Thailand FAO Country Profile – Food Security

Thailand farms 3 650 000 hectares of permanent crops across 51 089 000 hectares of land area. As such, agriculture requires 90 percent of the nation’s share of total water use while it contributes to 8 percent of the country’s Gross National Product.

Thailand’s agricultural population is made up of 28 million individuals (of 68 million people total). The per capita daily caloric intake for Thailand’s residents is 2 529.

FAO's main in-country programmes

Technical Cooperation Programme

A Technical Cooperation Programme pilot project for poverty alleviation and the promotion of food security in North-Eastern Thailand was extended through 2009. The project’s objective was to increase the productivity, self-reliance of farmers and the income of rural households. Formulating a national strategy for future expansion within the overall framework of the government’s agricultural sector development policy and strategy was another objective of the project, which focused its activities in Maha Sarakham Nakhon Phanom and Sisaket provinces.

Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animals and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES) - Animal Health Component

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)/H5N1 affected Thailand’s domestic poultry from 2004 to 2008. Twenty-five human cases were reported, of which 17 were fatal. Since then, there has been no evidence that the disease has reoccurred in the country. FAO deployed a large portfolio of regional emergency projects (five past projects) in Southeast Asia covering Thailand as early as 2004 to help control the disease. Two regional projects are ongoing and include longer term activities such as laboratory networking and sustainable surveillance.

Over the past years, Thailand officially reported foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), rabies, classical swine fever, porcine reproductive/respiratory syndrome and brucellosis. To address these transboundary diseases, FAO and the World Organization for Animal Health and the World Health Organization developed an European Commission funded regional program on highly pathogenic and emerging diseases in Asia (targeting mainly HPAI, rabies and FMD for the animal health side). This programme will take place within the Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases for Asia framework to be launched in 2010.

Following the epidemic of Pandemic Influenza H1N1 in humans in 2009, FAO launched a regional TCP project to provide emergency assistance for surveillance of novel Influenza A subtype H1N1 viruses in pig and poultry in high risk Southeast Asian countries. In December 2009, Thailand reported an outbreak of pandemic influenza H1N1 in swine.

National Medium Term Priority Frame Work (NMTPF)

Thailand’s NMTPF for 2007-2011 has government endorsement. The NMTPF reviews the existing priorities of the government of the United Nations Partnership Framework and the national Millenium Development Goals vis-à-vis past and on going interventions including analysis of gaps and the future potential of FAO technical cooperation. It includes the identification of five priority areas for FAO-Government of Thailand cooperation and the mechanisms to implement them.

http://www.fao.org/countries/55528/en/tha/