Educational Exchange with Thailand: A Smart Pathway for Guyana’s Agricultural Transformation

Sep 20, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

President Irfaan Ali’s recent call for a science-driven, market-oriented agriculture is exactly the direction Guyana needs. The President has rightly stressed that government investments in drainage, irrigation, and infrastructure must be tied to measurable increases in productivity. He has also emphasized the role of soil sampling, scientific planning, and real-time data systems in making agriculture more profitable and sustainable.

These ideas are sound. But to truly deliver, Guyana must invest not only in physical infrastructure, but also in human capital. Building the skills of our scientists, extension officers, and young professionals is what will ensure that new systems take root and deliver long-term results. For this, we should look to educational exchange with countries that have successfully built agricultural universities and research systems in climates very similar to ours.

One institution stands out: Kasetsart University in Thailand. Kasetsart is a large, comprehensive public university based in Bangkok, with multiple campuses, research farms, and housing for international students. It has more than 60,000 students, hundreds of graduate programmes, and internationally recognised faculties in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, veterinary science, food technology, and agro-industry. The main campus alone spans over 130 hectares in central Bangkok, and its Kamphaeng Saen campus is even larger, hosting rice research centres, aquaculture stations, and biotechnology hubs.

Importantly, Guyana already has a history with Kasetsart. At least one Guyanese student, supported by a Government of Guyana scholarship, studied soil science there. His thesis involved mapping soils across Thailand, travelling with his professor’s research team every weekend to collect samples, analyse them in the laboratory, and feed results into the Ministry of Agriculture’s system for farmer outreach. Tragically, he died in a car accident only two years after returning home. But his work demonstrated how relevant and transferable the Kasetsart model is to Guyana.

Secondly, Kasetsart is not the only option. The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), just outside Bangkok, is another world-class institution. AIT specialises in water resources, environmental engineering, food technology, climate change, and sustainable development. It attracts students from across Asia, Africa, and beyond. Like Kasetsart, AIT offers Master’ss and PhD programmes, as well as short professional courses ideally suited for our extension officers and policymakers.

Thirdly, both of these universities are affordable compared to Western universities. Tuition fees and living costs in Thailand are a fraction of what it would cost to send students to North America or Europe. More importantly, Thailand’s tropical climate, soils, and farming systems resemble Guyana’s in ways that Canada, the United States, or the United Kingdom do not. Training in Europe or North America often leaves graduates familiar with temperate crops, mechanisation systems, and cold-climate challenges, knowledge that is valuable but not always directly applicable to the rice paddies, aquaculture ponds, citrus groves, and cane fields of Guyana. In contrast, studying in Thailand prepares our people to work under nearly identical climatic and ecological conditions.

Fourthly, these universities are not limited to classroom training. They specialise in applied research and outreach. Soil surveys are linked to real maps for farmers. Rice research is tied to new high-yield varieties. Fisheries research produces low-cost, high-output aquaculture systems. Food technology programmes teach how to process fruit, rice, and fish into products that can be exported. Guyana can benefit not only from sending students, but also from forging institutional partnerships: joint demonstration plots, shared online data systems, faculty exchanges, and collaborative research projects.

Fifthly, these exchanges do not need to be large to be impactful. A handful of scholarships for Guyanese Master’s or PhD students, plus a steady stream of short-term fellowships for extension officers, could quickly raise the technical capacity of our agriculture sector. Graduates could be tasked with producing soil maps, aquaculture manuals, rice crop suitability studies, or citrus demonstration plots within a year of returning home. This is the kind of fast, practical, science-based output that President Ali has demanded.

I strongly support the government’s investments in Skeldon and across Guyana. But I urge that alongside roads, canals, and drainage pumps, we also invest in our people. By sending young Guyanese scientists and extension workers to Kasetsart University and the Asian Institute of Technology, we can ensure that science and data drive our agriculture. We can modernise sugarcane, diversify rice varieties, aquaculture, fruits, and vegetables, and build a more resilient and profitable sector.

Further information on these institutions can be found at:

Kasetsart University: https://www.ku.ac.th/en

Asian Institute of Technology (AIT): https://ait.ac.th

Guyana has always invested in infrastructure. It is time now to invest in knowledge exchange, drawing on partners whose experience, climate, and costs match our realities. That is how we will make agriculture truly science-driven and market-oriented, not just in Skeldon, but across the entire country.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Walter H. Persaud

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• Agricultural Transformation, Dr. Walter H Persaud, science-driven, Thailand

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