As an agrarian country where the majority of people are connected in some way with agriculture, Thailand needs high levels of water for farming purposes. Since most Thai farmers have to wait for seasonal rain to grow crops, they are at times faced with difficulties from drought, so there might not be enough rainfall for crop growing. During his travels to every corner of the kingdom to visit his subjects and learn about their problems, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej found that drought had become more severe in certain areas of the country and rainfall was inconsistent.
Early in his reign, His Majesty the King became interested in artificial rainmaking to assist farmers, who are very dependent on rainwater for their cultivation. At this point, he began to study artificial rainmaking techniques to seek ways of bringing down more rain to ease the drought situation. He read research work on meteorology and weather modification, which he found useful for combating weather change. In 1955, when His Majesty visited northeastern provinces, he traveled from Nakhon Phanom to Kalasin, passing through Sakon Nakhon and the Phuphan mountain range. During the trip, he looked at the sky and saw a large number of clouds moving over the vast, arid area of the Northeast. The initial conception arose from his observation that there was no rain despite heavy cloudiness. He wondered how to make the clouds move down and turn into rain. This idea was the starting point for his efforts to conduct rainmaking operations, which proved successful in the following years.
On November 14 the same year, His Majesty donated his private funds to launch the Royal Rainmaking Project, and he devoted a great deal of time and energy to develop rainmaking technology. Later, he entrusted M.R. Debariddhi Devakula, an expert in agricultural engineering at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, to undertake research into rainmaking. M.R. Debariddhi conducted intensive research and experimentation over several years from various models applied by various countries, such as the United States, Australia, and Israel. After initial research, the first practical experiment took place over a mountain barrier at Khao Yai National Park in Nakhon Ratchasima Province in July 1969, supervised by His Majesty. The operation used light aircraft and seeded clouds with dry ice, or solid carbon dioxide. His Majesty had personally devised chemical formulae for seeding clouds in the rainmaking process. The first attempt at artificial rainmaking was successful; the clouds turned grey and rain did fall. However, there was no way to ensure that rain fell on a specific area. Then further experiments were carried out in Hua Hin District, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, with rainfall in target areas.
His Majesty gives constant advice on target, coverage, and area, with analysis of geographical features, area selection, and other factors, to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the operations. He explained the three steps of the rainmaking process in a simplified and figurative manner:
Agitation, using weather modification techniques to form rain clouds
Fattening, or impregnating the rain clouds through the sprinkling of chemicals to make the water droplets condense
Attacking, flying the plane into the impregnated clouds, to further modify the surroundings and speed up the process.
In his royal address given at Chitralada Villa on 30 July 1986, His Majesty said:
Rainmaking is like a warship: you fire the missile far, then closer in order to properly hit the target. Since we have facilities for rainmaking, we should be sure to use it properly to get rain in the right places.
In 1971, the Government established the Artificial Rainmaking Research and Development Project within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, which was ready to offer rainmaking services to farmers. In that year, a very dry period, one of the first places royal rainmaking activities helped was Chanthaburi, a province abundant in fruit. After it proved successful, a group of Chanthaburi residents came to Bangkok to present fruit to His Majesty to show the happy result of the rainmaking. Later in the same year, royal rainmaking activities were carried out in the central plains and the southern region to provide more extensive and effective assistance to farmers. The royal rainmaking staff reported their operations to His Majesty by radio, and His Majesty frequently offered technical suggestions in return. When their operations failed, he usually gave guidelines to solve the problem.
His Majesty pays great attention to rainmaking operations, and he sometimes gets involved with them himself, as seen from his demonstration of the rainmaking process for the Singaporean delegation at Kaeng Krachan Dam in Phetchaburi Province in 1972. Thanks to his experience, rain came within five hours, creating a great deal of excitement and certainly impressing the Singaporeans. His Ma