Presented as part of the SIANI Hesa Expert Group meeting in Chulalongkorn University School of Agricultural Resources (CUSAR) in Bangkok. More at: http://bit.ly/1NwBkbp

2. Rationality:
• Sustainable Agriculture Development in Thailand
has a long history, still many problems are
encountered.
• Many parts have involved in this development
including educational institutions.
• How HE can be a part of this solution and how?

3. 1. To provide a brief history of sustainable
development in Thailand.
Objectives:
2. To point out crucial problems and also
possible solutions of HE in DSA in Thailand.
3. To suggest roles of higher education in
transition of DSA in Thailand

4. Contents:

5. Part 1 : A brief history of sustainable
development in Thailand

6. Essence of agricultural development
in the 7th - 11th National Economic and Social Development Plan
The 7th NESDP (1992-1996)
- Sustainable Development
The 8th NESDP (1997-2001)
- Human as a center of development
- Integrated development

7. Essence of Agriculture in the 7th - 11th NESDP
The 9th NESDP (2002-2006)
- Equity in development
- From farm to table
- From Thai kitchen to world kitchen
- Sufficiency Economy

8. Essence of Agriculture in the 7th - 11th NESDP
The 10th NESDP (2007-2011)
- Happy Society
The 11th NESDP (2012-2016)
- Sufficiency Economy
- Happy and equitable society
- Area Function Participation

9. Agricultural Essence in the Thai Government Policy
Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra
1st term (2001) & 2nd term (2005)
Declaration on February 26, 2001
No.3 Policy to enhance
commercial competency of
agricultural sector.
“ Advocating the process of patent
and the centre of organic
farming products in Thailand.”
Declaration on March 23, 2005
“Supporting sustainable
agriculture base on a new
theory and organic agriculture
for natural resources and
environmental conservation”

10. Agriculture Essence in The Thai Government policy.
organic Agriculture
as “a national
agenda”
Cabinet agreement.
January 4, 2005.

11. Agriculture Essence in The Thai Government policy.
Prime Minister
General Surayud Chulanont
Declaration on November 3, 2006
“Support economy of farmers and improve quality of
agricultural production with technology, management
and link to market system”

12. สาระสาคัญทางการเกษตรในนโยบายรัฐบาล
January 22, 2008
National Organic
Development Committee
was appointed.
October 16, 2007
Approval of “ The 1st
National Organic
Agriculture
Development Strategy”
(2008-2012)

13. Four core strategies
(The 1st National OA Development Strategy)
1. Strengthening OA knowledge and
innovation
2. Developing local organic agriculture
folkways
3. Promoting commercial potentiality of
OA to global market.
4. Managing OA development.

14. Agriculture Essence in The Thai Government policy.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej
&
Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat
Declaration on February 18, 2008 & October 7, 2008
“Enhancing process of organic agriculture, integrated
agriculture, agro-forestry, a school lunch project, and cattle
bank as royal initiations that a farmer and a community are
able to be an actor and a self-oriented one”

15. Agriculture Essence in The Thai Government policy.
Prime Minister
Abhisit Vejjajiva
Declaration on (December 30, 2008)
“New Agriculture Theory, a school lunch, a cattle bank as royal initiation, and
to promote organic agriculture, integrated agriculture, and agro-forestry
which are consistent to a community needs for diminishing the use of
chemical substances and added value to agricultural goods. This involves
supporting international cooperation of food security”

16. Agriculture Essence in The Thai Government policy.
Prime Minister
Yingluck Shinawatra
Declaration on August 23, 2008
“To develop and promote food processing industry based on creative
knowledge, local wisdom, and value added innovation in order to
upgrade quality of goods which reach international safety
standard, and has an opportunity to expands markets i.e., organic
agriculture goods, Halal food, etc. for increasing farmer income”

17. Part 2 : Crucial problems and also possible
solutions of DSA in HE of Thailand

18. Obstacles Solutions
- Bottle neck of Thai
scholars (They don’t want
to cross their own
discipline!) It is individual
interest!
- To make Thai scholar
cross their own discipline
and become a multi-
discipline scholar! Holistic
approach instead of single
discipline!!!! How?????)

19. Obstacles Solutions
- Understanding of Thai scholars about the
scope of agricultural systems in SA (There
are 5 types of SA in Thailand (integrated
farming, organic agriculture, agro-forestry,
a new theory agriculture, and natural
farming) Is it cover the real area of DSA in
Thailand? (How about Bio-dynamic,
Permaculture, Bio-intensive?). (GAP is SA
or not? Psuedo-science?)
- How to make a
better understanding
among Thai scholars
about the scope of SA?

20. Obstacles Solutions
- Most university
administrators are not
concerned with SA
- How to convince these
administrators to appreciate
and value the significance of
SA? (ThroughEmbedded
training? Exchanged
experiences? Best practices?
Cases learned? OHEC has to
take responsibilities for this?

21. Obstacles Solutions
- Bureaucratic problems
(eg. Regulations & rules &
laws from OCSC (Office of
Civil Service Commission)
- Improvement & Revise
related rules & regulations

22. Part 3: Appropriate roles of higher education
in transition of DSA in Thailand

23. • Roles in Teaching & Learning

24. Problems Roles
- Only a few number of related SA
curriculum! Only some subjects in each
universities (This relate to the bottle
neck problem!)
- How to boost up more SA curriculum?
How to create more multi-disciplinary
curricular? (or should not be a
curriculum but has only an integrated
course (as a require course for all
students) that provide a student a whole
understanding of the whole production
chain of SA
- Provide a student more options of
learning techniques eg. study trip, farm
experience, etc.

25. • Roles in Research & Development

26. Problems Roles
- Low numbers of R&D in SA
(Politicians do not know about SA,
Small amount of SA research fund,
unbalanced between conventional
agriculture and SA research fund)
- Enhance scholars to conduct
more SA research by
- Setting a concrete SA policy
direction (raking from national,
institutions, universities, local)
- Allocate more research fund,
more incentives?

27. • Roles in Outreach

28. Problems Roles
- Concerned but no systemic
thinking (unable to link the
confronting problem with the
whole SA problems)
- Relies on individual than
system! (No SA successor!)
- No continuity of the activities
(dues to several causes eg. no
incentives, more social values on
academic publishing, no KPI!)
- Conduct more SA research and
then more relatedservices on the
research.
- Focus more on “Area Based
Research” “Participatory Action
Research”
- Try to ingrain “SA social value” to
students & parents.

29. • Role in Art & Culture Conservation

30. Problems Roles
Lack of cultural appreciation Create social value on cultural
conservation!

31. 1. Synthesized all previous research on SA in order to find
a pitfall and lesson learned about SA research, and find
out what should be conducted in order to fulfill the gap of
SA issues.
Recommendations:

32. • 2. There are some data bases on SA, but there has no
updated, no pooled data, no analyzed, and not enough
publicized. There should have a good project for HE to
analyzed these data.

33. 3. Make more use of AUN (Asian University Netwrok), and
other present networks (UNESCO, FAO, etc.) for strong
collaboration on DSA. Meanwhile, create a new effective
network that fruitful for DSA. (in order to develop co-
curricular, co-courses, exchanged students and staffs, )

35. Thank you.