Phnom Penh, 28-29 September 2021: Cambodia Conservation Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification Consortium (CASIC) held its 2nd Annual Regional Workshop with the focus on development of and transition towards Conservation Agriculture & Sustainable Agriculture (CA/SI) and Agroecology (AE) in the region. The virtual workshop was attended about 150 participants from 28 countries.
Over 20 national and international speakers and facilitators, all experts in their field, presented on the CA/SI status in Asia, the challenges with regards to broad scale adoption of CA/SI, methodologies on managing diversity in CA/SI systems, driving CA/SI dissemination process and last but not the least on support by development partners on enabling CA/SI environment. This workshop was organized following the success of the Regional Training on Appropriate Scale Mechanization for Conservation Agriculture, which was held in 2019 in Siem Reap and Kampong Cham provinces of Cambodia.
Session 1: Updating CA/SI status in Asia (Cambodia, China and India) – Download Session 1 Presentation
- Remarkable progress and clear future directions include scaling model, appropriate implements, training materials, and institutional and policies
- We have spent decades, great deals of efforts and resources in reaching toward CA/SI
- Large-scale adoption of CA remains challenging. Thus, more efforts, time, resources, etc. are required to promote the large-scale adoption of CA/SI.
Session 2: Addressing technical challenges related to CA/SI broad-scale adoption – Download Session 2 Presentation
- On-going research, refinement and development of specialized equipment and machinery for local specifics (small holders), and plant materials (cover crops)
- Developing markets for CA farm inputs (seeds, bio-products, etc.) and machinery development and service contractors
- Policy support and extension of CA/SI
Session 3: Managing diversity in CA/SI systems adoption – Download Session 3 Presentation
- Developing policy and institutional support to bring people and actors to work together in interdisciplinary context
- Strengthening functional capacities of key national institutions and linkages among them to facilitate and promote uptake and scaling of sustainable agricultural intensification practices
- Capacity building and regional cooperation in different expertise such as straw management and crop diversity
Session 4: Driving CA/SI dissemination process adoption – Download Session 4 Presentation
- Capacity building of stakeholders is key for successful agroecological transition
- Deï Meas bridges financing gap and pays farmers already in the first year of transition to incentivize adoption of regenerative practices
- LICA – Lao Initiative for Conservation Agriculture
Session 5: Support by development partners on enabling CA environment – Download Session 5 Presentation
- Long-term financial commitment from AFD-EU on supporting CA/SI transitions in the region
- Many other donors (i.e., USAID, SDC, ACIAR, UN CSAM, UN ESCAP, etc) are also putting focus on CA/SI development
- Public Private/Development Partners Partnership (PPP framework) will be in place
The learning and outcome of this workshop will feed into another workshop on ‘’Agro-ecological and Safe Food Transition for a Green and Healthy COVID-19 Recovery’’ in the ASEAN region that will be organized by Agroecological and Safe food System Transitions (ASSET) project along with UNESCAP and the ASEAN secretariate in November 2021.