Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment
SEARICE, civil society declare the global food system as broken,
call for the adoption of agroecology as solution
In preparation for engaging in the 37th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific Asia-Pacific (37th APRC), members of the International Planning Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee of civil society organizations released a statement declaring the urgency of fixing the broken food system and calling for the adoption of agroecology to counter the corporate-led agri-food system.
SEARICE, as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee of CSOs, prepared the statement jointly with other members of that committee as well as members of the International Planning Committee, including the Movement for Land and Agrarian Reform (MONLAR), which delivered the statement at APRC 37. The session was held on 19 to 22 February 2024 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The Statement issued a number of recommendations for FAO and its Member States, including promoting a rights-based approach to transforming agri-food systems and making them more climate-resilient; implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication; adopting and implementing Structural One Health; facilitating direct access to financing by farmers through farmers’ organizations and cooperatives to scale up and scale out appropriate and much needed innovations; and ensuring the application of a gender and youth lens when enacting policies and implementing programs for agri-food system transformation; among others.