Taiwan Today

Winning hearts and minds in the northern highlands of Thailand is the goal of TaiwanICDF cooperative projects.

For Boonsri Kaem, Taiwan never featured in his farming life in the mountainous area about 45 kilometers to the west of northern Thailand’s Chiangmai city. But that changed in February 2017 when the swarthy farmer started growing a high-quality, virus-free variety of passion fruit named Tainung No. 1 from Taiwan. The plant was introduced to Thailand under a cooperative relationship between Taipei City-headquartered International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), the country’s foremost foreign aid organization, and Thailand’s Royal Project Foundation (RPF).

Previously focusing on corn and cabbage farming, Kaem subsequently made an extra 100,000 baht, or more than US$3,000, last year by cultivating the fruit. “RPF offered to buy my produce and I’ve learned how to grow a new crop. Isn’t that great?” he said, flashing a satisfied grin under the April sun.

Raising Standards

Taiwan has been working with Thailand on improving farmers’ lives in the highlands near the country’s northern borders since the 1970s. Lee Pai-po (李栢浡), TaiwanICDF’s deputy secretary general, estimates the decadeslong cooperation has benefited tens of thousands of farmers in the region. Helping Thai technicians produce virus-free seedlings of Tainung No. 1, which are in turn promoted among farmers like Kaem, is just one part of the joint efforts made by the two sides in recent years.

The passion fruit plan was initially a component in RPF’s Technical Assistance Horticultural Development Project running from 2011 to 2013. It continued to feature in another three-year project jointly implemented by TaiwanICDF and RPF from 2014 to 2016 for controlling pests and diseases for citrus and passion fruit crops.

Since 2011, projects carried out by RPF in the highlands in coordination with TaiwanICDF are renewed every three years. Submissions are proposed by the former and evaluated by the latter for feasibility.

The budget is funded by the two sides, with TaiwanICDF responsible for 45 percent. To date, three multicomponent projects have been completed in the first and second three-year phases ending in 2016, with a third one aimed at diversifying varieties of mushrooms and persimmons, as well as improving cultivation techniques.

Profitable Growth

Allison Hsu (許慧玲), a project manager with TaiwanICDF working at RPF headquarters in Chiangmai, said Taiwan helps mainly by introducing hardy cash crops, offering financial support and sending agricultural experts to Thailand where they impart the latest information to technicians from up to 39 RPF-run stations. The trainees, in turn, pass along the acquired knowledge to more technicians based in RPF network stations. By building capacity for RPF agricultural staffers, TaiwanICDF is enabling farmers to stand on their own after the joint projects are completed.

Suthat Pleumpanya, director of RPF’s Development Division, said Taiwan boasts advanced agricultural technology and know-how, notably in the propagation of virus-free seedlings and pest control. “TaiwanICDF is the perfect platform through which to assist Thailand, with Tainung No. 1 a standout contribution.”

According to RPF, the passion fruit has grown rapidly in popularity in Thailand over the years. A thousand seedlings of the champion plant were cultivated and distributed to Thai farmers in 2011. Although demand quickly surpassed supply, production continued apace and the number reached more than 80,000 last year.

There are high hopes that other plans such as the one promoting new mushroom varieties through six RPF stations could be equally successful. Patcharin Kengkarj, an RPF fungus specialist, said most Thai consumers are still not familiar with the varieties introduced through the TaiwanICDF-RPF partnership. “There’s massive market potential for varieties such as Portobello mushrooms, which local farmers started growing in 2015,” she said.

Since the mushroom program sprang up in 2014, the number of farmers RPF has advised and purchased produce from has increased from 60 to 117, reflecting the effectiveness of ongoing outreach efforts by the participating RPF stations. But as Taiwan sends more experts to Thailand to strengthen cooperative relationships, reciprocity is just as important. “Exchanging experiences between the two sides is crucial to the relationship,” Hsu said.

Progressive Partnership

According to Lee, the TaiwanICDF-RPF tie-up constitutes one major channel through which Thai agricultural experts and technicians make study tours to Taiwan. Each year, he said, there are usually five RPF groups, each comprising five members, eager to learn and return home to share their newfound knowledge.

Paothai Thayaping is a researcher responsible for analyzing data collected from experimental farms in one of the two third-phase TaiwanICDF-RPF projects from 2017 to 2019. This ongoing initiative focuses on IPM, or integrated pest management, a holistic approach to sustainable agriculture for managing diseases, insects and weeds through a combination of environmentally sound measures.

The entomologist, who spent one week last August in Taiwan training at facilities like the Pheromone Center of Chaoyang University of Technology in Taichung City, central Taiwan, is extremely upbeat on the benefits of such undertakings. “I learned a lot about the ingeniously designed and highly effective pheromone traps,” he said. The use of pheromones is under evaluation by RPF, with more visits to the center—the only one of its kind in Taiwan—planned in the future.

One of the Thai agricultural experts supervising the IPM project, Nuchnart Jonglaekha, is also impressed by what she saw during her numerous trips to Taiwan, especially the automated agriculture equipment developed at Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture in Taichung. “But personnel exchanges are really at the heart of the TaiwanICDF-RPF relationship, as they can often inspire participants to make greater contributions to their jobs,” she said.

Boosting Knowledge

This position is supported by Sirisupaporn Khamsukdee, an RPF researcher. The academic took part in a TaiwanICDF-organized international workshop in 2014 on plant cloning techniques. Three years later, Khamsukdee set about cultivating virus-free sweet potato and gloriosa lily seedlings under the second third-phase TaiwanICDF-RPF project.

In September, Khamsukdee will be one of six Thai experts traveling to Taiwan for a weeklong study tour, which will improve the group’s knowledge of various kinds of flowers, notably those of the plants grown as root and tuber crops. “I’ll combine the tissue culture techniques I’ve learned in Taiwan with what I’m going to discover during the coming tour in the hope of helping Thailand mass-produce its own plants,” she said.

At the same time, TaiwanICDF and RPF are discussing fourth-phase candidate projects set for rollout from 2020 to 2022, with results to be finalized toward year-end. Nearly 50 years ago, Taiwan and Thailand committed to working together for a better tomorrow in the northern highlands. RPF’s Pleumpanya said cooperation between the two sides has facilitated the transfer of knowledge and collaborative research. “There’s every reason to sustain such a partnership.”

Storied Partnership

The agricultural technical cooperation between Taiwan and Thailand began in 1970, one year after the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej launched a royal project aiming to eradicate opium fields and replace them with legal cash crops in the northern highlands bordering Myanmar and Laos.

That year, the king requested Taiwan’s assistance with the project when meeting with Shen Chang-huan (沈昌煥), the country’s ambassador to Thailand. Soon afterwards, Prince Bhisatej Rajani made an inspection trip to Fushoushan Farm in Taichung City, central Taiwan. During the on-site visit, he was highly impressed by the techniques for growing temperate fruit trees and vegetables, further strengthening the resolve of Thailand to work with Taiwan in related areas.

In 1973, the two sides established an official partnership for technical cooperation regarding the project. The Cabinet-level Veterans Affairs Council (VAC), operator of Fushoushan, helped implement the initiative by sending specialists to assist farmers in the northern highlands with planting fruit trees and later growing crops.

According to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration statistics, opium production in Thailand reached 200 tonnes per annum in 1970 but dropped to 4 tonnes in 1987. One year later, the Ramon Magsaysay Award—an annual honor named after the late president of the Philippines—was given to the project in recognition of its effectiveness in cutting cultivation of opium poppies and slowing related deforestation.

“This is a milestone indicating that the project is a widely recognized success,” said Lee Pai-po (李栢浡), deputy secretary general of Taipei City-headquartered International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), Taiwan’s foremost foreign aid organization. Since its founding in 1996, TaiwanICDF has been involved in the undertaking overseen by the Royal Project Foundation (RPF).

Although poppy fields are few and far between in Thailand these days, Taiwan remains committed to the project. The TaiwanICDF-RPF partnership is a valuable framework for the VAC, as well as several Taiwan universities renowned for leading-edge agricultural research, to keep sharing technical assistance via various cooperative agreements. The project stands out as a major pillar in the friendship between Taiwan and Thailand.

—by Oscar Chung

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw