French Partnership Plans on Creating a Program for ASEAN Food Security

A French global research partnership is looking to create a program that addresses agriculture and food security challenges. This would be presented at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit to be held within the year.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is planning several interventions that show a combination of priority areas for research and development in the region.

These are namely, regenerative agriculture and aquaculture, improvement of agrobiodiversity use and landscape biodiversity, carbon neutrality and climate change, private sector investment, sustainable financing, transboundary pest and disease, and farmer-led irrigation for climate resilient agrifood systems., and enhancement of value chains and regional trade.

The draft proposal mentions that “Scale up and out bold integrated innovations that, in the next 10 years, make Asean agrifood systems more resilient to climate change while delivering better livelihoods for food producers, along the value chain, more nutritious and healthy food for consumers and a better natural environment for all,”

Managing Director of the Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT in Asia, Stephan Weise, said that the first draft will be shown to ASEAN Senior Officials in a meeting in August.

“And then from there, we continue developing the program further towards October, November for submission to the ASEAN ministers’ forum,” says Weise.

He also goes on to say that the structure of the program will first be a five-year program with a 10-year horizon.

“We’re talking here of targeting at this stage $80 million in the first five years. If we end up with seven intervention packages, that’s $2 million a year per intervention package,” says Weise.

Source: Inquirer