(Scroll down for full October 4 gallery)
The four-day event was attended by more than 300 delegates, including rice officials, value chain actors and researchers – from both the public and private sectors – including representatives from 83 member institutions organization of the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP). Delegates came from throughout Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Africa. Proceedings began with preliminary discussions on October 3, followed by presentations Oct 4 and 5, administered by dozens of expert rice market and research speakers from around the world, whose topics were diverse and organized into six tracks or focuses. Topics of discussion spanned every aspect of sustainable rice production, including SRP indicators and implementation, market forecasts, climate-smart agriculture, innovative solutions, water conservation, irrigation, greenhouse gasses, solar cycles, crop-protection-chemicals, supply and value chains, farmers and women empowerment, to name a few. The event concludes on October 6 with a field trip organized in conjunction with Thailand Rice Department and the Better Rice Initiative Asia. (More details about the event here and on the event website) Asian Seed joined some of the sessions on October 4, which began with a Sustainable Rice Platform Assembly, initiated by addresses from Dr. Dechen Tsering (Regional Director and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, UN Environment); Dr. Mathew Morell (Director General, International Rice Research Institute) and Kundhavi Kadiresan (Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, FAO). This was followed by the signing of an MoU between UN Environment and IRRI (details here) and a panel discussion to introduce the first three of six tracks of the conference. Moreover, the SRP has published a declaration, stating indicators, objectives, commitments and desired outcomes of the event (download here) Overall, the conference served as a useful and productive forum to facilitate dialogue and interaction among key global agriculture stakeholders – not only for pursuing novel objectives of the SRP, but for exchanging practical insights, data, indicators and forecasts for the present and future of agriculture production in Asia, the Pacific and world. As readers and APSA members are aware, one of the main areas of interest for Asian Seed content focus this year is identifying climate change implications for the seed industry in Asia and the Pacific – and advising on the mitigation thereof. This is one area we are monitoring closely and continuously. Indeed, one of the feature articles in our upcoming edition, which will be distributed at the 24th Asian Seed Congress in Bangkok next month, covers all the seedsman, agronomist and trader needs to know about "Top Climate Change Threats to the Seed Industry, and How to Mitigate Them." Look out for that article, and be sure to download and read our "Climate Change Report 2017" cover feature here if you haven't already. Meanwhile, enjoy some pictures from the recent sustainable rice conference in Bangkok. For any photo, content inquiries, please email Steven <at sign> ApsaSeed dot org. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="36" gal_title="First Global Sustainable Rice Conference and Exhibition"]