Discussion Forums for the ARD community

Dear participants of the Asia Pacific regional e-consultation,

If you just joined the event, please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself and share a regional experience that shows how an agricultural innovation in your region had a development impact.

In this message I summarize the contributions that we have received so far and give you important information for the upcoming days of this consultation.

Summary

After the first few days of consultation we already heard from participants from different sectors, like universities, private sector, research centers and NGOs. You are involved with agriculture as professors, researchers, students, project managers, business owners, economists and more. Contributions already covered countries, like Bangladesh, India, Australia, Sri Lanka or the Philippines among others. Thanks to all of you for your time and the high quality of your messages!

Here are some of the issues that have been covered so far through your valuable contributions:

· DR. Amjad M. Husaini from the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences highlights the need to make farming more profitable. He asks for practical ideas and promises to give us some later on in the discussion. Farmer competitiveness is also an issues highlighted by Romel Armecin from the National Abaca Research Center (NARC), Philippines along with problems of Soil fertility.

· Dr. Shaikh Tanveer Hossain from an NGO in Bangladesh highlights three priority issues for agricultural development in Bangladesh and he shares his experiences in those areas: Food Security& diet sufficiency, Climate Change for a highly vulnerable Bangladesh, and Soil Fertility & Safe Agriculture.

· Dr. MK Dhillon, and entomologist, working for ICRISAT, India is curious about how the native and invaded/exotic natural enemies -insect pests dynamics will be influenced in response to climate change and the changing agro-ecosystem.

· Patricia Fuentes-Cross from the University of Adelaide in Australia wonders about the potential of native crops to improve food supply and limit the effects of climate change acknowledging the need for innovative marketing strategies for those crops. On a similar note, Fardous Mohammad Safiul Azam, from the University of Development Alternative, Dhaka, Bangladesh emphasis on the growing area of work on underutilized crops.

· Sonwright B. Maddul from Benguet State University in La Trinidad, Philippines shares experiences on more effective knowledge dissemination through Farmers' Information and Technology Services (FITS) Centers.

· Several participants share views and experiences on how to put the farmers into the centre through farmer participation, farmer associations, acknowledgement of Farmer’s capacity to innovate, scaling-up of indigenous knowledge (T, J James, Anthropologist, Peermade Development Society, India) , as well as improve agricultural technology and practices of the local farmers. (Win Win Myint, Action Aid, Myanmar). Equally Sonali Bisht from India illustrates the failure of the agriculture research and development system to address the needs of small holder farmers.

We will certainly hear more introductions next week. I invite all of you to already take up some of the issues that have been raised so far. I attach you the compilation of the introductions in case you want to read them in a format that is printable and perhaps easier to digest. Please don’t hesitate to respond, comment and build on those contributions.

Background readings for next week

I also encourage you to have a closer look at two documents that have been prepared by Prof. R. B. Singh, Lead Consultant for the Asia – Pacific Region as a summary of a larger regional review on regional research and development needs within the global context of agricultural research:

• Key issues (main drivers and major challenges) of AR4D in Asia-Pacific:

http://www.apaari.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/main-drivers.pdf

• Questions for facilitating the e-Consultation:

http://www.apaari.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/questions.pdf

Next week, we will discuss the key issues compiled in those documents. Some of them have already been raised by you.

If you want to keep up-to-date on the other e-regional events, check the GCARD blog: http://gcardblog.wordpress.com/ and Twitter page: http://twitter.com/GCARD2010

Thank you for participating in this consultation.

Simone Staiger-Rivas
Facilitator of the Asia Pacific e-consultation
Email:
Skype: simonestaiger
Web: http://egfar.org/egfarW/website/gcard/regional-consultations/ap