1999 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. Yongyuth Yuthvong, head of protein engineering programme at National Science and Technology Development Agency, said he expected transgenic plants to be widely used in Thailand, one of the world's top commodities producers and exporters, in the next five to 10 years. We are monitoring this technology closely and will use it to our benefit. The technology will allow Thailand to get better quality crops that would otherwise take much longer time to develop by natural means.
Biotechnology enables genes to be manipulated.
For example, external genes can be introduced into crops to make them more resistant to disease or pests. Other transgenic crops, such cotton, corn or soybeans would be bought from foreign companies and tested for safety before being released into the fields, he said. The cotton contains bacillus thuringenesis bacteria which kills the bollworm pest. Thailand spends about 20 billion baht importing cotton annually, mostly from Australia and the United States. It produces only five percent of its demand because an increasing number of cotton farmers, unable to bear cost of pesticides and health hazards that they cause, have switched to other crops.