Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (Public Organization), or TCEB, has forged a partnership with Sampran Model and MICE allies in Thailand to enhance the civil state policy by accelerating the campaign to encourage MICE operators in Thailand to realise the importance of environment and society, forming an alliance with 13 partners to sign an MOU for "Farm to Functions", a project to promote MICE operators to purchase organic agriculture products directly from farmers from Amnatcharoen Satjatham Rice Community Enterprise Network.
The project is aimed to order a minimum of 600 tons of rice in two years.
Mr. Nopparat Maythaveekulchai, TCEB President, disclosed that "TCEB is implementing the 5-year MICE Sustainability Thailand master plan (2015-2019) with the mission to reinforce Thailand as the world's leading MICE Sustainable Destination, based on the policy to conserve nature and management towards sustainability and optimise the participation of all sectors. "Farm to Functions" is a project initiated by the forces of three sectors to promote MICE operators to purchase organic agriculture products directly from farmers. They are the government, the private sector, and the civil sector: TCEB, Sampran Model, Thailand Incentive and Convention Association (TICA), Thai Hotels Association (THA), Thai Exhibition Association (TEA) and as formulated by the civil state policy, which has been implemented since 2015.
Farm to Functions aims to support Thailand's MICE operators to contribute to the development of sustainable agriculture through purchasing organic products directly from farmers, to enhance the potentiality of Thailand's MICE operators in providing healthy food for MICE travellers, and to equipped Thailand's MICE operators with competitiveness to bring a good image to the operators and Thailand.
"Farm to Functions" provides benefits in three key areas. Driving the economy: MICE operators will be supported to increase their competitiveness and reduce the cost of administration, while farmers and communities earn a regular stream of income. Driving the community responsibility: the private sector is engaged in social responsibility, helping MICE travellers to have healthy food with quality; the environment is less affected with farmers adopting more organic methods. Driving the community engagement: the income distribution is started from the MICE industry to communities, the farmers are given an opportunity to learn about business practice, and the communities step up their role in driving the economy of the country, resulting in the sustainability from upstream to downstream."
For the progress of the project, there are currently nine MICE operators joining the project: Queen Sirikit National Convention Center (QSNCC), IMPACT Arena and IMPACT Exhibition and Convention Center, Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre (BITEC), the Plaza Athenee Bangkok Hotel & A Royal Meridien, The Sukosol Bangkok Hotel, The Twin Towers Hotel, the Dusit Thani Bangkok Hotel, the Sampran Riverside Hotel, the Rama Gardens Bangkok Hotel. The nine MICE operators have signed a cooperation with farmers from Amnatcharoen Satjatham Rice Community Enterprise Network. They are the first group of farmers joining the project. The group supplies organic rice under the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), without a middleman. The operators plan to purchase 300 tons per year for a period of two consecutive years. Under the initial stage, they order only rice alone because it's easy for storage and logistics. Later, the order will be expanded to cover other types of agriculture organic products.
"Farm to Functions," is the first project in the World in integrating Government sector, Private sector MICE operators to support the economy of local communities, which is supporting to promote Thailand as MICE Sustainable Destination. Under the fiscal year of 2016, it is predicted that Thailand will have the opportunity to welcome MICE travellers, which will increase 5 percent in revenue from a total of 1.06 million MICE travellers and generate an income of 92,000 million Baht, Mr Nopparat concluded.
