Royalty Free Stock Photo: An ear of paddy,thai rice

Thailand has a strong tradition of rice production. It has the fifth-largest amount of land under rice cultivation in the world and is the world's largest exporter of rice.[2] Thailand has plans to further increase its land available for rice production, with a goal of adding 500,000 hectares to its already 9.2 million hectares of rice-growing areas.[3] The Thai Ministry of Agriculture expects rice production to yield around 30 million tons of rice for 2008.[4] The most produced strain of rice in Thailand is jasmine rice, which is a higher quality type of rice. However, jasmine has a significantly lower yield rate than other types of rice, but it also normally fetches more than double the price of other strains in a global market