Govt eyes Big Data centres to improve farm produce
Deputy Prime Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said this week the Commerce Ministry he runs and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives had discussed creating Big Data centres to manage supply and demand in agricultural products at the national, provincial and regional levels.
“My ministry has assigned the Trade Policy and Strategy Office [TPSO] to establish a system to monitor the management of rice, palm oil, rubber, cassava and corn so government officials can make better-informed decisions on policy and strategy,” Jurin said.
Improved management of demand and supply would ensure price stability and ultimately help improve product quality, he said.
The TPSO and officials of the Agriculture Ministry’s Information and Communication Technological Centre will set out guidelines in a shared memorandum of understanding.
Under its terms, the two ministries will analyse data and pool insights to determine the direction of policy and will amend regulations and laws that impede the use of the data.
The aim is to deploy artificial intelligence in a central database where information is continuously and automatically collected and updated.
Care will be taken with confidential data used to support policy decisions, barring its publication without written permission from the owner.
