BANGKOK, 30 July 2014 – Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn on Tuesday (July 29) visited the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy in Nakhon Nayok Province to observe the progress of a demonstration project to turn wasteland into agricultural plantations.
The project has been initiated by His Majesty the King to develop uncultivated land in the compound of the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy as a demonstration field for people to learn how to develop an arable land. His Majesty has assigned the Chaipattana Foundation, the military academy and other related government units to spearhead the development of the land, by using the Sufficiency Economy concept.
The project started in 2013 with the pilot planting of Hom Mali fragrant rice during the rainy season, followed by the post-harvest growing of field crops in 2014. The project has already yielded 1,850 kilograms of rice, and parts of their seeds were sent to a community rice center in the province for distribution as parent seeds to farmers.
The royal project also promotes ecological engineering methods on paddy-field ridge to provide biological control of rice-feeding insects. On this occasion, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn also tried planting rice using a rice-planting tractor donated to the project on the day by a private company and released a number of ducks and frogs into the demonstration fields. The raising of those animals will help eradicate weeds and pests in the fields and add organic fertilizers to the soil at the same time, thus helping reduce the production cost. Duck eggs also bring additional income to farmers and are a source of protein for household consumption.
