baht and the potential for profit has stirred up great excitement amongst the Thai contingent. The cost of feed and veterinary care might take the shine off things, though - not to mention all the shit-shovelling involved.

I'm happy to report that my own Thai girlfriend harbours no desire to own a pig farm. Many years ago, she was invited to dinner by a classmate who lived on one. The girl's father was an "influential person" so the house was quite impressive but the whole place was swarming with flies and the stench was unbearable. Consequently, my girlfriend had to eat with one hand while holding her nose with the other.

My friend's commitment to the project also appears to be less than total. While recounting the story, he was interrupted by an angry phone call from his girlfriend. Apparently, someone had dipped into the pig fund that evening without going through the proper channels.

Welfare to work: Isaan pig farm initiative

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