SEARCA Stakeholders Forum: A Forward-looking and Transformative Agriculture and Rural Development in Southeast Asia

Increased agricultural productivity could translate to higher incomes depending on the maximization of effective and efficient technological advancements across the various segments of the value chains. Agricultural development in Southeast Asia will be bolstered by the establishment of open innovation and open science spaces that will serve as the venue for future trends and opportunities facing the agriculture and rural sectors. Among others, these spaces must showcase and operate a platform–online and offline, systems or modular– to operationalize agri-innovations, sustaining best practices, emerging agribusiness models, and smart disruptive solutions to inspire all to confront future challenges in agricultural and rural development.

SEARCA's 11th FYP priority area Agribusiness Models for Increased Productivity and Income is anchored on SDG 9-Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, with the expected outcome of providing wider access to innovative products and services and business models for increased productivity and income. This session was geared towards the discussion on the incubation of emerging technologies, knowledge and technology transfer for AGRI 4.0, and the necessary policy environment to effectively support and strategically harness innovation in agricultural and rural development (ARD) toward productivity improvement in agribusiness value chains.

Regional trends in Southeast Asian agriculture, such as the consumption behavior moving from purely functional to more sophisticated and experiential, are driving changes in food production that directly impact the quality of resources, the emerging issues in biodiversity, and the emission of greenhouse gases, among others. In the long run, the structural shifts in food production will also cause significant changes in the nature and intensity of the competition for natural resources between competing uses of both the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors.

Integrating two of the priority areas of SEARCA's 11th FYP, Sustainable Farming Systems, and Natural Resource Management and Food and Nutrition Security, this session was aligned with SDG 2-Zero Hunger and SDG 13-Climate Action and intended to solicit inputs on the application of climate-smart and climate-resilient agricultural practices, and sustainable production and consumption, informing policies and technological support initiatives toward food and nutrition security.

Transformational leaders will play a key role in inspiring the next generation of agriculture leaders and professionals. In response to SDG 4-Quality Education, it will require education interventions that will be better supported by technology-based pedagogical approaches and state-of-the-art learning strategies that would clearly target collective learning as an outcome and would clearly articulate youth engagement in agriculture. Overall, there is need for more innovations how to keep the youth inspired and be able to translate this into concrete actions that will push the agriculture sector forward. In addition, there is a need for more programs that incorporate responses related to SDG 5-Gender Equality, to pursue a more gender-balanced engagement of youth in ARD to arrive at a diverse supply of knowledge and ideas while simultaneously building transformational leadership.

As part of its 11th FYP, SEARCA targets increased involvement of the youth in agriculture through its priority area, Gender and Youth Engagement in Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD). This session aimed to further the discussion on the importance of developing the next generation of agriculture leaders, with a more balanced gender representation, equipped with technological know-how and transformational leadership skills.

Despite the growth in per capita income over the past decade, there remains a challenge in terms of the improvement of nutrition and overall health and wellness of farmers. It is in this context that One Health and EcoHealth has become an emerging framework and approach to address the problems of the effects of changing the Earth's ecosystem on human health. In addition, the onset of COVID-19 further highlights the need for an integrative lens to analyze the health impacts of human activities, particularly in agricultural communities.

Aligned primarily with SDG2-Zero Hunger, SEARCA's 11th FYP priority area, EcoHealth/OneHealth Application to Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD), aims to utilize these approaches in contributing to the goal of optimal health outcomes among humans, animals, plants, and their shared environment. This session furthered the discussion of the concepts and principles of EcoHealth/OneHealth in achieving food and nutrition security in the context of the ARD and particularly how it can be maximized to contribute resilience of the Southeast Asian region.