Saudi company is interested in leasing up to 200,000 hectares of rain-fed government land and private farms to produce 1.2 million metric tons (MMT) of rice for the Saudi Arabian market.

Dante Delima, assistant secretary at the Department of Agriculture (DA) and coordinator of the National Rice Program (NRP), has already endorsed to Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala a proposal to create a technical working group (TWG) to study the matter.

The proposal for the long-term land lease was advanced by Dr. Khalid Abu al-Saud of Dar Al-Maskukat Trad¬ing of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, through a letter dated April 1, 2012 and coursed through Dr. Eduardo C. Sison, chairman of the Madecor Group of Los Baños, Laguna.

Continue reading in YahooNews……..

More info on the Annual Meeting here…

AsiaDHRRA, together with the Non-Timber Forest Products – Exchange Programme for South and Southeast Asia (NTFP-EP),  ASEAN Social Forestry Network (ASFN), Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) and SDC  co-organized the first CSO 101 Brown Bag Event for the Civil Society Organizations & the Agriculture and Forestry Sector in the ASEAN Region held on 17 February 2012 at the Hibiscus Ballroom, ASEAN, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Ms. Lany Rebagay presented “Engaging ASEAN on Agriculture and Sustainable Rural Development: The AsiaDHRRA-AFA Experience”.  And Muhammad Nuruddin, of AFA-Aliansi Petani Indonesia presented the view from the Farmers’ Organization on ASEAN engagement.

The Brown Bag Session aims to provide various perspectives, approaches used by various CSOs, highlight positive examples for CSO-government collaborations and identify key themes and points where ASEAN-CSO engagement and constructive dialogue in the forestry and agricultural sector.

The fruitful one day session came out with the following Lesson and Recommendations towards Meaningful Engagement between the ASEAN and CSO

1. There is ‘space’ in the agriculture and forestry sector in the ASEAN as underscored in the ASEAN charter. This ‘space’ should be optimized. The ‘space’ has to be mapped out and clearly outlined. This may include setting up informal and formal mechanisms to allow a more active participation in CSOs.

• There is a need to establish legitimacy in the engagement. There is a need to build institutional structures that facilitates discussion of issues.
• The ASEAN secretariat can promote intensive engagement in various ASEAN initiatives and facilitate linkaging for CSOs’ engagements with particular member states.

2.  The ‘language’ in the space is not defined. There is a need to define what is the process, what are the rules of engagement, and who are the actors.

• There is a need to have a process in articulation of dialogues with the ASEAN bodies. There is a need to filter out conflicts to have dialogues with the ASEAN.
• Map out the institutions/CSOs in the region, and encourage diverse CSOs to engage with the ASEAN bodies.
• CSOs across the region may need to organize themselves, identify issues and interest and concretize what to bring to bring forth for high level discussions and engagements with ASEAN bodies, member states and their representatives.

3.  Funding support is needed for consistent participation and to develop resources to translate relevant information that will be carried out into actions and engagements.

• Development partner (funding agencies) of ASEAN recognizing the potential contribution of CSOs may need to allocate funds to CSOs.

4.  It has to be clear who is represented and whose voices is spoken. Peoples/communities have the to be given the opportunity to articulate for themselves and not necessarily having an intermediary. Who frames the issues and the language used matters.

5.  There is a need to further have ‘infrastructure’ building, form networks among peers, among governments to learn from each other.

• Networks can facilitate increasing the level awareness on issues of representatives and government bodies and continue to build capacities of CSOs (provide trainings, sharing information, etc)

6. Generate concise, practical information targeted for a given agenda. The nature of information, how it is provided, and timeliness of information given is relevant.

Summary of Panel Discussion Key Points – CSO 101 Brown Bag Event, 16 February 2012

View the video presentation by NTFP about CSOs and NGOs

The agriculture and environment CSO stakeholders recommend that ASEAN and/or its member states:

1. Stop forced evictions in the interests of large-scale agriculture;
2. In all cases where development projects will result in dispossession, international human rights standards should be fully observed. Affected communities should be fairly compensated, including by ensuring access to agricultural land
3. Ensure sufficient budgets for sustainable agriculture and develop policies and programs to support small-scale farmers – women, men and young persons. In particular ensue access to land, waters and seed, provide support to organic farming, cooperative marketing, access to affordable credit, infrastructure, agricultural extension and meaningful participation of small-scale farmers in decision-making processes towards ensuring food and nutrition security;
4. Ensure that all agriculture development programs and policies are gender sensitive and gender responsive;
5. Extend technical assistance to improve competitiveness of small-scale farmers through sharing and learning exchanges on sustainable farming technologies, the establishment of an ASEAN Farmers’ Bank and ASEAN Small-scale Farmers’ Council to ensure institutionalized participation in ASEAN processes;
6. Install monitoring mechanisms to hold transnational corporations accountable for their role with respect to large-scale food and agro-fuel production, toxic chemicals, land grabbing and the displacement of food crops including provision of guidelines for ASEAN governments on how to strengthen coherence between national and global food policies;
7. Ratify and implement international treaties and provisions pertaining to natural resource management and agriculture, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provides for the right to adequate food and to a decent living, which in the case of small-scale farmers includes the right to seeds and land.

Read full ACSC-APF 2012 Statement

Ms. Lany Rebagay in behalf of Asiadhrra, presented during the Opening Plenary of the ACSC-APF 2012 the AsiaDHRRA-AFA Experience in Engaging ASEAN on Agriculture and Rural Development. Download the presentation here…

About the ACSC/APF

The ACSC/APF is an annual gathering of civil society which was started in 2005 during Malaysia’s chairship. It follows with the Philippines in 2006, Singapore in 2007, Thailand in 2009, Vietnam in 2010 and Indonesia in 2011. At the end of each Forum, civil society comes up with a collective statement and recommendations for ASEAN.

The ACSC/APF is a main space for democratic and constructive debates on ideas, formulation of proposals for ASEAN, exchange of experiences among civil society and peoples’ movements, expanding networks across issues in the region, and doing joint actions, especially on community building process. This year, reflecting the major concerns of the ASEAN people towards the Association, ACSC/APF 2012 chooses the theme “Transforming ASEAN into a People?Centered Community”.

Mr. Makino Atsushi, a senior student of Kobe University in Japan taking up Economics, is currently on a six month internship (February-August 2012) in the Philippines hosted by Asiadhrra and Phildhrra.

Maki, as he prefers to be called will focus his internship on studying Philippine NGO Programs and Activities. He began his internship with a one month stay with Phildhrra. He is currently stationed in Asiadhrra for this month and from then on Maki will be assigned to various Phildhrra Member NGOs and partners to further broaden his experience and understanding of Philippine CSOs.

Ms. Soc Orlina, a junior AB Communication student at the Ateneo de Manila University has joined Asiadhrra as a summer volunteer for the period April-May 2002. She will produce a video brochure for Asiadhrra.

On a related note, Asiadhrra Execom met with AgriCord Managing Director Mr. Ignace Coussement, in Hanoi in March 2012 where they had a fruitful exchange of views on this new partnership.

AgriCord is a network of “agri-agencies”, non-governmental organisations for development cooperation with structural links to the farmers’ and rural members’ organisations in their home countries, including the organisations of rural women, young agrarians, cooperatives and agri-businesses.

Visit the Agricord Website…

We consume a fair amount of tea here in the office and this newsbit from Greenpeace East Asia had us a bit worried. “A Greenpeace investigation has found pesticides banned for use on tea in the products marketed by some of China’s top tea companies. Some of the firms, which include China Tea, Tenfu Tea and China Tea King, export tea products to Japan, the US and Europe.”

The link to the full report can be found on the Greenpeace website link below.

Read the full article at Greenpeace…

We  are aware of the complex issues confronting food, agriculture and rural development in the face of intensifying economic, social and environmental crisis Asian region and the world. The global capitalist crisis has caused worst suffering especially for many people in Asia, including small food producers, women and indigenous peoples.

Download the long version here….

Download the short version here…