Minister Narumon promotes policies to drive cooperatives into their 52nd year in a sustainable manner, emphasizing the creation of strength for members, using technology for management, and preventing corruption in cooperatives. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Narumon Pinyosinwat, Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, revealed after chairing the opening of the academic seminar 'On the occasion of the anniversary of the establishment of the Cooperative Promotion Department' in 2024, the 52nd anniversary, with Ms. Phattharaphon Sojaya, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Mr. Wisit Srisuwan, Director-General of the Cooperative Promotion Department, and executives of agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives attending at Building 1, Prince Ballroom, Prince Palace Hotel, Bangkok, that the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, through the Cooperative Promotion Department, aims to promote agricultural cooperatives by using the principle of market-led, innovation-e nhanced, which is an important policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, to increase income for cooperative members so that agricultural cooperatives act as professional agricultural business operators in the community, including creating career groups to create additional careers, linking marketing networks of products in agricultural institutions, such as vegetables, fruits, and rice, to create tangible results. For the 2025 operational plan, the Department of Cooperative Promotion focuses on enhancing the potential of farmers and agricultural cooperatives to be strong by introducing technological innovations, creating high-precision farming systems, and smart farms in large-scale agricultural areas to increase production efficiency to increase the amount per rai, as well as promoting the reduction of production costs and increasing the quality of products in terms of quality and safety to be accepted by the market. Therefore, it is considered a complete change from the Farmer Aging Society e ra to the Smart Farmer era. In addition, there is the promotion and development of cooperative stores as distribution points for agricultural products both directly and online to be strong by allowing cooperative members to participate more in using the cooperative's services, as well as promoting the network connections between agricultural cooperatives and non-agricultural cooperatives. At the same time, there is also an integrated operation between the Department of Cooperative Promotion and the Department of Cooperative Auditing to promote and support cooperatives to use standard accounting program systems in cooperative management and to introduce the application system 'Checking the financial status of members' to provide services to members to check their financial status up-to-date to prevent and suppress corruption problems in cooperatives. On this occasion, the Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives presented the Excellent State Award of 2024 to 5 representatives of cooperatives, namely, the Par ticipatory Administration Category, Jointly Solving Poverty, Outstanding Level, 4 works as follows: the work 'The Farmer's Way to Sustainable Agriculture, Royal Project Mae Song Highland Development Cooperative Limited' from the Tak Provincial Cooperative Office; the work 'Rubber, Overcoming the Crisis, Solving Poverty, Kantharom People' from the Sisaket Provincial Cooperative Office; the work 'Integrated Agriculture, Ban Na Phun, Join Hearts, Creating Sustainable Income'; the work 'Water - Rice, Khao Sa-iap, Soft Power, Mueang Cho Hae' from the Phrae Provincial Cooperative Office; and the People's Achievement Category with Participation, Good Level, 'Join Hearts to Develop Hub Kapong, Expanding the Learning Center of the King's Science, Towards Sustainable Development' from the Phetchaburi Provincial Cooperative Office. He also visited the exhibition of works by the Department of Cooperative Promotion. Source: Thai News Agency