The Ministry of Agriculture has pooled AgTech startups and SMEs using big data and cloud kitchen model to distribute agricultural goods through an online partnership with Grab and Alibaba.
Alongkorn Ponlaboot, Advisor to Minister of Commerce said the competitive capability development in the agricultural sector by using technology and innovation must be done in four aspects of big data, smart farmers, e-commerce and agribusiness.
The big data and GovTech is a creation and integration of updated data in all dimensions and set up the national agricultural big data center or NABC. The smart farmer is the adjustment of operation plans such as learning smart farming, smart cassava farming, smart salad vegetable farming in school, smart Pacific white shrimp farming, and creation of smart farming awareness.
The part of e-commerce, it has the Cloud Kitchen project which is a collaboration of the Commerce Ministry with Grab and Alibaba providing a learning course on agricultural products, training farmers to bring farming products to Alibaba platform which a target group is the new generations who have Internet background. The Agribusiness which embraces the Covid-19 impact relief measure and urgent measures such as problem farming goods data collection, online channel for pre-ordering, farming products distribution through the Agriculture Co-operations, and integration of farmers with startups’ online marketing platforms.
The mid and long-term measures include processing of agricultural goods for adding value such as food products, supplies products, agritourism, by working with the provincial governors, provincial agriculture, provincial commerce, and local private companies in order to solve the over-supply and falling prices of agricultural products. The product distribution also helps the farmers who were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition, the Agritech and Innovation Center (AIC) was set up to work with academic institutes in 77 provinces. It is a source of modern knowledge and learning service, creative agriculture technology and innovation where the farmers can work with technology according to Thailand 4.0 initiative. The AIC is also working with Digital Economy Promotion Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission to increase investment channels through crowd-funding portal for entrepreneurs where the young smart farmer startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the target.
