SUMMARY OF RESAKSS-ASIA CONFERENCE ON “AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN ASIA: POLICY OPTIONS FOR FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY”

The ReSAKSS-Asia conference entitled "Agricultural Transformation in Asia: Policy Options for Food and Nutrition Security" was jointly organized with the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) on September 25-27 in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  The goal of the conference was to promote broad collaboration among policymakers, research­ers, and regional stakeholders in Asia to share research evidence, policy experiences, and practical lessons, in order to help improve the effectiveness of current and future agricultural and food secu­rity strategies in Asia. 

The conference had four principal objectives:

• To generate cross country dialogue among participants with the opportunity to review, share, and learn about what policies have worked (or not) in helping to transform the agricultural sec­tor for food and nutrition security;
• To identify what still remains unknown about the effectiveness of specific policies and policy systems across Asia for improving food security and nutritional outcomes;
• To derive practical lessons from regional experiences on the role of the private sector in input markets;
• To better understand the capacity constraints facing policy systems that limit their performance.

The conference achieved consensus around the conference’s key themes of input policy (seed and fertilizer), trade and the agriculture-nutrition nexus.   

Seed:  Sound seed systems are important for increasing agricultural productivity. The public sector should play a major role in developing certification systems that insure the quality of seed for farmers while the private market should play a major role in the multiplication and distribution seed.   Experiences from Thailand and Pakistan presented at the conference highlight the increasing and important role that the private sector can play in improving seed systems.

Fertilizer: Country experience from Bangladesh and India has shown that fertilizer subsidies can have huge costs, crowding out public expenditures on agricultural research, extension, rural roads and other expenditures that promote agricultural development. The private sector is often more efficient and timely in delivery of fertilizer to farmers, as illustrated  by the experience of Vietnam which is moving from a public sector to a private sector fertilizer distribution system and Cambodia which did so in 1993.

Trade policy: The discussions highlighted that national domestic policies can have major spillover effects to international markets and trading partner countries. Here, cooperation amongst trading partners can help reduce uncertainty and perhaps allow countries to take into account adverse effects of their policies on major trading partners. At the national level, countries need a judicious balance of national stocks and participation in international markets to enjoy gains of trade while being able to cushion their domestic markets from international price fluctuations.

Capacity strengthening: The discussion showed the importance of analysis and national capacity for formulating effective agricultural and food policies that can significantly improve food security. This is illustrated by Bangladesh which has long benefited from the work of the Food Monitoring and Planning Unit in the Ministry of Food and has now created a new analytical unit in the Ministry of Agriculture to strengthen agricultural policy. 

The ReSAKSS-Asia conference itself was designed in part for capacity strengthening with each participant (researchers, government officials, private sector actors) sharing important experiences and lessons with other participants from different countries.  The conference gave everyone an opportunity to learn from each other.