THE Asean-German principles for sustainable agriculture in Asean were shown recently at the ‘Asean Ministerial Exhibition on Sustainable Agrifood Systems: Towards Food Security and Sustainable Development’, during the 39th Asean Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Hosted by Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the 39th AMAF welcomed over 300 high level decision makers from all Asean member states to discuss regional cooperation to increase the international competitiveness of Asean’s food, agriculture and forestry products. It also aimed to strengthen the food security in the region and joint positions internationally.
The four principles are composed of multi-level policy linkages, multi-stakeholder and public-private partnerships, farmer inclusivity in the value chain, and leadership and capacity building.
The principles are part of the German-Asean Programme on Response to Climate Change in Agriculture and Forestry (GAP-CC) which being implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Asean partners.
The project received 15 million euro initial funds from the German government with an additional 15 million euro leveraged from public and private partners.
As a result, 125,000 farmers were able to generate an estimated 98 million euro of additional income.
Claudia Ebach, Counsellor for Food and Agriculture, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bangkok said, “Currently, Asean is facing great challenges in the agricultural and food sector: enabling everyone to have access to safe, healthy and affordable food, to meet an ever increasing demand by people while, at the same time, protecting a shrinking natural resource base.”
“In order to tackle these issues, the Asean Sustainable Agrifood Systems (Asean SAS) project has brought together different stakeholders to impart knowledge, lessons learned and experiences. I am confident that this Asean-German cooperation will be a valuable contribution to higher and more sustainable standards of living for the farmers, producers, traders and distributors, as well as to enhanced competitiveness in the agricultural sector,” she said.
Dr Surmsuk Salakpetch, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Agriculture (DoA), Thailand, said, “The Asean-German cooperation on agriculture has played a key role in enhancing the capability of stakeholders in developing a sustainable production system. Thailand, as the host of the Asean SAS and Asean Climate Resilience Network (CRN), is happy that results and recommendations of the projects have been approved and supported by the Asean ministers of agriculture and forestry for further action.”
Stefan Helming, Country Director of GIZ Thailand and Malaysia, said, “The partnership focuses not only on achieving tangible results on the farms, but also supports regional dialogues and consultations in formulating strategic policy frameworks for the food and agriculture sectors. Most important, it helps to expand public-private partnerships in the region. The latter is very crucial not only to generate more income for farmers and secure food security in the region, but to increase competitiveness of the whole value chains.”
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