Published caption : A woman hangs sheets of latex out to dry in front of her small rubber-processing plant. Business is not great at the moment, she told us, explaining that she was only getting 60 to 63 baht for a kilogramme of rubber. Farmers in the South have been urging the government since the end of last September, so far unsuccessfully, to guarantee a buying price of 100 baht/kg. A sheet of latex like one of those seen in the photo weighs around 1.5kg and is made from the milky sap collected from approximately 40 rubber trees. A farmer can begin tapping the bark of a rubber tree when it is seven years old. A tree will usually continue producing sap until it is 25 years old, after which point it is felled and its wood used for furniture, utensils or handicrafts.