1 August 2016, Khao Kwan Foundation, Suphanburi, Thailand

TOA organized a meeting with partners to discuss on the situation, networking, and concrete collaboration, the topic and the output are:

Sharing and discussion about Seeds Situation in Thailand
The first seeds network meeting happened 5 years ago at Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand, it’s a part of Towards Organic Asia (TOA). In early 2016, we had an Organic Seeds Products Workshop in Lobesa, Bhutan, and today meting will discuss about the situation and collaboration on organic seeds in Thailand.

• The green revaluation in Thailand had brought hybrid rice in order to promote the chemical consumption in agriculture.
• Most of vegetable that produces in Thailand is not local but hybrid. The situation of vegetable is worst than rice, the vegetable seeds are influenced and controls by the big company, farmers cannot collect and preserve the seeds from the hybrid, the impacts are farmers have to keep using the hybrid seeds,the capitals cost of hybrid seeds are increasing, farmers are loosing the knowledge to preserve the seeds (loosing local seeds), and in longer term there will be contaminated by GMO.
• Lack of responsibility from the government to keep local seeds.
• Seeds Bank in Kham Phang San (Nakorn Pathom) is a regional centre in Thailand working on seeds development, and now it’s become the global vegetable centre.

Building Seeds Network in Thailand
From the experiences on organic farming, at the community level, communities are now collecting seeds for next crop, at the moment the network thinks about “Seeds Bank.”

• To preserve local seeds
• To distribute organic to other farmers, right now this network has 164 types of seed and using social network for communication and collaboration.
• To establish a participatory centre & network to promote biodiversity.
• To promote bio diversity and organic seeds, TOA Partners discussed the needs for further collaboration and step are:
• Map organic seeds producers in Thailand and set the joint strategy.
• Research on the needs of consumers.
• Gathering information about varieties, the locations for seeds production and experience farmer who has skills for seeds production.
• Strengthen and collaborate with Alpine (Bhutan) a SE business plan for seeds distribution in the region (Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia)
• Set up organic seeds shop in 4 regions of Thailand and look for a co-business (for example Premier) and a business model to promote local seeds and diversity.
• Skills and techniques for organic seeds production.
• Management system for seeds production (quality control, guarantee system)
• Seeds trading (Law, regulation, registration process).
• Advocate at the policy level; to change the Thai law, which is not support for promoting organic seeds.

Collaboration for Seeds Conference in Thailand and TOA Partners Meeting 
TOA Partners agrees to collaborate and organize for the next conference /gathering, it will be at Maejo University, Chiang Mai, from 30 March – 2 April 2017. The outlines of the conference will be focusing on Policy &Collaboration, Organic Seeds, Young Farmers and Research.