South-East Asia (Page 1,380)

The Rice Department (RD) will officially recognise 10 new rice cultivars this year to better fulfil the needs of consumers and farmers.

The new varieties are of better quality and will generate higher income for farmers and provide consumers with broader options, according to the department.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Captain Thammanat Prompow recently unveiled the 10 rice cultivars that will be officially recognised by the RD this year.

He said the ministry values the research and development which has gone into producing new rice varieties. He has given the RD a goal to meet, which is to produce at least four to five new varieties every year.

New types of rice certified by the department must be suitable for growing in any area of the country, be resistant to both drought and flood and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to allow the country to compete with rival nations, said Capt Thammanat.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Anucha Nakasai said rice farmers stand to benefit from the new rice varieties as they will yield larger amounts of produce per rai and are more immune to pests and diseases, resulting in lower costs of farming through the reduction of pesticide usage.

The soon-to-be-recognised rice cultivars will also provide farmers and consumers with more rice alternatives in addition to the ones already certified by the RD, the deputy minister added.

RD director-general Natthakit Khongthip said the rice varieties to be registered this year are more diverse and offer choices that suit different soil conditions, as well as the consumers’ distinct preferences.

According to Mr Natthakit, the 10 rice varieties set for certification include those belonging to various categories, such as white soft-ground rice, white hard-ground rice, jasmine rice, sticky rice and Japanese rice. He said each variety has different strengths.

For example, white soft-ground rice produces a 10-15% higher output than other common varieties despite a short lifespan of 90-100 days. It is immune to the bacterial leaf blight disease and brown planthoppers and can survive floods and cold weather well.

Government, labour and employers’ groups sign MoU with UN agency

The government has joined with the International Labour Organization, workers’ and employers’ groups to commit to creating positive employment conditions in Thailand.

The commitment is contained in a memorandum of understanding for the Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) 2023-2027. It was signed on Wednesday by the Ministry of Labour, the ILO, the State Enterprise Workers’ Relations Confederation and the Employers’ Confederation of Thailand.

The programme reflects a commitment to achieve proper working conditions through collaboration and partnerships, said Oktavianto Pasaribu, deputy director of the ILO country office for Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

The programme has three priorities, he said. First, it aims to develop the labour market amid a rapidly changing world so that it can respond to Thailand’s aspiration to become a high-level income country.

Second, the programme aims to ensure inclusive social protections and decent work for all, while also ensuring that no one is left behind. Lastly, it aims to strengthen data management, communications and the capacity to promote decent work, he said.

“I would like to reiterate the commitment of the office to provide support to achieve the priorities set up for this programme,” he said.

Labour Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, who witnessed the signing, said the programme showed the cooperation between four stakeholders — the government, employers, employees and the UN agency — on labour-related issues.

Representatives from government agencies, labour and employers’ groups on Wednedsay sign the MoU on the Decent Work Country Programme 2023-2027 to ensure good employment conditions. (Photo: Ministry of Labour)

National Park Office chief says law supports his position that area can’t be designated reclaimed forest

The head of the National Park Office insists that a disputed 3,000-rai area on the fringes of Khao Yai National Park has protected status and that its classification as a “buffer zone” is misunderstood.

Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn was responding on Wednesday to information from the Royal Thai Survey Department (RTSD), which has finished surveying the disputed land that the Agricultural Land Reform Office (Alro) had earmarked for Sor Por Por 4-01 documents for landless farmers.

The surveyors found the land was not within the national park but was in the so-called buffer zone.

Mr Chaiwat disagreed. “I insist that the disputed land is not inside the buffer zone. We have a royal decree to support it,” he said.

“This is the evidence we have used to defend our national park land in court in the past 30 years.

“Based on Section 18 of the National Park Act, a forest buffer zone is marked 3 kilometres away from the boundary of a national park or a conserved forest. The buffer zone is not part of a reclaimed forest that the government can decide to preserve or allocate to farmers,” he added.

Mr Chaiwat said the Alro needs to understand the correct meanings of buffer zone, protected forest boundary and community forest before allocating any land for farmers.

He said the One Map project, a single map developed by the RTSD, has not yet been completed. This will have a detailed scale ratio of 1:4,000 and will be a reference for all government agencies to use to reduce conflicts due to the use of different map scales.

Mr Chaiwat said those who informed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Tuesday that the disputed area in Khao Yai was not inside the national park were members of the One Map project committee.

He said he also wanted to have an opportunity to clarify the issue of the disputed land to the premier.

Mr Chaiwat was invited by two House committees on Wednesday to provide explanations about the land dispute in Khao Yai. One is the Committee on National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy and National Reform; the other is the Committee on Land, Natural Resources and Environment.

After meeting some of the people who had previously received Sor Por Kor 4-01 documents in Khao Yai, he said they were not poor farmers but capitalists, politicians and investors.

Agriculture Minister Thamanat Prompow said earlier this week that hotels and resorts found built on plots of land around the park, which had been granted to landless farmers strictly for agricultural purposes, must be demolished and the land seized. 

Mr Chaiwat has invited the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), the secretary-general of the Alro as well as the governor of Nakhon Ratchasima to survey the disputed land on Friday.

In a related development, political activist Sonthiya Sawatdee filed a lawsuit with the Central Administrative Court yesterday asking it to suspend issuing Sor Por Kor 4-01 certificates covering 1.6 million rai of land nationwide until the overlapping land issues between the Alro and 142 national parks have been resolved.

Will focus on expanding existing Green Line

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will transfer three new electric rail projects to the government and focus instead on expanding the existing Green Line.

Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said on Wednesday the three projects are the Grey Line (Watcharaphon-Thong Lor), Light Blue Line (Din Daeng-Sathon) and Silver Line (Bang Na-Suvarnabhumi).

He said the final decision was reached at a recent meeting of the BMA’s executive. These three projects would definitely be transferred to the Ministry of Transport. It was more appropriate.

The Silver Line, for example, was designed to link with several existing mass transit lines mostly owned by the ministry. Therefore, the BMA reasoned it would be more suitable for the project to be developed and operated by the ministry as well.

“Once again, the BMA has not terminated these projects, but would rather they be handled by the organisation directly responsible for this area of work,” said Mr Chadchart.

The BMA would now concentrate on expanding the Green Line, he said.

The city was in the process of hiring a consulting company for a feasibility study into building a new extension of the Green Line, from Bang Wa to Taling Chan, in the 2025 fiscal year starting Oct 1 this year, he said.

At this point, the most likely form of investment for this project would be a public-private partnership in which the BMA would not be investing from its own coffers. The BMA would instead give budgetary priority to “a number of other investment projects, such as building a new hospital and improving public utilities, education and quality of life”, he said.

The BMA had already proposed the transfer of the three electric rail projects to the government’s committee on land transport system management, which was normally chaired by a deputy prime minister, a source said.

If the committee approves this proposal of the BMA, the three projects would be then automatically transferred to the Mass Rapid Transit Authority, which would later decide which of the projects would be implemented first, and when, the source said.

A BMA study had found that the Silver Line would require an investment of 135 billion baht, and the Grey Line 62.8 billion baht in funding, according to a BMA source.