Thailand Country Profile

Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. Located in Southeast Asia and bordered by Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia, it has a population of over 69 million people. Thailand has had very stable growth over the last half century, and has been classed as a upper middle income country since 2011. It is a member of several international organisations and an active participant in regional organisations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the East Asia Summit.

Ethnicities: The majority of the Thai population are ethnic Thai, with many having Chinese, Mon, Khmer, Lao, Indian and other roots.

‍Religions: The largest religious group in Thailand is Buddhism (93.4%), followed by Islam (5.3%) and Christianity (1.1%). The Theravada sect of Buddhism mainly practised in Thailand does not follow a vegetarian/vegan diet. 

‍Vegetarian/vegan practices and beliefs: However, there are vegetarian practices like the 10-day “vegetarian” festival in Thailand, and is followed especially by those with Chinese descent. Many restaurants will have a vegan menu during that period in October. 

It is also common to avoid beef in Thailand due to a mix of folk religious beliefs. There is also a notion that there are "big" animals like cows and buffalos, and "small" animals such as pigs, chickens, and sheep. "Big" animals may be seen by some as having greater moral value due to a perception that they have greater "consciousness".

Thailand is one of the biggest centres for non-profit activity in Asia, with more than 25,000 local and 87 foreign non-profit organisations (NPOs) in the country. However, following the passage of a new NPO (non-profit organisation) law, the freedom of NPOs to operate is increasingly restricted within the country. There are now prohibitions on many forms of NPO activity that are broadly seen as legitimate , and the new law is seen as sufficiently vague that there are fewer legal protections for a nonprofit. The new law has been criticised by the ICNL Civic Freedom Monitor for multiple reasons.

Private livestock companies also hold huge sway in the economy that is reliant on the agricultural sector, and along with the government, they are very closed off to confrontational NGOs. These companies are also highly competitive with each other, treating a lot of their management procedures as industrial secrets. 

An additional dimension is that defamation/libel lawsuits in Thailand are considered criminal cases, so there are added risks for activists being critical of companies. One example is the Andy Hall case, where lower court rulings found the activist guilty of defamation when he exposed human rights violations in the fruit industry in Thailand, and he was finally cleared of all convictions after a lengthy appeals process.

As the average weight of the same type of fish can vary greatly, fish and aquaculture are notoriously difficult to get an accurate count. For wild caught fish in Thailand, Fishcount estimates that 34% of the annual catch (based on FAO 2016 data) amounts to an estimated 3,035 - 58,224 million lives.

Different regions in Thailand have different levels and intensities of animal agriculture. Central Thailand, the richer and more developed region, has more intensive agriculture than the other regions, and produces over two-thirds of broiler chickens, despite having the lowest number of chicken-rearing households.  

Data to be updated

Thailand is the largest meat exporter in the Southeast Asia region, and exports a range of live animals, meat products and seafood products to countries across the region and globally. Japan and China import by far the largest quantity of chicken meat and a substantial proportion of fresh or frozen seafood. 

Most of the countries importing live animals from Thailand are its neighboring countries, with Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia being the primary importers.

While only 15% of meat from non-aquatic animals is exported outside Asia, a large share of aquatic animal products, particularly shrimp and frozen fish, is sent to the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. is also the leading importer of Thailand’s top animal-derived export, prepared or preserved seafood, primarily canned tuna.

Agriculture and food is a major part of the Thai economy, with over half of the top ten wealthiest families in Thailand owning agriculture, F&B or hospitality groups:

According to World Animal Protection, Thailand is ranked poorly (D on a A-F scale) on animal protection laws generally, and very poorly on protection of farmed animals in particular.

For laying hens, the Open-Wing Alliance runs a benchmark report, which assesses countries according to 31 criteria. Thailand performs poorly compared to other countries in the report, similar to other countries in Southeast Asia. 90% of laying hens are estimated to spend their lives in battery cages. Thailand does not currently have bans on the use of cages or policy targets to phase out their use.There are some policies and voluntary standards in the country, but these are not deemed sufficient.

Source: Asia Cage-free Benchmark Report

The plant-based protein*market in Thailand is growing and Thailand is becoming a hub for alt protein manufacturing and brands in the SE Asian region. The total sales of plant-based meat and dairy products was $824.1 million in 2020. The annual growth rate is expected to jump from 2-10% to 10-35%, reaching $1.5 billion in value in 2024.

Sales of Dairy and Meat Alternative Products in Thailand 2016-2020 (U.S. $million)     

*Plant-based protein refers to all plant-based dairy, meat, egg alternatives, including the more traditional textured soy “mock meat” products and soy milk, to modern plant-based meat products using newer technologies.

According to Euromonitor International data, Thailand had the lowest amount of plant-based protein (including traditional products like tofu) sold to retail stores in 2020, among major SEA economies.

*Includes tofu and local and ethnic non-meat variants without an explicit positioning as meat substitutes

Singapore was the only country with enough sales in the separate category of meat and seafood substitutes, at 200 metric tons.

Thailand has a robust ecosystem supporting development of new alternative protein products, with some key players listed below:

The Thai nutritional guideline is a hanging flag, known as ‘the nutrition flag’.

Food in Thailand is affordable for most people, few live below the global poverty line and undernourishment is rare. Challenges like limited access to infrastructure and agricultural inputs lower Thailand's availability score. A lack of dietary diversity and micronutrient availability, along with the absence of national nutritional standards, result in a low “quality and safety" score. Issues with agricultural water quality, limited renewable water sources, and declining marine biodiversity cause Thailand to score poorly in sustainability and adaptation measures.

Thailand has a National Framework on Food Security; however, this lacks concrete targets.

The Thai government has various initiatives promoting food tech and alternative proteins, including the Thai Ministry of Industry’s “Future Food 2022” action plan to develop innovation in the food processing industry (updated in 2023). 

The newly launched Smart Visa programme designed to attract skilled talent, investors and entrepreneurs to Thailand includes targeted industries like “future food” and “agriculture and biotechnology”. 

The Space-F food tech startup incubator is supported by Thailand’s National Innovation Agency, alongside stakeholders from academia, startups and established food industry actors like the Thai Union Group. They are still active and partnered with Nestle in early 2024.

A total of 55kg of meat is made available for consumption* each year in Thailand. Note: this figure is calculated by measuring or estimating the amount of food made available for consumption (including imports and food domestically produced), then subtracting the proportion that is exported or used for purposes other than human consumption, then dividing by the total population. It does not account for food wastage, therefore is likely to overestimate actual consumption levels.

In a six-country study done by Good Growth and the Good Food Institute, researchers asked how frequently people in the Greater Bangkok region ate different animal products. Pork and chicken were the most commonly consumed meats in this survey, with over 85% and 80% of respondents respectively consuming these meat types at least weekly, followed by fish and other seafood.

There are multiple environmental impacts associated with animal agriculture, both current and potential. 

According to the WWF planet-based diets model, animal agriculture affects the environment through greenhouse gas emissions, increased use of land through crops for livestock consumption and grazing, water use and eutrophication (a process that is caused by the excessive input of nutrients (e.g., phosphorus and nitrogen)).

There are also some more distinctive environmental concerns in Thailand. Air pollution is a significant concern across the region, and animal agriculture plays a role. Some of the haze in Thailand and neighbouring countries is caused by the burning of wooded areas and forest floors to increase grassy areas that can be grazed by roaming cattle (Nikkei, 2023). Additionally, shrimp aquaculture has been the main cause of mangrove forest reduction - 65000 hectares of mangroves were converted to shrimp ponds from 1961 to 1996. This has created significant harms to nursery habitats for marine animals, coastal protection, flood control, sediment trapping, and water treatment.

A recent Asia Research and Engagement report - "Charting Asia's Protein Transition” models the effects of different scenarios on future CO2 emissions. The model shows that, if Thailand achieves a gradual transition towards more sustainable protein sources such as plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins, it will be able to achieve an additional 0.1 gigaton reduction in CO2-equivalent emissions (comparable to the yearly emissions of Bulgaria), compared to a business-as-usual scenario.

Below is a list of advocacy organisations working in (but not necessarily exclusive to) Thailand: