Research priorities for agriculture in Thailand

This is one of three country case studies responding to long-standing request from the respective governments. Each one complements ACIAR Project 8607, and employs the methodology of the general global priorities assessment model, based on the concept of concept of consumer/producer surplus, developed under that project.

Agricultural research in Thailand is mainly conducted by the public sector, although some private-sector research has commenced recently - mostly aimed at adapting technology from other countries to Thai conditions. While other government agencies are involved, most research activity in agriculture is controlled by the Department of Agriculture (DOA) and the allocation of its research budget among different crops is one of the most important problems facing its administrators.

At present the Department has a scoring system for budget allocation, which is based on government guidelines. However, as the need for consistent allocation of the research budget increases with the increasing magnitude of budget, it becomes more and more difficult to use such criteria for this purpose.

Accordingly, the aims of the present project are to assist in developing research methods and an information system for evaluation of agricultural research and also in agricultural research resource allocation decision-making in Thailand. Researchers will modify and adapt the framework developed for use in ACIAR to suit the needs and procedures in Thailand, concentrating on the practice of DOA. An important component is the development of indigenous capacity to set priorities that take into account the potential impact of the research, thus also providing the capacity to expand the information system and adapt it further to meet future needs. A longer-term goal is to adapt the approach to provide information of relevance to decision-making at the discipline/project level of research policy implementation.

The project will consist of three major phases. The first one - defining the important issues and scope - will heavily involve the potential users, through establishment of a consultative committee. The second phase will comprise modification and adaptation of the model to provide the type of information specified by potential users, also data collection, preliminary priority setting, and comparison with existing research resource allocation.
The final phase will concentrate on institutionalising the information system and disseminating it within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. For this purpose, a manual will be produced in Thai and used to train all likely users of the system.

Analyses of the impact of research are important for ensuring maximum effectiveness and thus developing research priority guidelines. This project will promote such analyses. It will: start a systematic information-generation system in Thailand, providing inputs to research resource allocation decision-making; encourage inter-institutional collaboration in setting priorities; improve the expertise of institutional staff in the methodology and theory of priority setting and the assessment of the economic impacts of research.

Coordination with the other three closely related projects should ensure that benefits flow to and from each of the four countries concerned: Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Thailand.