On February 23, XAG joined a high-level dialogue with Thai government to discuss the future of Sino-Thai cooperation on advancing agriculture in Thailand.

The list of attendees included nearly 100 senior officials and experts from The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC), The Office of the Board of Investment (BOI), Office of The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), The Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT), Kasetsart University (KU), Eastern Economic Corridor Office of Thailand (EECO).

The talks were chaired by Miss Natenapa Kongsri, Consul-General of the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Guangzhou.

Both sides have exchanged views on how to apply agriculture AI, promote digital technology, and develop drone regulations in China and Thailand, hoping to establish partnerships that can drive transformation of the Thai agriculture industry towards sustainable and inclusive growth. Proposed solutions involved providing unmanned equipment, such as agricultural drones, to smallholders and collaborative farms in Thailand.

Since 2018, Thailand has launched the 20-year National Strategy as well as implementing the “Thailand 4.0” initiative, a sector-specific industrial policy to revitalise its economy through digital transformation. The traditional labor-intensive crop cultivation model should fade out and give away to smart agriculture based on technology and innovation.   

According to Justin Gong, Co-founder of XAG, the global food system is now faced with challenges such as climate change and rural aging, and unmanned technology is the key to breaking the bottleneck of agricultural development.

“In China, we have been successfully scaling up autonomous agricultural drones to rural areas across the nation and served millions of farmers. This provides a role model and practical experiences for Thailand to rebuild its smallholder economy,“ said Gong.

Dares Kittiyopas, Inspector-General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand, expressed the interests to further strengthen the relations with XAG, bridging the digital gap with agri-tech innovation in agriculture. “We look forward to the opportunity of conducting agricultural drone demonstration and training in Thailand, while working to improve rules and regulations on drone governance,” she said.