The looting of Thai plant and fruit varieties for development in rival export countries is an urgent problem that the government must tackle by setting stricter protection measures for the country’s intellectual property.
     Australia and the US are two major countries which have been found to be developing tropical fruits and plants. They aim to increase their export share in the international market.
     Meanwhile, Taiwan-where an international fruit-research center has been established-is trying hard to develop new varieties of fruits to meet market demand.
     Duangkamol Jiambutr, director of the Thai Trade Center in Singapore, said many new varieties of tropical fruit such as durians from Australia, longans and lychees from China and mangoes from Taiwan had been imported for marketing tests this year.
     An official at the Thai Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry said Australia had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in setting up a research center into tropical products. Many strains of Thai plants were imported or brought home by Australian researchers who had studied in Thailand.
     The smuggling of such varieties had led to them being crossbred to grow in Australia with a higher yield and bigger size than local strains. Australia aims to export these new fruit varieties for commercial purposes.
     The issue has become particularly topical since the much publicized news that US rice researcher Chris Deren will patent a strain of Thailand’s Khao Dok Mali 105 (fragrant jasmine rice), which he claims to have acquired from the Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute.

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