NIA promotes bioplastics, organic trade

National Innovation Agency (NIA) director Supachai Lorlowhakarn said organic agriculture and bioplastic industries will play an important role in emerging industries across the globe since health and environmental concerns are on the rise.

The Cabinet has approved a budget of Bt4.3 billion to encourage organic agriculture in Thailand. It has also approved a National Action Plan for the Development of Organic Agriculture for 2008 to 2011.

Under the action plan, NIA has set a target of providing support to more than 50 organic-agriculture entrepreneurs within the next two years to help them to develop their products for export.

"We can foresee a huge, new business opportunity for an agrarian country like Thailand to jump onto this bandwagon. The agency is geared up to encourage and leverage innovative development to support emerging environmentally friendly industries," Supachai said.

The agency has also set up a task force to integrate related organisations and establish collaborations for developing holistic approaches on organic farming. The task force will function at an international level in order to increase the competitiveness of the industry and promote organic products in the domestic as well as the exports market.

The NIA will establish guidelines for managing a national organic-agriculture system to standardise operations and development of organic products.

"Although the organic sector in Thailand is still relatively small, it has taken big strides forward and grown considerably over the past few years. We aim to transform the existing agriculture system into an organic farming one," Supachai said.

He said the agency has currently created a collaborative network of private-sector organisations, research-ers and organic farmers. The network has led to the development of 12 organic-agriculture projects.

Meanwhile, the agency is working in collaboration with the Thai Organic Trade Association, which has 15 members, to promote organic-business development in the country.

For the bioplastics industry, which offers a new environment-friendly plastic, the cabinet has allocated a budget of Bt1.8 billion.

Supachai said the agency has created a national roadmap for the bioplastics industry based on four key development strategies - the development of agriculture raw material, technology, innovative business and industry, and basic infrastructure.

In the first step, the agency will use cassava as a key raw material to produce bioplastics. It plans to use cassava chips to feed animals and produce ethanol.

He said NIA aims to work with technology partners from Japan or Europe, who are key players and consumers of bioplastic, to provide technology transfer and licensing that will help Thailand build Polylactidacid (PLA) resin production plants by the year 2010.

"Currently, plastic manufacturers import PLA resin. If the country has its own PLA production plant, it will help manufacturers cut costs by about 15 per cent. It will offer Thailand an opportunity to become a leading supplier in the international market," Supachai said.

Although the global production of bioplastics is just about 500,000 tonnes a year, the agency estimates the demand for bioplastics to grow about 30 per cent a year, he said.