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.