The four-day event, scheduled for 22-25 December 2011, will take place at the auditorium of Chiang Mai University in the northern province of Chiang Mai, with a focus on the theme Forty-two Years of the Royal Project Development. Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsawali will preside over the opening of the fair at 3:30 p.m. on December 22.
The President of Chiang Mai University, Professor Dr. Pongsak Angkasith, said that the Royal Project has become a learning center to which members of both Thai and foreign organizations come for study tours to learn about the success in introducing alternative crops to replace opium poppy cultivation.
An initiative of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the Royal Project came into being in 1969, when he stayed at Bhuphing Palace in Chiang Mai. He visited and talked to hilltribe villagers, who told him about their sources of income. They said that the income from the growing of opium and peaches was about the same. At that time, tribal people living in the highlands had become a problem to the Government, partly because of their destructive slash-and-burn technique of clearing land, as well as their traditional cultivation of opium poppies.
In his speech at Chiang Mai University in the same year, His Majesty said that he intended to help hilltribe people grow useful crops that would give a higher income than growing opium, so that they would switch from opium cultivation to other crops. The project would also support the Governments policy of banning opium cultivation and trade. He pointed out that the traditional farming method of cutting down and burning the forest conducted by hilltribe villagers would lead to forest destruction and deterioration of soil quality. That was how the Royal Project was launched, and His Serene Highness Prince Bhisatej Rajani was assigned by His Majesty to carry out his initiative for the establishment of the project.
The Royal Project was registered as a foundation in 1992 and involves the growing of a wide variety of cash crops, especially temperate-zone plants. The Royal Project was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding in 1988. In the same year, it also received the Thai Export Award 1988 for its outstanding activities to promote Thai exports of fresh vegetables and fruit and canned fruit. The Royal Project won an award from the Drug Advisory Program of the Colombo Plan in Sri Lanka in December 2003 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Drug Advisory Program.
There are currently 38 development centers under the Royal Project in northern provinces to help farmers collect, distribute, and sell highland produce, while improving their quality of life through education, health care, and environmental preservation. All 38 development centers will bring their organic produce to be sold at the upcoming Royal Project fair in Chiang Mai.
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