Thailand willing to share agricultural expertise with Qatar

Thailand can share its expertise on sustainable development, especially in the field of agriculture, with Qatar in order to help the country achieve food security, ambassador Soonthorn Chaiyindeepum has told Gulf Times.

As an expert in agriculture and an exporter of many food products, Chaiyindeepum noted that Thailand has shared its knowledge in this field with many developing countries as part of their technical co-operation programme.In an interview, the envoy pointed out that Thailand is known to be an expert in rainmaking, also known as ‘cloud seeding,’ which he believes is needed by countries in a region like the Gulf, including Qatar, for growing various crops, the envoy said. “In Jordan we have shared this one (though an agreement) because I know this is a problem that in some areas you need to have more rains for the crops,” he added.According to Chaiyindeepum, such technique was developed by the late King, and it was known as the Royal Rainmaking Project. It is now used by many countries to deal with drought, he claimed.Besides rain making, the Thai ambassador stressed that they can also provide technical assistance and capacity building to Qatar in areas such as hydroponics farming, as well as organic farming, and aquaculture, among others to increase production.It is learnt that Thailand is also an expert in molecular plant breeding, which develops plants that have high tolerance to drought and extreme weather.“We are also very good in trim farming, aquaculture (fisheries), and others, but we have lots of it in Oman, a GCC country close to the sea and which has a bigger market and population,” the envoy said. “In fact, some companies already have a joint venture in Oman.”About helping Qatar to grow rice, Chaiyindeepum explained that such crop needs plenty of water and rainfall to nurture. Thailand is one of the top exporters of jasmine rice to various regions in the world, including the Gulf.Qatar ranks 42nd as Thailand’s jasmine rice export destination. The Thai embassy, he added, is also trying to promote high level visits in the near future to further strengthen ties between the two countries in various fields of co-operation, including food security.