Why I Grow Pineapples

If you googled up "health benefits of pineapple," you will find many wonderful things. But that's not why I am a pineapple farmer.
My main reason: It's a hang tough plant. Not enough water? No problem. It's "drought reisistant". (In fact, too much water is harmful.) Rocky soil? No problem. Pineapples like rocks in the soil because minerals leach from them.
Of course, a hang tough plant would quickly lose its appeal if I lost money in the process. Here the issues get complicated because volatile world market conditions could cause prices to change drastically, even catastrophically. So it's a business gamble, though not on the level of investing in subprime mortgages.
A risk management strategy is applied. Pineapple can be grown anytime of the year except when it is raining a lot. This means production can be spread out to avoid the "all your eggs in the basket" risk. And then there is diversification as a risk management tool. For that I also plant cassava, corn, sugarcane, mulberry (for raising silkworms), and (in southern Thailand), rubber and palm oil trees, the latter being in good demand now because of the rapid rise in biofuel production (same for cassava roots.)

Photo location: Ban Salaklong, Uthaitani province