This is a participation report by researchers from Setsunan University Faculty of Agriculture and the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences on the International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (ISSCT) Agricultural Workshop held in Pattaya, Thailand, from August 19-22, 2024, reported in August 2025.
Workshop Overview
Under the theme "Smart Farming to Drive Economic Recovery and Sustainable Sugarcane Industry Towards BCG Economy," approximately 120 participants from over 20 countries attended, with 20 oral presentations and 23 poster presentations. The international conference focused on Thailand's BCG economy (Bio-Circular-Green economy: integrated model of biological resource utilization, circular economy, and green economy) and smart agriculture.
Thailand's Burn Harvest Reduction Policy
In Thailand, "burn harvest" - burning fields to remove leaves and tops before harvesting - was traditionally mainstream but became the main cause of PM2.5 concentration increases (30-50% of total emissions). The government implemented phased regulatory strengthening, reducing daily burn harvest raw material intake limits from 50% (2019) to 25% (2024), imposing penalties of 30 baht per ton (136 yen) to 130 baht (588 yen) on burn harvest materials, and raising green harvest material prices by 120 baht (542 yen).
As a result, the burn harvest ratio decreased from over 60% (before 2019) to a record low of 17.5% in the 2024/25 season. Mechanical harvesting rates also improved significantly from 25% in 2015/16 to 70% currently, forming the foundation for green harvest promotion.
Japanese Research Presentations
As part of the Minami-Daito Island sugarcane smart agriculture project, Researcher Watanabe presented three-year demonstration test results of subsurface drip irrigation systems based on weather data. Subsurface irrigation plots consistently showed higher yields and water use efficiency than surface irrigation and farmer-managed plots, proving this efficient method requires no tube recovery and reinstallation until stock renewal.
Researcher Takaragawa presented two innovative concepts for sustainable sugarcane production: ①Multi-scale water use efficiency: integrated evaluation of water use efficiency across leaf, plant, canopy, field, and regional scales; ②Advanced utilization of genetic diversity: introduction of "evolutionary breeding" methods through mixed variety planting and multi-line population cultivation to improve yield stability and environmental stress tolerance.
International Research Trends
South Africa has developed smartphone app "PurEst" for on-site sugarcane maturity diagnosis and drone-based multispectral imaging quality management systems. The US has reached practical implementation stages for field sugar analysis using compact near-infrared spectrometers, with particularly high Brix (soluble solids) estimation accuracy beginning utilization in breeding programs.
Missing plants emerged as a common challenge across countries, with Australia systematizing this as "yield gap" and proposing sustainable countermeasures through drone-based missing plant location identification and mechanized replanting.
Kubota Farm Visit
Kubota Farm (established 2020, Chonburi Province, 35 hectares) demonstrates cutting-edge agricultural technologies including auto-steering operations, fully autonomous unmanned operation demonstrations, standing crop defoliation machines promoting green harvest, drone-based pesticide and liquid fertilizer spraying, and GIS-based field management smart agriculture technologies.
The article emphasizes that sustainability and smart agriculture are global common challenges, highlighting the importance of on-site technology implementation and international cooperation, while expressing enthusiasm for realizing international conference hosting in Japan.