FUTURE PERSPECTIVE
11 February 2020
EIC recommends uplifting Thailand’s agricultural sector with Agritech
Today, various developed countries, for instance, the US, Australia, and Germany adopt Agritech as an aid to farming on a wide scale.
• Today, various developed countries, for instance, the US, Australia, and Germany adopt Agritech as an aid to farming on a wide scale. Such Agritech applications are, for example, robots that can detect and sort crops based on the size in addition to machines that collect farming data, survey land, control pests, and harvest agricultural products. The implementation of Agritech solutions can effectively improve cultivation efficiency as well as lower farming costs.
• EIC views that Thailand should start to adapt as traditional farming will likely be disrupted by Agritech. Despite Thailand somewhat adopting Agritech via agricultural drones and indoor farming, the adoption is still not widespread to date. The obstacles for Agritech adoption among small family farmers are the lack of capital readiness and small crop fields, thereby causing investments to be unprofitable. Thus, government support and assistance for capital, knowledge, and research and development to lower costs as well as the promotion of crop field integration are required.
• With regards to exports, Thailand’s position as a base for production and export of agricultural machinery and parts could be leveraged by expanding to produce and export higher value-add Agritech solutions. An example could be to manufacture automation systems for tractors and harvesters that already are Thailand’s key export items. Furthermore, the key markets that Thailand exports tractor parts to are the US and Australia, which already installed automation systems on agricultural machinery.