Mr. Peerapan Kothong, Secretary-General of the Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE), revealed that the OAE is committed to upgrading the country's rice information system to be more modern and accurate. Most recently, it organized the "INAHOR National Training Workshop: Promote Rice Planted Area and Production Estimation Using Space-based Technologies in Thailand" in collaboration with international partners: the ASEAN Food Security Information System Project Secretariat (AFSIS), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Japan Remote Sensing Technology Center (RESTEC), and the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). This workshop aimed to develop the capabilities of agricultural statistics personnel to systematically apply space technology to compile data on rice planted area and production.

The OAE, as the main agency responsible for agricultural statistics in Thailand, recognizes that accurate and timely data is crucial for agricultural policy management, especially for rice, a major economic crop and a foundation for food security in both Thailand and the ASEAN region. This training focused on the use of the INAHOR system, which utilizes data from the ALOS-2 satellite in the L-band Surface Aeration (SAR) radar system. This low-frequency, high-wavelength radio wave has the advantage of penetrating obstacles, transmitting signals through thick clouds, fog, or heavy rain to directly survey the Earth's surface. This is particularly suitable for Thailand's cloudy climate during the rice farming season, allowing for continuous monitoring of agricultural practices without weather limitations.

The current version of the INAHOR system has been improved to work with the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform and the web-based QGIS software. This simplifies the preparation of training data. Users set the point values ??for rice-growing areas to 1 and non-rice areas to 0 to train the system to accurately analyze the areas. Any inaccuracies can be removed before the analysis process begins. Furthermore, the Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE) discussed the results of estimating the area planted with dry-season rice in the Northeast to improve the system's algorithm for greater accuracy. A comparison will be made with unified data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives in May 2026.

To obtain the most accurate data, the team conducted fieldwork in Suphan Buri Province to verify the accuracy of satellite analysis results. The survey revealed an interesting finding: some plots previously used for rice cultivation have now been converted to sugarcane or corn. This real-time crop change data was recorded by the JAXA development team to improve the INAHOR system's calculation formulas, enabling more accurate crop differentiation in the future. The Secretary-General of the Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE) concluded that this collaboration with Japanese and ASEAN organizations is a significant step in the digital transformation of Thai agricultural data. This will strengthen the food security information system, leading to more accurate, transparent, and sustainable policy decision-making for Thai farmers.

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