China celebrated 75 years of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October, and Golden Week was enjoyed by millions of tourists.

I took the chance to travel to Thailand and had an opportunity to visit some farms and enjoy some of Thailand’s legendary tourism.

Thailand was hit very badly during COVID-19, where slumps in consumption due to low tourist numbers had a big knock-on impact on the agricultural sector.

However, judging by the traffic and crowds in Bangkok, Thailand is surging back.

After COVID-19, Thailand’s pig industry was pummelled by African swine fever. Production dropped over 35% and the industry has dealt with years of losses while also becoming more robust, as domestic pork tries to claw back market share from imported (often smuggled) pork.

Visits to a couple of large integrators (8,000 sows and followers) showed strict biosecurity protocols, very good new barn designs and a strong interest in using new technologies to be able to monitor their pigs and to utilise tools to be able to identify health outbreaks early.

Major players

The major players in the market are well-connected into the food supply chain.

Visits to dairy farms suggested that medium-sized farms with 300 to 500 cows are now confident of market prices, and farms are adding barns and cows as the smaller farmers are exiting the industry.

Anyone who has visited Thailand will know that between the stifling heat and rainy seasons, dairy farming is highly challenging. Firstly, there are major issues with silage quality and palatability.

Secondly, mastitis and high cell counts are a common problem. Calf management is also a challenge, while birds seem to plague the sheds and grain storage.

Government data suggests that there is a shortage of fresh milk, and with a relatively small herd, Thailand is also reliant on imports, and on expanding both its herd size and productivity.

Thai dairy consumption has multiple drivers, such as the surging coffee market, making the dairy market one of the more promising export markets.

Indeed just after the October holiday, Bord Bia had a mission to Thailand aimed at growing exports to the market led by its CEO.

During my visit, there was a Daoist festival underway, and the streets were adorned with slogans in the Chinese language.

This served as a good reminder to me that Thailand and China not only share many cultural heritages but also have a large population of people across both countries. I caught up with a Chinese friend in Bangkok who moved to Thailand to supply Chinese technologies to Thai farmers.

Positive trade

There are positive trade terms between China and Thailand, and indeed it was interesting to see the prevalence of Chinese products on farms in Thailand.

It seems that machinery previously sourced from Turkey and Europe is being replaced with Chinese options. When I visited a pig farm, they were trying (with major difficulty) to assemble water feeders from China and couldn’t find key components in the sea of boxes.

The other Chinese technology that seemed to be becoming more popular in Thailand is the electric vehicle. Speaking to friends locally, Chinese cars foster good competition with Japanese and Korean offerings.

As the European Union continues to ratchet up trading tensions with China, Thailand is broadly receptive to the advantages of China’s exporting strategies.

For Ireland, clearly there are opportunities in both technology for farms, for food and for further engagement in Thailand.