Agriculture for better living and improved global economy

For many years, Thailand has been recognized as the leading exporter of various agricultural products, ranging from fresh ingredients to processed canned foods in the world market.Exportation statistics from the World Trade Organization indicate that Thailand is ranked at 13th in the world with 2.4 percent of the market share. There are over 9,000 food-processing plants and manufacturers in the country which export agricultural products worldwide including the European Union, Japan, and Australia. These products can range from rice, shrimp, chicken to tuna and many more. As one of the most important nations that export agricultural products, Thailand needs to consider well the issues of food safety and food security. At present, food safety has become the center of attention among developed nations. As such, the demand for higher levels of food safety has led to the implementation of regulatory programs that address more types of safety-related attributes. These regulatory programs are intended to improve public healthy by controlling the quality of the domestic food supply and the increasing flow of imported food products from countries around the world. For that reason food processing schemes namely the Traceability and Cold Chain Management should be developed and improved. While traceability refers to the capability to trace goods along distribution chain on batch number or series number basis and improvement of supply-side management, cold chain management is a temperature-controlled supply chain with uninterrupted series of storage and distribution activities that can maintain a given temperature range. Cold chain management is used to help extend and ensure the shelf life of products such as fresh agricultural produce and processed foods. We all know that the demand for food is ever increasing nowadays. Therefore, it is necessary to develop production capacity to meet with the needs of the world population. Also, it is most likely that there will be over 9,000 million people in the next 20-30 years. Consequently, sufficient raw materials for food production should be readily prepared in order to avoid food shortage.