In response to the declining of agriculture due to excessive use of agro-chemicals and economic pressure, a group of farmers and local non-government organizations (NGOs) came together to establish the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) around the early 1980s to foster sustainable agriculture activism in Thailand. The AAN provides a discussion forum of experience sharing and policy advocacy for sustainable agriculture, including organic farming. This initiative had aroused interests among the concerned people to engage in the promotion of sustainable agriculture in many part of the country as rural development objectives. Organic farming is seen as a form of sustainable farming practices, together with agro-forestry, mix farming, and natural farming. Meanwhile, the growth of organic agriculture in EU and US, especially the emergence of market opportunities, has created some interest for agribusiness to initiate organic projects in order to capture the early market niche abroad.
The development of Thai organic agriculture occurs in two streams, i.e. the rural development oriented and the business oriented organic programmes. In the first stream, the key stakeholders are farmers and NGOs with a limited supports from local researchers. Their main goals are to support small-scale farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices in order to improve their livelihood and agro-ecological conditions in the rural areas. Their conversion strategies emphasize on raising farmers’ awareness on the negative impacts of agro-chemicals and the undue dependency on external markets and promoting indigenous knowledge of sustainable farming practices through seminar, research, study tour, and individual on-farm experiments. This approach had a limited success and some NGOs, since early 1990s, had started revolutionizing the strategies through incorporating economic (market) incentive and revising extension methodologies. As part of the strategies of this approach, a local organic certification body was founded to provide inspection and certification services to ensure better market access. This new approach is proven to be more effective as a large number of farmers had joined in the organic programmes.
The second stream is led by local entrepreneurs who have linkages to overseas markets. With such linkages, they (or their trading partners overseas) have noticed the emerging organic markets and see this as a business opportunity. As they normally lack of knowledge on production, especially organic farming, they thus engage local researchers and government agencies in helping them with farmers’ conversion. They also tend to use services of foreign organic certification bodies as suggested by their overseas trading partners. These early pioneers appear to be the large-scale business with export facilities, however, when the domestic market emerges, more and more of smaller local business and entrepreneurs come into the scene.
The development of Thai organic agriculture has gone through an upward and downward periods with the local and international political and economic environments. The collapse of the Thai economy in 1999 had both positive and negative implications, e.g. it encourages more organic conversion as agro-chemical farm inputs became more expensive and Thai organic exports were more competitive but it slowed down the growth of domestic markets due to tight financial flow. The active engagement of the government in organic agriculture since the early 2000s helped to promote also more farm conversion for both domestic market and exports. The oil crisis in the mid 2000s encourages for conversion of producers and slows down the domestic market development. In overall, the Thai organic agriculture has been growing at quite steady rate fueled by the expansion of export opportunities, especially in the EU and US in recent years. Domestic markets, though had emerged quite long time ago, have not developed well due to domestic politico-economic conditions.
Key Milestone of Thai Organic Agriculture
| Year | Event |
| 1991 | * Chai Wiwat Agro-industry and Capital Rice Co started organic rice project in Chiang Rai and Phayao. Production was certified by Bioagricert, Italy |
| 1992 | * Alternative Agriculture Network organized its first national conference, requesting the government to promote sustainable agriculture and organic farming * First Fair Trade rice from Surin was exported to Fair Trade groups in Europe. |
| 1993 | * Green Net established |
| 1994 | * First public fair on “Chemical-Free Food for Health and Environment”, Bangkok. * Capital Rice began selling organic jasmine rice in Thailand and overseas |
| 1995 | * ACT was established, and first Thai organic crop standards were drafted. |
| 1996 | * Organic rice project established in Yasothon, certified by the Swiss Institute for Market Ecology (IMO). * IFOAM-Asia Regional Workshop on “Certification for Organic Agriculture and Alternative Market”. |
| 1997 | * ACT commenced organic farm inspection and certification. |
| 1999 | * Thailand Institute of Technological and Scientific Research (TISTR) / Export Promotion Department of the Ministry of Commerce, and the Department of Agriculture (DOA), started drafting organic crop standards. |
| 2000 | * ACT obtained IFOAM accreditation from the International Organic Accreditation Service (IOAS), and its first certified products appeared in Thai markets. * The Cabinet approved US$ 15.8 million (633 million baht) to support a 3-year pilot project on Sustainable Agriculture for Small-Scale Producers. The project was coordinated by the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation and covered 3,500 farming families |
| 2001 | * DOA adopted organic crop production standards. * First IFOAM Organic Shrimp Consultation held in Thailand |
| 2002 | * Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative (MoAC) stablished National Office of Agricultural and Food Commodity Standards (ACFS), responsible for implementing/enforcing national agricultural and food standards as well as accreditation. * ACFS completed drafting of “Organic Agriculture: the Production, Processing, Labeling and Marketing of Organic Agriculture”. They cover crop production, livestock and aquaculture. * Swiss Government recognized the competency of ACT, allowing ACT to conduct organic inspection and certification according to the Swiss government’s organic standards. * First produce bearing “Organic Thailand” label appeared in the Thai market. |
| 2003 | * First major international conference on organic agriculture held in Thailand – the 2003 International Organic Conference, co-hosted by FAO, Green Net and Earth Net Foundation. * Surin Province set up a large-scale organic project, planning to convert 16,000 households (with 37,760 ha.) into organic jasmine rice farming, of which 2,735 households (covering 2,735 ha) would apply for organic certification from ACT. * ACT was recognized by the Swedish competent authority for organic certification according to EU regulation 2092/91. |
| 2004 | * ACFS launched an accreditation programme for organic agriculture. ACT was the first agency to apply for the accreditation. * Organic Agriculture Fair was organized by the MOAC and the Cabinet adopted a resolution to put organic agriculture on the national agenda. |
| 2005 | * The government set aside a 1,215.9 million baht budget for the implementation of National Agenda on Organic Agriculture for 2005/06. 23 public agencies were involved. The main objective was to reduce the use of agro-chemicals in conventional farms. * Many governors started organic project in their provinces, but two large scale conversion projects were in Surin and Burirum where thousands of organic rice farming were planned. * Thai Organic Trader Association (TOTA) registered |
| 2006 | * national organic action plan was drafted with supports from the International Trade Center * Siam Paragon introduced Gourmet Market with organic ranges |
| 2007 | * Thai organic slow down after domestic political instability and military took over of the government * National Organic Development Strategic Plan was established * Certification Alliance (CertAll) established |
| 2008 | * Political disarray continues * National Organic Action Plan was approved by the government with a budget of over THB 5 billions planned for 5 years * ACT applied for Canadian recognition (was approved in 2009) |
| 2009 | * TOTA started organic incubation programme to increase organic enterprises * ACT applied for EU recognition |
| 2010 | * ACFS participated in GOMA activities * TOTA-MoC-GTZ collaboration on local market developments |
| 2011 | * MoC initiated Organic & Natural Expo and Organic Symposium, focusing on ASEAN region * National Organic Development Strategy ended, no new plan was developed |
