April 18, 2018— a group of delegations led by H.E. Dr. Suvit Maesincee, Dr. Somvong Tragoonrung, BIOTEC Executive Director and Dr. Janekrishna Kanatharana, NSTDA Executive Vice President paid a visit to Forschungszentrum Julich. On top of the agenda was to explore potential collaboration in the area of modern agriculture with an aim to increase agricultural productivity which is a vital transition towards sustainable bioeconomy in response to Thailand 4.0 development policy.
Founded in 1956, Forschungszentrum Julich is a member of Helmholtz Association and is one of the largest interdisciplinary research centers in Europe. A collaborative research project between Julich’s institute of Plant Science, BIOTEC/ NECTEC, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), and the Department of Agriculture, Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives was launched in the beginning of 2017. The 3-year project called CASSAVASTORE will look into how to increase productivity of cassava cultivation in Thailand. Investigation is carried out on the development of storage roots of cassava and the identification of genes responsible for the formation of cassava roots. One of the aims is to reduce the cultivation period in Thailand and achieve greater yields of up to 60 tonnes of storage roots per hectare. CASSAVASTORE is co-funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Thailand’s National Science and Technology Development Agency.
