| James Kon |
THE many areas of agricultural cooperation between Brunei Darussalam and Thailand were discussed during a bilateral meeting between Brunei Darussalam’s Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism (MPRT) and Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives yesterday.
Minister of Primary Resources and Tourism Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Ali bin Haji Apong said, “We have an existing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Brunei Darussalam’s MPRT and Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives effective until March 24, 2020.
The MoU covers a broad scope of cooperation which includes Brunei’s Halal initiative in agrifood business, agriculture which includes animal, fisheries, plant, irrigation, land management and cooperatives development, cooperation and coordination within the regional and international organisations, as well as other related areas of interest that are mutually agreed by both parties.”
The minister also hoped that Thailand’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Dr Wiwat Salyakamthorn’s visits to some local rice and agricultural sites would give a glimpse of the development and challenges that Brunei Darussalam currently face in the efforts to increase agriculture production through improvement of crop productivity.
He said, “I hope that we will be able to identify and determine possible projects that we can focus under the MoU. We would like to share our plan to develop a 500-hectare rice production area at Kandol, Belait District. We hope that… perhaps Thailand, through a business-to-business arrangement, may consider participating in our Kandol rice production project.”
Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Ali also expressed his appreciation to the Royal Thai Embassy’s support in strengthening the bilateral relations between both countries, as well as to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of the Kingdom of Thailand who visited Brunei last November and offered to assist the country in further enhancing the growth and development of its agriculture sector.
In his corresponding remarks, Dr Salyakamthorn said, “Our cooperation has been developing, as the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has sent a rice scientist to Brunei.”
Dr Salyakamthorn recommended that both countries come up with a pilot project to deal with the problem areas before focussing on capacity-building, increasing productivity and lowering the costs of production.
He said, “Perhaps we can select two areas for the pilot project, and focus on water management and how to improve the soil nutrition, as well as the improvement of the health of the paddy rice, for better productivity. Another area of cooperation is rice variety selection.
“Brunei Darussalam is very good in preservation, and we can focus on using tree leaves to create micro-organisms to increase productivity.”
Another area of cooperation, he said, “is addressing the challenge of the next generation not getting involved in farming. We are thinking of providing incentives and education on the production system; we can set up a government-to-government initiative, as well as a private sector-to-private sector initiative, on how to attract the new generation to become involved in farming.”
He explained, “Thailand is also facing an ageing society, especially in the rural areas where the young generation tends to migrate to urban cities. About 70 per cent of the young generation migrates to urban cities.
“The areas that we can help Brunei are water management, soil management, resolving acidic soil, rice selection and encouraging the young generation to be involved in farming and increasing productivity.
“We have a soil excellence centre focussed on research and development in Asia. We are hoping to expand the service around the world, especially to Brunei. We hope to use this centre to tackle the acidic soil problem in Brunei.”
Before concluding, he expressed, “We have a strong intention to help you.”
Charge d’Affaires at the Royal Thai Embassy in Brunei Darussalam Rooge Thammongkol; Permanent Secretary at the MPRT Pengiran Haji Kamalrudzaman bin Pengiran Haji Mohd Ishak; and Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MPRT Haji Halidi bin Haji Mohd Salleh were also present.