Theme 3: Emerging Issues Related to Food Security

• Provide start-up funds to researchers and scientists who can make significant contributions to the development of the region but lack the funds to carry out their projects
• Build capacities of researchers to develop research proposals and conduct the research, mindful of inherent technical, financial, and administrative responsibilities of such an undertaking
• Expand SEARCA's reach in terms of research, capacity building, and contribution to the body of knowledge on ISARD in the region

• A research report which can be published as a discussion paper
• At least one policy brief or research/learning/experience note
• When possible, presentation of research results in at least one scientific forum/conference

Ongoing

Completed

Completed

• Develop underutilized local/indigenous crops especially roots/tuber fortified with protein rice legumes to alleviate the plight of specific population groups experiencing malnutrition in the ASEAN region
  
  • Define and understand the food pattern, food diversity, food preferences and eating behavior of target population(s)
  • Develop suitable product and applicable process technology for intervention such as artificial rice utilizing indigenous/underutilized root/tuber crops fortified with additional nutritional requirements such as legume-derived proteins
  • Assess the impact of intervention product in alleviating nutritional concerns in target population(s)
  • Assess the implementation of technology replication in other countries in regions (among the ASEAN Member States)

• (i) Critical information on food pattern, food diversity, food preferences and eating behavior of target population; (ii) Information and data analysis of general and/or specific nutrient requirements of target population; and (iii) Identification of pilot testing area/target demographic
• (i) Process technology (including formulation) to produce artificial rice fulfilling nutritional requirements for intervention; (ii) Intervention product data on nutritional, safety, and sensory characteristics; (iii) Optimized process technology; (iv) One scientific article for publication; and (v) Intellectual property/patent
• (i) Data on intervention effectiveness; and (ii) One scientific article for publication

Ongoing

• Conduct policy roundtables/ dialogues for ASEAN and transition economies of Southeast Asia

• One RTD with partner agencies/organizations and various participants from Southeast Asian countries

Completed

• Major Output of the RTD – Draft Statement that articulates the recommendations of participants and highlights the need for two major lines of agricultural insurance—traditional products and index-based insurances—to protect the very farmers with whom we entrust food security in our region.
• Statement sent out to all participants for endorsement to their respective Heads of Office.
• Proceedings undergoing final review for release.
• Summary proceedings report readied to be passed on to KRU.

• Strengthen its capacity in providing highly responsive (efficient and resilient) agriculture and fishery support services as envisaged in its Adaptation and Mitigation Initiatives in Agriculture (AMIA) program

• Recommendations to make DA's policies, planning, operations, monitoring, and evaluation functions related to its key mandates, namely Research and Development (R&D), Agriculture and Fishery Regulation, and Agricultural Extension, Climate Change-resilient
• Review of DA's planning, monitoring and evaluation systems including the reformulation of Agriculture Rehabilitation Plan for Yolanda-affected Areas and recommendations on systems and procedures to achieve CC-resiliency in DA's plans and budget
• Establishment and operation of an Integrated Climate Change Geographic Information System (ICCGIS) laboratory at the central office and the production of multi-hazard and crop suitability maps in support of DA's functions
• Review and formulation of policies on disaster risks reduction and management (DRRM)
• Initial capacity building interventions to key DA officers
• Initial institutional assessment and the conduct of special studies in support of above concerns

Completed

• To promote a common understanding of the climate change-related threat to the agriculture sector focused on selected crops (rice, maize, and cassava)
• To identify successful practices and policies at AMS level for tackling these climate change-related threats that can be promoted and up-scaled
• To identify common concerns and capacity needs, and propose regional support strategies and instruments to address these in a coherent manner

• Facilitate the regional platform
• Establish national research teams in the seven pilot countries with the aim of identification and formulation of regional support measures in strengthening climate resilience of the selected value chains

Completed

• Strengthen research capacity in food and nutrition security and environmental sustainability toward inclusive and sustainable agricultural and rural development in Southeast Asia
• Specifically, strengthen collaborative research capacity of young researchers and scientists in the field of Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation (CChAM) as it relates to agriculture and rural development in the region

• Collaborative research studies aimed at providing science-based solutions to current issues and concerns in climate change adaptation and mitigation

Ongoing

• 12 teams awarded with grants and are now implementing their respective collaborative research12 teams awarded with grants and are now implementing their respective collaborative research
• Mentors, subject matter experts and those well-versed in collaborative research, have been shortlisted and are available to the teams for consultation

• Strengthened capacity of the targeted AMS to develop policies and programs to support the adjustment of the smallholder farm sector to changes in sub-regional agricultural and food markets
• Cooperation in food security and agricultural development among AMS is enhanced through the preparation of strategic programs and measures in the areas of R&D, food safety and quality standards, and investments in food and agri-based industries

• Improved competitiveness of smallholders within AMS in the production of key food and industrial crops
• Reduced exposure of less developed AMS to food security shocks

Ongoing

• Conducted Regional Launch Workshop on 7-8 October 2016
• Completed National Inception Workshops in all target AMS (i.e., Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Lao PDR, and the Philippines)
• Signed MOA with MAFF (Cambodia) and IPSARD (Vietnam)
• Held Focal Points & Researchers Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand on 31 October 2017
• Conducted Training-Workshop on Rapid Value Chain Assessment in Bangkok, Thailand on 1-3 November 2017
• Identified priority commodities for the national-level policy studies
• Secured plans of study for the national-level policy studies
• Established National Project Steering Committees (NPSCs) in Cambodia and Vietnam

• Analyze human resource requirements of ensuring food and nutrition security in the ASEAN region
• Examine the demand and supply of human resources in agriculture and related disciplines by investigating the enrolment and graduation rates, including the employability of agriculture graduates in the selected ASEAN countries
  
  • Investigate the employability of graduates both from the demand and supply side in terms of skills, competencies, and qualification requirements by firms at the micro-level, and the economy at the macro-level
  • Analyze the characteristics of students and graduates in terms of socio-economic, demographic, and educational profiles

• Environmental scanning and inventory of agriculture human resources
• Outlook of agriculture labor market and forecast of demand-supply of agriculture human resources and skills
• Analysis of skill shortages/skill gaps and hard-to-fill jobs/positions
• Regional workshop
• Policy briefs and publication of book and journal articles

Ongoing

• Build a community of ASEAN leaders in agriculture who are empowered with knowledge on key contemporary issues in agriculture and food security, with a focus on new knowledge, high impact technologies, and innovative approaches, so that the challenges arising from a dynamic agri-food landscape may be met
• Provide current knowledge on important topics which influence the global agriculture landscape, with respect to sustainable development, trade, and livelihoods
• Provide a comprehensive and deep understanding of factors driving the agriculture landscape in the ASEAN region, contextualized within the global and milieu of factors
• Introduce to participants a change management paradigm of leadership beyond best practice based on complexity theory

Future Projects

• Each participant chose one topic out of the complex milieu of topics in the global environment (e.g., climate change in the outer rectangle, Fig. 1) and developed a 1-2 page "thought piece" on how his/her country is currently addressing this topic and what needs to be changed to achieve desired outcomes. This "thought piece" constitutes a case study for change management in the participant's country.

Completed

Initial Phase

• Serve as a knowledge repository on food and nutrition security across Southeast Asia with UC members as major contributors, placing emphasis on inclusive and sustainable initiatives
• Facilitate collaboration to foster cooperation and coordination among the six members of Umbrella Program and secondary stakeholders such as government institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), international organizations on food and nutrition security, academic institutions, and the media
• Promote public awareness and capacity-building on food and nutrition security at the regional level, with specific emphasis on inclusive and sustainable food and nutrition security initiatives of various stakeholders

Future Phase

• Allow secondary users to contribute to its knowledge repository on inclusive and sustainable food and nutrition security initiatives in Southeast Asia
• Promote capacity-building of FANSSEA users via e-learning and other innovative learning modalities
• Distill lessons from the knowledge base that would contribute to improved policies and programs on food and nutrition security in Southeast Asia

• Virtual Knowledge Center

Ongoing

• Conducted preliminary research and knowledge management audit
• Drafted conceptual framework of the knowledge center
• Identified KM-related issues that could be potentially solved through KM interventions

• The MS FSCC project aims to build a Joint Master of Science in Food Security and Climate Change to be offered by the five leading Southeast Asian higher education institutions in agriculture and life sciences from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia.
• The MS FSCC project aims to build a Joint Master of Science in Food Security and Climate Change to be offered by the five leading Southeast Asian higher education institutions in agriculture and life sciences from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia.▪ Ultimately, the Joint Master of Science in Food Security and Climate Change is envisaged to help develop a critical mass of high-quality, next generation of interdisciplinary professionals able to address the imposing challenges posed by climate change and food security in their country and the region.

• Year 1: Come up with the curriculum and quality assessment mechanisms, training the faculty and staff on the delivery of the program, developing student handbook and guidelines on mobilities, and selection of the first batch of students

Ongoing

• Project Kick-Off Meeting was held on 7-8 November 2016 at SEARCA, Philippines
• In January 2017, a Circular Mission was done by the Project Leaders in the UC member universities.
• Project Leaders from KU and SEARCA participated in the kick-off meeting of the newly selected ERASMUS+ Capacity Building for Higher Education (CBHE) projects held on 25-26 January 2017 in Brussels, Belgium.
• The first Regional Workshop of the Project was held on 14-16 February 2017 at KU, Thailand.
• In July 2017, eleven (11) degree and six (6) non-degree students from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand were selected for the first batch of MSFSCC and have actively participated in the Summer School held at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia from 10-28 July 2017.
• As of January 2018, nine students from the first batch will begin their mobility in their host or second university this second semester 2017-2018.

• Introduce the concepts of GIS with a focus on using GIS as a tool in agricultural research
• Help researchers model potential effects of climate change on agriculture within the Asian context
• Serve as an exposure workshop to have a better understanding of advanced GIS tools

• Expose participants to GIS tools to fully appreciate its usefulness
• Hands-on soil sample collection, tracking of GPS points, and determining GPS coordinates

Completed

• Review the evolving frameworks, approaches, and initiatives in CCA, mainstreaming CCA, and DRM vis-à-vis inclusive and sustainable agricultural and rural development (ISARD)
• Describe and explain generic processes and requirements on integrating CCA and DRM toward ISARD
• Appropriate the application of specific methodologies and tools for integrating CCA and DRM toward ISARD

• Completion Report

Completed

• Appreciate the importance of diversity of indigenous plants
• Understand the situation of biodiversity from past, present, and future
• Explore, identify and document their own local wisdom
• Perform actual field operations and report their findings

• Appreciation and understanding of the importance of diversity of indigenous plants
• Increased awareness of the fundamentals of tropical crop diversity, the value of plant genetic resources, ethnobotany, plant diversity, basic taxonomy, and the fundamentals of plant collection

Completed

• Understand climate change impacts and the need to integrate climate change adaptation (CCA) into policies, action plans, and project interventions in the agriculture sector
• Identify appropriate approaches for integrating climate change adaptation into policies, plans, and programs at the national, regional, sectoral and project levels
• Apply these systematic planning steps to selected cases in agriculture including its allied fisheries and forestry sectors towards developing flagship CCA initiatives

• Training Completion Report including Training Evaluation Report

Completed

• Identify the significant current climate resilient agricultural technologies in selected ASEAN countries
• Evaluate and compare socioeconomic impacts of these technologies
• Discern the socioeconomic status, aligning its food and nutrition security, through current climate resilient agricultural technologies across selected ASEAN countries
• Make recommendations on enabling policies and governance for climate-resilient agriculture and rural communities

• Highlight how the current climate resilient agricultural technologies contribute to the socioeconomic status by maintaining or improving food security level
• Provide appropriate policy implications needed for policymakers so as to enable policies and governance for the regional food security status, through the effective and comprehensive climate-smart agricultural model, by scaling up the potential climate resilient agricultural technologies

Ongoing

• Discover ways to lessen pollutants in soil, sediments, and water that can reduce remedial costs, restore habitats and strengthen public health and safety

• Highlight how the use of plants in order to clean contaminated soil, sediment, and water is the best alternative, environment-friendly, and cost-effective in the management of heavy metals and other pollutants

Completed