The Asia Rice Foundation (ARF) organized its Annual Rice Policy Forum 2021 together with its partners SEARCA, DOST-PCAARRD, and DA and in cooperation with IRRI, NAST, Rice Board, CAMP, and CEM-ICOPED. The forum aimed to seek ideas and draw recommendations from experts on improving yield and long-term soil fertility for sustainable rice production.

Held on 30 November 2021, the online event brought together scientists, experts, and administrators to share their research results, experiences, and practices on integrated nutrient management. In attendance were members of public and private organizations, academicians from state universities and colleges, representatives from various fertilizer companies (i.e., commercial, foliar, and organic), and rice farmers who had been selected because they achieved higher than average yields of 8 to 15 tons per hectare.

The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), in partnership with the Universiti Putra Malaysia Halal Products Research Institute (UPM-HPRI), held the Regional Training-Workshop on Halal Slaughtering and Certification on 23–25 August 2022 at the Everly Putrajaya Hotel, Putrajaya, Malaysia. The training-workshop brought together 23 participants composed of halal researchers, academicians, industry players, and officers from the ASEAN Working Group on Halal Food (AWGHF) and the certification and regulatory bodies and ministries in six ASEAN member states: Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia.

The three-day learning event aimed to increase the exchange of knowledge and information among key players in the halal industry and explore potential collaborations for further development in the ASEAN region. It also aimed to increase and enhance the capacities of halal professionals, practitioners, and policymakers, among others, on halal slaughtering and certification.

The roundtable aimed to bring relevant, multisector agricultural and rural development partners together to highlight and exchange experiences, challenges, best practices, strategic directions, and opportunities to advance carbon farming in agricultural and rural development (ARD). This should lead to carbon credit and markets, particularly in agriculture, toward elevating the quality of life of farmers and farming families in SEA.

Specifically, the roundtable served as a platform to:

consolidate the status, gaps, and opportunities of carbon farming leading to carbon credit and market in agriculture in SEA by showcasing selected initiatives, current policies and guidelines, financial schemes and investments, strategic lessons from institutional experiences, available data, technologies, and approaches both in the science and practice of climate resilient agriculture in the region in the past five years;
identify opportunities to collaborate on carbon farming leading to carbon credit and markets in SEA for a forward-looking and shared vision of a transformative CRA in the region; and
organize the Carbon Farming Consortium to foster regional cooperation and commitment to promote carbon farming in agriculture in SEA.
The roundtable brought together nearly 600 participants online and onsite from the government, academe, international organizations, NGOs, civil society, and private sector from SEA, USA, and Europe. They explored, discussed, and delved into the vast potential of carbon farming and its transformative impact on the food and agricultural systems’ response to climate change.

SEARCA, in partnership with the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), held the regional policy forum entitled From Farms to Schools: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive School-Based Food and Nutrition Programs in Southeast Asia on 24–25 April 2023 at the Crimson Hotel, Muntinlupa City, Philippines. It was also available through live streaming via Zoom.

The forum gathered key representatives from ministries of education and agriculture in Southeast Asia (SEA), international and development organizations, academic institutions, and farmers’ and civil society organizations (CSOs) that share the same goal of developing and implementing sustainable and inclusive school-based food and nutrition programs (SBFNPs) in their home countries.

The event discussed potential policy interventions and courses of action to address the nutrition-education-development nexus. It also emphasized the need to include family farmers in new or existing SBFNPs in SEA. More specifically, the forum intended to: (1) provide an overview of the current state of food and nutrition security in Southeast Asia; (2) present ongoing SBFNPs being implemented in the region; (3) identify and analyze opportunities and challenges in adopting or strengthening farm-to-school models for SBFNPs in the region; and (4) develop policy recommendations, identify courses of action, and explore potential areas for collaboration to engage family farmers in SBFNPs and ensure their sustainability and inclusiveness.

Well into his senior years, Vietnamese farmer, Hoang Trong Ngai, 69, reflects on how adopting genetically modified (GM) maize has benefited not just him but his community as well.