Travelers Warned Not to Bring Fresh Fruits into Thailand

With the resumption of international travel, many Thais have been heading abroad and returning with fresh fruits or vegetables in their possession.
The Department of Agriculture is now warning travelers not to bring fresh produce into Thailand without acquiring import permits.

Thai travelers who return from Korea and Japan frequently bring with them fresh fruits that were purchased abroad. Persimmons and grapes are some of the fruits that customs officials frequently find in the possession of Thais returning from those countries.

The Department of Agriculture indicated that bringing in fresh fruits without declaring them and without permits is illegal under the 1964 Plant Quarantine Act. If found on travelers or among their belongings, officials will seize the goods and may issue penalties that can include fines or prison terms.

The Department of Agriculture has said that it will ask Airports of Thailand to raise more awareness on this matter.

The plant quarantine station at Suvarnabhumi Airport regularly seizes fresh fruits from travelers returning to Thailand and generally issues a verbal warning before releasing the travelers responsible.

Nevertheless, under the law, failure to comply with these requirements can incur a fine of up to 20,000 baht and/or up to 1 year in prison.

Source - Bangkok Jack

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Global food prices heading to record high

Global food costs jumped last month, extending a march toward a record and piling more inflationary pressure on consumers and governments.
A United Nations index tracking staples from wheat to vegetable oils climbed 3% to a fresh decade high in October, threatening even higher grocery bills for households that have already been strained by the pandemic.

That could also add to central banks’ inflation worries and risks worsening global hunger that’s at a multiyear high.

Bad weather hit harvests around the world this year, freight costs soared and labor shortages have roiled the food supply chain from farms to supermarkets.

An energy crisis has also proved a headache, forcing vegetable greenhouses to go dark and causing a knock-on risk of bigger fertilizer bills for farmers.

“The issue with the inputs and fertilizers and its implications for next year’s crop is a concern,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. “By now, the market has factored in most of the supply and demand issues. But the market has by no means factored in next year’s prospects in production.”

Some regions will likely continue to face food-security challenges. The UN on Thursday raised its outlook for global wheat trade to a record as purchases climb in Middle Eastern nations from Iran to Afghanistan. Droughts there slashed crops, boosting dependency on imported grain at a time when prices are soaring.

“This came at the worst time for those countries because world prices are just so high,” Abbassian said. “We cannot afford a bad year in 2022 for important crops.”

The price gains are stirring memories of spikes in 2008 and 2011 that contributed to global food crises. While it takes time for commodity costs to trickle to grocery shelves, officials in areas like North Africa and Turkey are already facing difficulties shielding shoppers from the blow.

Bigger expenses for farmers could also curb Northern Hemisphere plantings now underway, according to the FAO.

October’s food-price gains were mostly driven by higher costs for grains and vegetable oils, the FAO said in a report.

Still, there are signs of stabilizing prices for some foods, with with meat and sugar falling last month, Abbassian said. Global grain and oilseed supplies are proving sufficient to meet demand, and prices for rice — one of the world’s vital staples — remain subdued, he said.

“On the demand side, we’re beginning to get a better hold of what we actually need, so that uncertainty is perhaps diminishing,” he said. – Bloomberg

Source - BangkokJack

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#Thailand - Shortage of migrant labour hits key sectors

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS SLOW DOWN; FISHERIES, AGRICULTURE ALSO AFFECTED

MANY SECTORS, including construction in the capital, fisheries in the South and agriculture in border areas, are facing labour shortages due to the tough new labour law, sources said yesterday as migrant workers began returning to Thailand.

A construction site of the Red Line train (Bang Sue-Rangsit) needed to slow down after many Myanmar workers left their work to reprocess work permits, an official said. 

Workers at the construction site at Bang Sue central terminal also left work, even though they did not need to: they incorrectly believed that their “pink card” was no longer valid under the new law, the official added. He noted that those workers might take 10-20 days to check or reprocess the register before getting back to work.

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However, other construction sectors were less affected by the new law, since major construction firms usually hire legal workers, according to an official at the State Railway of Thailand who declined to be named. 

Millions of migrant workers in Thailand were in a chaotic situation over the past week after the government issued a new decree to manage migrant workers. The decree took effect on June 23, threatening fines for employers of at least Bt400,000 for every illegal worker they hire. 

Only a few days after the decision, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha last Tuesday invoked his special powers under Article 44 to suspend four key articles of the decree until the end of the year. The suspended articles prescribe much harsher penalties against offending migrants and their employers until the end of this year. 

The suspension came too late for many companies, as thousands of legal and illegal workers panicked over the tough punishment and rushed to go to their home countries to process or reprocess their work permits and to register. More than 50,000 migrant workers reportedly returned home since last month, mostly to Myanmar and Cambodia. 

In order to end the chaos, the Labour Ministry will allow all Thai employers to register their Lao, Cambodian and Myanmar workers at temporary centres throughout the country from July 24 to August 7. 

While Prime Minister Prayut said earlier that he believed the workers from neighbouring countries would return to work in Thailand as there are demands in the market, Nit Ouitengkor, former president of Ranong Chamber of Commerce, said they might not return due to complicated legal procedures. There are more jobs available in their countries, including Myanmar, since the economy there is now growing faster than Thailand’s, he said. 

Ranong is Thailand’s southern port province, sitting next to Myanmar. The province is home to some of the most important fishery piers in the country. 

Many piers in the province yesterday were seen almost empty, while some were working with only half of the normal workforce. While it is estimated that more than 5 million migrants from neighbouring countries are working in Thailand currently, it is estimated that only half of them are documented. 

In the eastern border province of Sa Kaew, where there is a shortage of farm workers, local authorities coordinated with their Cambodian counterparts to encourage workers to cross the border to work. Many Cambodian workers have fled due to the new labour law in the past month, leaving many farms in trouble during the growing season. 

Sa Kaew provincial immigration chief, Benjapon Rodsawad, said Cambodian people are allowed to cross the border to work temporarily in the area in order to ease the current labour shortage.

With border pass papers, Cambodians would be allowed to enter and stay in Sa Kaew and neighbouring Pachin Buri province for seven days, he said, “so we have to strictly check their document in order prevent them from going deeper to other provinces or the capital”. 

Source - TheNation 

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Cambodia - Push to reduce chemical dependency

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The Ministry of Agriculture is working to develop a procedural framework for the trade and use of biological control agents (BCAs) in agriculture in an effort to improve crop yields, protect consumer health and ensure continued access to key export markets. Regulation could also create opportunities for the import or local production of BCA products a possibility that has piqued the interest of foreign firms.

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Speaking yesterday at a consultative meeting on regulations and national registration of biological control agents, Sam Chhom Sangha, deputy secretary-general of the Ministry of Agriculture, said the use of BCAs could provide “holistic” support to Cambodia’s struggling agriculture sector, which he claimed had been damaged by the overuse of chemical agents.

“We need to find ways to boost agricultural productivity, encourage crop resilience and diversification and improve commercialisation,” he said.

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“Our fields are under-producing and this is because the soil has been damaged by years of reckless use of chemicals.” 

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Biological control agents are an integral part of pest management programs that use natural mechanisms such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, algae or natural insect predators to protect crops from devastating plant diseases and insect infestations. While already in limited use in Cambodia, a regulatory framework on the trade and use of BCAs would facilitate the import of these products and provide solid footing for local production.

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“BCAs can improve our yields once we finalise and implement their regulation, allowing our farmers to be less dependent on chemical pesticides,” explained Sangha.The Ministry of Agriculture is working with regional experts to draft a national regulatory framework on biological control agents based on ASEAN guidelines.

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Sangha said the government must speed up its adoption of regulations or risk challenges to its agricultural exports as countries tighten restrictions on the import of contaminated products.

In one recent example, the European Commission has given Cambodian producers of white rice until June and fragrant rice until December to eliminate the use of the fungicide Tricyclazole. Failure to comply could block rice export shipments to the European Union, the Kingdom’s largest market for milled rice.

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Thomas Jaekel, a regional GIZ expert, said BCAs offers farmers an “economically and environmentally viable” way to increase yields by building crop resilience and improving soil quality. However, convincing Cambodian farmers to cut back on their chemical fertilisers and pesticides can be a challenge.

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“BCAs are used to complement, not eradicate, the use of chemicals, but the problem is that Cambodian farmers and distributors of chemicals are convinced that the more you spray your crops the better they will be,” he said.

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Jaekel noted that when Indonesia adopted ASEAN regulations in 2014 and set up the procedures for properly registering products, there was a massive uptake in applications for BCA products.

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“A week after the BCA regulation was approved in Indonesia, they had already over 10 applications from foreign and local firms trying to register their products,” he said.According to GIZ data, the Indonesian government receives almost 200 applications annually.

Sarah Anderson, a Singapore-based research and development project manager for German industrial giant BASF, said that despite BCAs having a limited market in ASEAN, there was plenty of room to grow. She said BASF, which has an entire arm dedicated to research and development of BCA products, would consider exporting to Cambodia if clear regulations were put in place.

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“The problem is that there is still a gap between government intentions and those of the traditional chemical distributors,” she said. “Easily 5 percent of the pesticide market in Cambodia could be replaced by bio-pesticides.” 

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However, she said the use of the products hinged on the government cutting red tape. “If the regulations are too strict or large companies see that costs are too high, they won’t enter the market,” she said.

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Ieng Sotheara, founder of Entree Baitang Co Ltd, said local demand for BCAs was growing. His company has been distributing Trichoderma – a naturally occurring fungicide that also protects plants against pests and toxins for the last two harvest cycles. 

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Last year, the company sold 100 tonnes of compost impregnated with Trichoderma. This year it has orders for 500 tonnes.

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Sotheara said he sells the locally-produced Trichoderma at $12 per kilo, or $400 per tonne when mixed with compost.

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“Some of the rice farmers say that it has increased their yields by 20 percent,” he said.

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Source - PhnomPenhPost