The Thai governments used to invest heavily in agricultural research until the mid-1990s when the research intensity declined sharply. Genetic improvement to increase yields and rice quality had always been the main objective of research and development in the early years. The successful development of pest-resistant maize also helped boost maize production. But there are now increasing concerns about serious problems of agricultural research, e.g., decline in research intensity, the phase-out of public research in maize, in-appropriate allocation of research budget, shortage of researchers, the ban on GMO research, regulation of imported germplasm materials for research, and weakness of the plant protection law, etc.