Singapore, 24 April 2024: ERIA attended the 18th Meeting of the ASEAN Technical Working Group on Agricultural Research and Development (ATWGARD) held in Singapore on 24-25 April 2024. The meeting was attended by ATWGARD representatives from ASEAN Member States (AMS) and selected ASEAN Development Partners, including ERIA.

In his presentation, Masanori Kozono, ERIA Senior Policy Fellow, shared the preliminary scoping study findings of the on-going research project on building and enhancing sustainable agriculture and food systems in ASEAN countries. This project supports AMS in implementing the ASEAN Regional Guidelines for Sustainable Agriculture in ASEAN, which was adopted by the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) in 2022.

Kozono said the implementation of digital agriculture and carbon measures is still a minor initiative in the ASEAN region, and the gap between Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam (CLMV) and non-CLMV countries is large in those initiatives. He also introduced policy recommendations such as a suggestion the practical action plan should contain a pilot project to assess and confirm the feasibility and impact of prioritised sustainable actions.

He then shared the outline of the new project – Benefits and Challenges of Digitalisation in Agriculture and Food Systems for Enhanced Resilience and Improved Sustainability. The project is in response to the significance of digitalisation in agriculture, which aligns with ERIA's previous study and the ASEAN Leaders' Declaration on Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition in Response to Crises adopted at the ASEAN Summit in September 2023, where leaders pledged to hasten digital transformation.  

The project aims to provide actual information and identify the challenges to the utilisation of digital agriculture in the ASEAN region. It is expected to have distinct policy pathways for scaling up applicable digitalisation in the context of smallholder farmers, which also contributes to enhancing the resilience and sustainability of agriculture value chains. The project will consist of an assessment survey, a country case study, and workshops engaging AMS.

In the final part of the ERIA presentation, Yasuro Funaki, Director of the Social Sciences Division of the Japan International Research Centre for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), and a co-project leader together with Kozono, introduced an ERIA-JIRCAS collaboration project Exploring the Adoption of Technologies from the Technology Catalog Contributing to Production Potential and Sustainability in the Asia-Monsoon Region in ASEAN Countries. This project is expected to contribute to the dissemination of advanced technologies selected from the Technology Catalog in ASEAN countries.

In 2024, ERIA is engaged in supporting the development of the Priority Economic Deliverables of the ASEAN Chairmanship, such as the ASEAN Action Plan for Sustainable Agriculture through research and knowledge dissemination, collaborating closely with the ASEAN Secretariat to promote agricultural sustainability in the ASEAN Region.