Southern Thailand is now one of the centers of natural rubber production, accounting for 60% of the natural rubber produced in Thailand. Another reason why Surat Thani is important to us is that we have Y.T. Rubber Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as YTRC), a Yokohama Rubber subsidiary that processes natural rubber, located in the Surat Thani province. In recent years, leaf blight disease has been found to spread among para rubber trees in the area, requiring countermeasures to be taken. This situation prompted Yokohama Rubber to start an initiative to improve sustainability of natural rubber production in Surat Thani.

Yokohama Rubber began surveying natural rubber farms in the Surat Thani province of Thailand in June 2019.
By the end of December 2022, we have visited and interviewed a total of 437 natural rubber farms in the province, the majority of which are YTRC suppliers. We further continued the survey, and at the end of February 2023 have completed surveying 500 farms in the province as originally planned. Not only the information we have gained through the survey, the communication and partnership we have developed with the local farmers through the survey activities has proved to be highly valuable. We are planning to continue these survey activities on an ongoing basis. As part of the survey, we identify the location of each farm and mark it on our map to confirm that none of the farms are located inside a natural park or other protected areas. We also check the number of years each farm has grown natural rubber trees and verify that they are validly registered to the Rubber Authority of Thailand (RAOT) to confirm that these farms have not been developed illegally or through deforestation. Regarding farm workforce management, we survey their work schedule, including the number of working hours per day and the number of workdays per period, whether they are subject to work quotas, whether they are free to quit their job when they want to, whether they receive health insurance, whether there are any children under 18 years old working on the farm, and how many people are working there, to confirm that these farms do not practice forced labor or child labor. To date, no illegal activity or practice has been found in the survey. We also ask farmers what are the difficulties they have in the management of their natural rubber production. Though the survey, we now have a better understanding of the issues that our natural rubber farms have and what actions should be taken to help solve them.
Yokohama Rubber will gather more survey data to further analyze the issues faced by our natural rubber farms to help them toward more sustainable farm management and to improve traceability pf their product.

In an effort to improve the transparency and soundness of our supply chain based on our Procurement Policy for Sustainable Natural Rubber, Yokohama Rubber signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with RAOT in January 2020 to collaboratively support the management of natural rubber farms and improve traceability of their product.
Based on the MOU, Yokohama Rubber and the Surat Thani office of RAOT have jointly held seminar events in June and December 2022 to help natural rubber farms in Thailand improve the quality and productivity of their natural rubber production. A total of five seminar events have been held to date, to which 250 farmers from the Surat Thani province attended. The attendees received a total of 75 tons of special fertilizer developed by leveraging RAOT’s specialist knowledge, a gift which was greatly appreciated among the attendees.