AsiaDHRRA Online

The CSO event statement highlights the adverse impact of the “loss of forest and agricultural land to monoculture plantations” to the  biodiversity, food security and human rights in the region and proposes to the ASEAN members states several measures to mitigate these effects. The agriculture and environment CSO stakeholders recommend that ASEAN and/or its member [...]

Here’s another take on the fair trade issue which of late has been under criticism for its less than convincing performance in helping out poor farmers Today, on World Fair Trade Day, we have something else to feel guilty about. That fair-trade cup of coffee we savour may not only fail to ease the lot [...]

FarmFriday shares this interesting newsbit from IPS. This highlights again the need to support agriculture in general and smallholder farmers in particular. IPS|By Stephen Leahy How’s this for short-sighted: A billion people go hungry every day, food prices have climbed 30 to 40 percent, climate change is reducing agricultural production – and for the past [...]

MarketSunday shares this bit from Eldis. What can sustainable livelihoods approaches and pro-poor market approaches learn from each other? Similarities and complementarities between SL and PPM include: They are both multidisciplinary, in that they draw on political economy, social analysis and economics to generate insights into the way these influences affect the livelihood processes and [...]

This is a very interesting tidbit which we stumbled upon while googling for the filipino inventor Mr. Hernando Decena because we were interested in this agribusiness forum  given by MAP about “Cutting Big Post Harvest Losses Using Filipino Invented Multifunction Freezing Machine”. BTW, go visit the MAP website and subscribe to their e-newsletter –might interest [...]

FarmFriday highlights this is very interesting newsbit from IFAD with its President Kanayo F. Nwanze pushing for more efforts  to linking smallholder farmers to the private sector: “In Davos, I intend to show business leaders how linking smallholder farmers to the private sector is key to building the economy of developing countries. The private sector [...]

Ms. Chu Thi Mai Anh, Agricultural & Rural Enterprise Development Project Officer, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) The CRS has partnered with the Province of Nghe An to promote a territory approach to agro-enterprise development. This means that the project needs to 1) be implemented through the Government administration structure; 2) improve the skills and knowledge [...]

By Rene Guarin Executive Director, Upland Marketing Program Mr. Guarin introduced the Upland Marketing Program and related about its nearly twelve years of experience in selling directly to supermarkets. He said that direct selling to supermarkets is inevitable given the worldwide trend of increasing rate of grocery sales due to various factors, such as the [...]

By Mr. Jesus Vicente Garganera, National Coordinator, PhilDHRRA A market research scanning on calamansi that was done revealed important statistics and information for any farmer or group of farmers interested in producing and marketing. It was found that the production of calamansi in the country has been increasing, with major supplies coming from Central Philippines [...]

Overview of Challenges Experienced by Small Farmers in Engaging with Markets, by Mr. Nonoy Villas, presented the rationale behind supporting small farmers’ commodity-based associations. He started with the definition of terms to illustrate that the small farmers have the weakest link in both the supply and the value chains. He added that small farmers are [...]

Country Presentations from Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia Philippines Mr. Luis Caballero Jr., Vice Chairperson of Zamboanga Sibugay High Value Marketing Crop, presented their community’s experience in maintaining food safety and quality standards for calamansi. In terms of maintaining product quality, this involved the processes before planting, the maintenance requirements during planting season, as well [...]

By Dr. Nellie Manalili, Regional Adviser for Asia on Market Access, Vredeseilanden (VECO) Much of the problems in the agricultural sector exist because we do not understand what is going on. That is why we need to understand what are agricultural chains and how these are linked to the market. In a simple marketing system, [...]

We are sharing with you our latest publication – the Mapping of Marketing Intermediation of CSO in Indonesia and Value Chain Analysis of Organic Rice in Indonesia. You can download the PDF version here (right click and choose “file save as…” or drop by our office for the print version. Copies are limited though so [...]

A presentation by By Mr. Peter Sousa Hoejskov, Food Quality and Safety Officer, FAO Regional Office in Asia Pacific, during the 2nd LSFM RTW. Mr. Peter Hoejskov started his presentation with a discussion on the importance of food safety and standards. He cited that food safety and control systems provide: the basis for inspection, testing, [...]

TechTuesday presents this interesting study from Eldis about the mobile phone’s impact in Nigeria’s small businessmen. Can mobile telephony improve commercial supply-chains in developing countries? Informational challenges – absence, uncertainty, asymmetry – shape the working of markets and commerce in many developing countries. This paper is a case study of the impact of mobile telephony [...]