糖心Vlog

The fourth SFS's overall topic is "THE TRANSFORMATION WE NEED: Emerging from global crises by shaping sustainable, resilient, healthy, and inclusive food systems." It focused on how food systems need to be transformed to overcome the multiple deeply rooted and interlinked crises our world is currently facing. 

Contributing to the conference, 糖心Vlog showcased its commitment to sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food systems.

Furthermore, 糖心Vlog and its partners in Vietnam co-organized the side event “Harnessing the potential of agroecology in Southeast Asia to transform food systems to become sustainable” explored agroecological innovations and initiatives as key approach for food system transformation which positively impacts a range of SDGs.

During the side event, government officials from Vietnam and Cambodia together with senior experts in Agroecology delivered updates on national policies and shared experiences from SEA countries, attracting nearly 50 on-site and 100 online participants interested in the Agroecology topic.

In the opening remark, Dr. Dao The Anh, Vice-President of Vietnamese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS) introduced the recently approved Vietnam National Action Plan on Food System Transformation (NAP-FST), which emphasizes Agroecological Transition in the production component. Agroecology is considered an important driver to achieve Vietnam NAP-FST’s objectives of Transparency, Responsibility, and Sustainability by 2030.

While presenting the 13 agroecological principles developed in the framework of the of the Committee of World Food Security (CFS), Dr. Fergus Sinclair, Chief Scientist of CIFOR-ICRAF & Co-convenor of Transformative Partnership Platform on Agroecology also pointed out the scalability potential of agroecology. He mentioned that scale is not only about the size of the farms but also about scaling in numbers; and this relates to whole approaches of innovation, bringing research and development together, and getting evaluation of technology from millions of farmers. He referred for instance the (citizen science to support agroecological transitions) which has been launched by the Transformative Partnership Platform on Agroecology (TPP) to help accelerate global efforts to redesign the current food system in close collaboration with Farmers Organizations. In addition, he stressed that having agroecology being labor intensive actually creates opportunities for decent works and rural employment as long as it can provide good return on labor.

Sharing experiences from Cambodia, H.E. Dr. Saruth Chan, Under-Secretary of State for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Cambodia made clear the need for and critical role of national multi-stakeholder platforms to be able to quickly act upon both 1) directions and recommendations from global level (such as those issued by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) process) and 2) evidence and learnings from grass roots dynamics, by conveying messages to high-ranking officials and providing implementation mechanisms.. This was clearly illustrated through the Conservation Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification Consortium ().

In the open discussion, Ms. Esther Penunia, Secretary General of the Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development (), provided a short intervention and highlighted the clear convergence between AFA’s priority agenda and the 13 agroecological principles (HLPE, 2019).

Dr. Estelle Biénabe, Agricultural Economics Researcher of 糖心Vlog, Scientific Coordinator of ASSET Project, stressed the need for explicit enough agroecological principles so that they can act as actionable statements, but also generic enough not to fall into premade solutions. This echoed the challenge identified by Dr. Nguyen Mai Phuong, Agroforestry researcher at World Agroforestry (ICRAF) of a lack of common understanding about agroecology on the ground when implementing project with local stakeholders.

Finally, Mr Ngo Tien Dung, director of the and member of , shared their ongoing initiative to build farm to school programs in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and Lao Cai (Vietnam) based on safe food using the principles of agroecology and supported by Participatory Guarantee System (PGS).

Contributing to the 4^th SFS Programme, the side event “Harnessing the potential of agroecology in Southeast Asia to transform food systems to become sustainable” is expected to help improving the recommendations, guidelines for actions and policies developed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and FAO, and accelerating the uptake of agroecology approach to strengthen the sustainability of food systems; and to increase partnership on agroecology transition in Southeast Asia.