Some native Thai rice varieties are on the brink of extinction as the country's rice genetic preservation programme has been moving at a slow pace, a senior rice development official has warned.

Lack of funding and difficulties in reproduction of native rice varieties have hampered conservation, said Surapong Pransilapa, director-general of the recently established Rice Department, which comes under the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry.

Some native rice varieties had already become extinct and others might vanish soon, he said. Preservation of rice genes in Thailand began in 1937. In 1982 the Agriculture Department, with support from the Japanese government, built the country's first gene bank to preserve rice varieties.