Questions/Answers

Thailand is an agricultural country. There are 43 percent of populations are farmers. Most of Thai farmers confront with poor for long time. A major cause is they have no plan for crop production. The products are usually over supply, cannot sell, and low income. Therefore, they need loan, but they cannot pay all debt in time and the debt is gradually multiplied. However, there is a lot of information for crop production planning in Thailand, but it distributes in an individual institution. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC) initiates to gather that information in a single place. The 69 spatial databases have been collected and made an “Agricultural Map for Adaptive Management: Agri-Map”. Agri-map has been gradually developed for more convenient utilization. Currently, it can be operated online and on mobile. Farmers can access the information anywhere and anytime. By using Agri-Map, Thai government finds that there are many farmers produce crops on unsuitable land. The government makes a policy to promote and support those farmers to alter crops. The farmers get high productivities, low production cost, and high income from new crops. This effectiveness affects economic, society and environment of the country that more stable and sustainable.

This work is consistent with the Public Sector Digital Promotion Award category because it is a change in government administration by using digital information technology and geo-information technology to service the farmers. All digital databases related on agricultural production are gathered to make Agri-Map, and a mapping system is developed for easy and practical utilization. Farmers can easily acquire the information to decide an agricultural production. They can access data anywhere and anytime. In addition, it motivates Thai government to become a digital government.

This work is used to encourage farmers to utilize their land with the potential of soil productivity. It sounds to synchronous with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition, promote sustainable agriculture, and increase agricultural productivities, and the goal 15: protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, stop land degradation and worth of ecosystem services by encourage the farmers to aware of suitability agricultural land utilization along with soil restoration and improvement. Is results in the degraded lands are improve and agricultural lands are sustainable utilized.

Agri-Map can be used to identify soil suitability for crop production in four levels; for example, S1 (high), S2 (moderate), S3 (low), and N (inappropriate). By using Agri-Map, Thailand; currently, has an inappropriate (N) agricultural land 14.52 million rai. It is low productivity lands needed high input and production cost. The farmers have to alter to new appropriate crops. Therefore, the government has a policy to encourage those farmers to change agricultural production in that area. Farmers can decide the crop production appropriately, the average net income increased. For example; previously, the farmers had been cultivated rice and gotten average net income 112.61 baht per rai. They have converted to maize, sugarcane, integrated farm, Pasture, cassava, mulberry and silkworm production. The average net income has been increased to 3,000 - 26,000 baht per rai. The debt and the poverty of farmers are reduced. Agri-Map is an important tool that helps the government save both budget and manpower in disseminating knowledge to farmers. Furthermore, it motivates Thai farmers to become a digital era. It is also an important tool of the government in the planning of agricultural products of the country. This will be a benefit to the stability of economic.

Agri-Map is a government digital service innovative that consists of 69 spatial databases. It is designed using the Geographic Information System (GIS) to develop the service program that can be easily used. It has been developed by using Cloud infrastructure to operate and display on the online system through the Internet signal and on mobile system to meet the needs of modern, accurate, convenient, and fast operation. In addition, it can be accessed in anywhere and anytime, so it can meet the problematic context of the country in the term of it can be determine the potential of agricultural land in each location. It is an innovation because; previously, most of Thai farmers used to cultivate crops by using the knowledge that transferred from their ancestors. This work encourages them to use currently digital information for agricultural production planning. Agri-Map is a tool that can help them to make a decision to alter inappropriate crops or inappropriate agricultural activities to new more appropriate agricultural activities depend on the land potential.

This work is a new concept that no country has ever done before. This is likely an innovation of ASEAN.

Agri-map has been publicized in various ways. It has been promoted through training courses for at least 3,000 smart officers of MOAC, and training courses for farmers. In addition, it has been demonstrated at 882 Agricultural Productivity Efficiency Increasing Learning Centers that located in all provinces of Thailand. Furthermore, it has been applied to the implementation project of MOAC to alter unsuitable lands for rice cultivation. There are 87,502 voluntary farmers participated in land diversion schemes. In addition, Agri-Map has been publicized at the meeting of the minister of agriculture of the ASEAN, and it was interested by those countries.

This work has been designated as an important policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative that set up the target area of inappropriate (N) agricultural land 6 million rai to alter inappropriate crops in that land to other more appropriate crops or other agricultural activities. It has been included in the strategy 2 of Thailand's 20-Year National: building competitiveness by cooperated of 15 internal departments within the ministry of agriculture and cooperatives, the National Electronics and Computer Technology (NECTEC) of the Ministry of Science and Technology, local administration both at district and provincial level, and network of farmers in nationwide. In addition, this project has been allocated the annual government statement of expenditure around 496.52 million bath in 2016 and 2017 and 478.21 million bath in 2018.

This work can be support the sustainable of the nation in many aspect ; for example, social economic and environment. For social aspect, farmers can be elevated the quality of life, family members return to hometown and apply their knowledge to develop homeland, and; finally, the food safety situation of the nation is firmly. The economic aspect, farmers have higher income than traditional agricultural production because of the increasing of crop yield. Crops cultivation on suitable land can increase crop yield and reduce production cost. In addition, this project is set up to operate as the collective farming, thus the group of farmers can be more power to negotiate with the traders. Consequently, the poverty of the farmer can be solved. The environmental aspect, farmers more realize on their land potential, recognize the optimal soil resources utilization, and harmless the environment; such as, the farmers join hand to product and use organic fertilizers in the community, reduce chemical fertilizer utilization, improve ecology system, and reduce pollution in community.

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This work has been official evaluated by internal office of Land Development Department (LDD) and external institutions. The Planning Division of LDD has been evaluated this project and directly reported to the general director of LDD and the relevant person. In addition, the office of Agricultural Economics has been evaluated this project and reported to the relevant regencies in order to use the evaluated results for implementation.

Indicators has been used for the assessment; including, knowledge improvement, the application of knowledge by farmers, the reduction of production costs, and the increasing of income.

The results of the pilot areas in 3 provinces; for example, Chaiyaphum, Buriram, and Uthaithani in 2016 showed that farmers has altered inappropriate (N) agricultural land 3,930 rai to produce new products. Formerly, the average net return was 25.3 million baht. It increases to 28.7 million baht per year that increased 3.3 million baht per year or 13 percent of original return. Moreover, In 2016, there are implementation areas covered 32,618 rai of 49 provinces with10,502 farmers and in 2017 there are implementation areas covered 157,701 rai of 53 provinces with 30,444 farmers. Those farmers have gotten higher average net return than the previous crops. For example, they has gotten 122.61 baht per rai when cultivated rice, and the average net return has been increased to 3,000 to 26,000 baht per rai when they has cultivated maize, sugarcane, cassava, integrated farming, mulberry with silkworm, and pasture. It can reduce loan problem and the poverty of the farmers.

This work has been set up by building a mechanism for the cooperation among many institutes; for example, working agreement, committee and working groups set up for driving in both policy level and practical level. The agencies within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives have the role of the database integrated for Agri-Map and the committee of project implementation. The Ministry of Science and Technology (NECTEC) has developed the Agri-Map Online service using What 2 Grow technology. The governor and district-chiefs of each province have the role to cooperate with the local institutions and farmer networks; especially, the volunteer soil doctors of LDD who are an important role in this project because they participate in a step of implementation planning at the local level, join hand to operate the project, and be the famer models for their neighbors.

An accomplishment need some functionalities: 1) Databases integration and using technology to produce a single national data hub, 2) The information transfer to the regional level must be based on the integration of all sectors and network creation, and then, encourage them to realize on agricultural zoning by using Agri-Map, and 3) Sustainable land management on a balancing of crop production and land conservation. To improve Agri-map, two way communications is necessary. The users should be data sources that can send the data directly to LDD for updating. However, the operators have to scrutinize verify the data from various sources.