NIA joins hands with 5 partners to organize AgTech Innovation Awards 2019 in an effort to restructure Thai agricultural sector

Mr Pariwat Wongsamran, NIA’s Director (Innovative Entrepreneurship Development) and the Director of Thailand Startup Center, talked about the goals in creating new generation agricultural innovator who use new technology to run the business and help in the precision farming to increase productivity which is the modern agricultural techniques, in replace of traditional farming techniques.

At present, there are various modern technologies applied in agriculture such as drone, sensor, Internet of Things, automatic robot, satellite photography, and articifical intelligence. If these technologies can be applied in precision farming of each area, the bank can then use to data to consider granting credit scoring for farmers.

The Agro Business Creative Center: ABC Center) under NIA has thus joined force with Kasetsart University to provide agricultural knowledge for farmers. It also get support from various public and private sectors including the Agriculture and Cooperative Bank which provide financial support,  the Thai Robotics Soceity which help build automatic system and robot, CAT Telecom Plc support IoT communication knowledge, and Siam Kubota Corporation provides Kubota farm for product testing.

They will be doing activities under the ‘Inno4farmers’- agricultural innovation development project created to push new generation farmers, community enterprises, agricultural cooperatives, startups and agricultural SMEs to submit their agricultural innovation to join the project. The innovation must be relevant in three essential areas which are in need of enhancing efficiency for Thailand which include 1) digital agricultural business, 2) agricultural machineries, robot and automatic systems, and 3) post-harvesting handling and logistics management.

The selected candidates will join the training programe to enhance knowledge in product development. They will learn from experts in technology and professional business people who will help them improve presentation skills. They will also get the opportunity to present the work to investors to create business opportunity.

At the final part of the project, they will arrange the  AgTech Innovation Awards 2019 contest as to seek the winner for each type of businesses. Winners will have the chance to join educational trip in Taiwan where they will learn about modern agricultural innovation technology.

If NIA can build up at least 100 agricultural innovation businesses which can further expand to more than 1 million farmers, it will create huge economic impact and can serve the needs of modern farmers who inherit the farm from older generation; and also solve the labor shortage problem at the same time.

Assoc Dr. Chao Indraprasit, the Dean of Engineering Faculty, Kampaengsaen, Kasetsart University, said in implementing Inno4Farmers project, the university takes the project management roles which will modernize agricultural techniques. The learning course will integrate the training programs to envision young agricultural entrepreneurs and equip them with the know-how in innovation development planning from products, production process, services and business formula. In addition, it also create prototype of products which will have advisor team and professional experts to provide consultation in creating product prototypes that can join the agricultural innovation contest. There will be experts providing various aspects of ideas for them to further develop agricultural innovation. This is the way to encourage and inspire young generation to realize modern concept of agriculture, leading them to form the network which they can exchange knowledge and experience regarding modern agriculture.

Mr. Pariwat said that, next year, the agricultural innovation business development of ABC Center, will continue focusing on modernizing agriculture and transforming it into service sector or agricultural businesses driven by innovations. There will be seven fields of knowledge including biotechnology business, digital agricultural businesses, agricultural machinery, robot and automatic system, post-harvesting and logistics management, bio refinery, agricultural service business, and modern farming management. This is to reduce the gap in agricultural sector. He believes that the problems and obstacles faced by the Thai farmers will lead to the modern solutions that can be commercialized in the future.

Those who are interested in joining the project, can scan QR code to apply. Submission date starts from today until 4 January 2019. The entrants will be announced on 11 January 2019. For more information, please call 092-592-4553 or follow news update at https://www.facebook.com/pg/inno4farmers

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