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Rationale

Actions to tackle climate change are urgently required in all sectors of the world. Agriculture and food systems play an essential role in the sustainable development of their region. They are often significantly affected by climate change while also being one of the significant sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Comprehensive and quantitative understanding of GHG emitted from agriculture and food systems and seeking resilient societies under climate change are urgent.

In this symposium, two sessions were held to assess climate change impacts through the sophisticated use of climate information, consider adaptation measures, and balance climate change mitigation and adaptation toward carbon neutrality by 2050.

In Session 1, NARO collaborated with OECD Co-operative Research Program: Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems (OECD-CRP) to discuss the impacts on food systems and co-benefit of adaptations and mitigations in the world.

In Session 2, NARO also collaborated with FFTC to discuss the impacts, adaptation, mitigation and social implementation utilizing numerical crop model and climate information. While some of the content is common to Session 1, this session is characterized in that it will focus on the Asia-Pacific region, especially on contributions to small-scale agriculture.

The symposium's theme covers the following two of FFTC-Strategic Action Plan for 2021-2024's The Five Program Themes; 3. Promoting climate-smart and resilient agriculture and 4. Fostering circular agriculture.

Objectives

• Share the current information and knowledge and exchange opinions among participants on the climate adaptations, mitigations and their impacts on agricultural management and food system in the world;
• Discuss how to utilize climate information and integrate adaptation and mitigation technologies to ensure sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural production in the Asian and Pacific region; and
• Share the information in seeking strategies in the agricultural sector for realizing carbon neutrality by 2050.

Themes

• Plenary Session: Messages from the WGII contribution to IPCC AR6
• Session 1: Adaptations to climate change in the food system; enhancing synergies and breaking trade-offs between adaptation, mitigation, and ecosystem services

  • Session 1-1: Observed impacts and projected risks from climate change

  • Session 1-2: Adaptation to climate change

  • Session 1-3: Integrated assessment of adaptation and mitigation

• Session 2: Impacts of climate change on small-scale agriculture in Asia and effective adaptation and mitigation using climate information services

  • Session 2-1: Adaptation, mitigation, and social implementation

  • Session 2-2: Impacts and adaptation utilizing climate information over the Asia

Workshop highlights

Plenary Session: Overviews and messages of chapter 5, Working Group II of the IPCC Assessment Report 6 were introduced by the two Coordinating Lead Authors on the global food systems, fiber, and ecosystem service in a comprehensive way. The rice sector’s contribution to the mitigation of GHG emissions was also reported.

Dr. Toshihiro Hasegawa, NARO, Japan (p1): The assessment in the food chapter 5 of WGII shows that human-induced climate change, including extreme events, is having severe impacts on agriculture and food systems. There is evidence that climate change is slowing the growth of agricultural productivity and negatively affecting ecosystem services. Droughts, floods, and heatwaves cause sudden food production losses, increase food prices, and limit access to diverse and nutritious food, especially for vulnerable and marginalized groups. The negative impacts of climate change on food production and access to food are projected to worsen with every degree of global warming. There is also growing evidence of cascading and compounding risks. The magnitude of the impacts will be greater in low and mid-latitude regions, but all regions will be affected; the extent of the impacts will depend greatly on adaptation and mitigation actions now and in the future.

Dr. Rachel Bezner Kerr, Cornell University, USA (P2): The IPCC AR6 WGII has confirmed that many autonomous adaptation options have already been implemented in both agriculture and aquatic food production systems, but most are incremental, single-sector approaches. Ecosystem-based approaches such as diversification, land restoration, agroecology, and agroforestry can bolster food production while providing multiple benefits such as yield stability and ecosystem health. Sustainable resource management in response to distribution shifts of terrestrial and aquatic species under climate change is an effective adaptation option to reduce food and nutritional risk. Transformational and inclusive climate change approaches, which involve both adaptation and mitigation strategies, are promising pathways forward, with significant mitigation efforts needed to reduce the most severe impacts on global food systems and the underlying ecosystems which support humanity.

Dr. Bjoern Ole Sander, IRRI, Vietnam (P3): Rice fields are the second largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture. In rice-producing countries, the rice sector contributes significantly to the national GHG budget, mainly through the emission of methane gas (CH4) from soil. But rice also has the highest mitigation potential of all agricultural sub-sectors and, with increasing momentum for methane reduction, can contribute significantly to reaching global GHG reduction targets.

This keynote presentation will elucidate the technical and policy background of GHG emissions from rice and highlight important technical and socio-economic developments. It will then explore promising innovations that that can contribute to minimizing rice emissions in the future and their adoption enablers instrumental for large-scale implementation.

Session 1: NARO and OECD jointly invited 16 speakers from 8 countries (Canada, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Trinidad, UK, and USA) to present observed impacts and projected risks, adaptation, and integrated assessment of adaptation and mitigation of agricultural, forestry, and fishery sectors in the world.

Session 1-1: Observed impacts and projected risks from climate change

Dr. IIZUMI Toshichika, NARO, Japan (S1-1-1): Dr. Iizumi presented the global adaptation cost and residual damage (climate change impacts after adaptation) for maize, rice, wheat and soybean estimated using a global gridded crop model and empirical production cost models. The undiscounted global cost of climate change (adaptation cost plus residual damage) for the crops are projected to increase with warming. The adaptation cost gradually increases in absolute terms, but the share decreases, indicating the adaptation limit. Once maintaining yields becomes difficult due to the biological limits or decreased profitability, producers can no longer bear adaptation costs, and residual damages increase. Our estimates offer an estimate of adaptation needs in global crop production systems.

Dr. THORNTON Philip, Clim-Eat. Org., UK (S1-1-2): Changes in the proportions of different livestock species (cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, and pigs) that may be at increased risk of extreme heat stress were estimated. The results showed that by end century, extreme heat stress risk is projected to increase for all livestock species in many parts of the tropics and some of the temperate zones, and to become climatically more widespread, compared to 2000. Although adaptation options exist for both intensive and extensive livestock production systems, the increasing pervasiveness of extreme heat stress risk in the future will seriously challenge the viability of outdoor livestock keeping, particularly in the lower latitudes in lower and middle- income countries where the costs of adaptation may be challenging to address.

Dr LASCO Rodel, ICRAF and Oscar M. Lopez Center, the Philippines (S1-1-3): In the second half of this century, a warmer planet will exert greater influence on the health of forests around the world with up to 33% of the world’s forest ecoregions vulnerable under a high greenhouse concentration scenario. In terms of forest production, there are areas of the globe where forest production may increase but the reverse may happen in other areas. There is a suite of adaptation measures available, including indigenous practices, to sustainably manage forests in the light of climate change. Successful adaptation can be achieved if there are partnerships between key stakeholders such as researchers, forest managers and local actors.

Dr. BHATT Indra, G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment, India (S1-1-4): The tropical and subtropical regions are dominated by a large diversity of wild foods, including fruit, mushrooms, and animals, which may be useful for alternative dietary supplementation. Past studies also indicate that genes of desirable traits for achieving food and nutritional security are present in wild plants and can play a critical role in increasing and sustaining agriculture production. The present study is an attempt to summarize the research on the impacts of climate change on wild food resources and their adaptation mechanism. The study also highlights the research gaps and the potential of wild food in supporting food security and nutrition in many regions.

Dr. GURNEY-SMITH Helen, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canada (S-1-1-5): The climate variability and extremes pose a significant challenge to the productivity, operation and sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture sectors, requiring rapid responses. Variations and extremes in temperature (e.g. marine heatwaves), precipitation, droughts, floods, storms and cyclones impact the daily operation of marine and brackish food production, contributing significantly to livelihood and food security risk. Case studies are utilized to examine the risk of climate variability and extremes for aquatic production and discuss options in the context of likelihood of implementation and effectiveness for adaptation.

Session 1-2: Adaptation to climate change

Ms. WAKATSUKI Hitomi, NARO, Japan (S-1-2-1): A systematic literature search was performed to understand the recent trends in projected impact studies over the past few years. We screened 203 studies of four major crops through a systematic literature search for studies published between 2020 and 2022. Studies assessing sudden yield losses due to climate and weather extremes and associated risks are emerging. However, they are still limited by the capacity of crop models to reproduce the impacts of extreme events. Grain quality is rarely considered. Adaptation potentials, defined as the difference between yield impacts with and without adaptation, were limited where current temperatures were high. Studies are emerging that account for diverse indicators of adaptation, including profitability and environmental impact, which need to be strengthened. More adaptation options tailored to each region need to be assessed locally.

Dr. FARRELL Aidan D., The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago (S-1-2-2): Transformative adaptation of cropping systems requires adjustments that are significant in magnitude and sensitive to changes in climate drivers. The ability of crop models to assess a wider range of options has improved in recent years, but the application of crop models in assessing adaptation effectiveness remains limited with some of the most effective options overlooked (e.g. agroforestry or livelihood diversification). In the presentation, speaker called for crop modelling studies to include a broader range of adaptation options (inclusive of agronomic, nature-based, technological and financial adjustments) and outlined solutions that would allow for better representation of these options.

Dr. JU Hui, IEDA, CAAS, China (S1-2-3): Promoting climate resilient cropping system through technological innovation and convergence is a realistic pathway to address the impact of climate change in China. Aiming at the key problems such as crop productivity, irrigation water availability, and meteorological disasters under climate risk, some adaptation examples were assessed and established to explore the feasibility of adaptation effectiveness by means of field experiments, model simulation, technological innovation and comprehensive small-scale demonstration in major cropping planting areas in China. Technological innovation and development, such as the Internet of Things, intelligent management of greenhouse crops, and integrated irrigation of water and fertilizer, can effectively adapt to climate change and provide more technological options for China's action on climate warming.

Dr. BAKER Emily, Cornell University, USA (S1-2-4): Mixed production systems, in which producers have some combination of crops, livestock, fisheries and/or agroforestry, are the most common form of farming in low- and medium-income countries, and they are increasingly of interest in high income countries as an adaptive approach to climate change. Evidence and cases from mixed systems demonstrated the technical, cultural, and socioeconomic benefits, challenges and barriers to implementation. Governments and nongovernmental actors should consider investing in mixed systems as components of climate resilient development pathways, though these investments should be designed with the complexity and place-specific dynamics in mind. Failure to consider these dynamics in implementing these systems can lead to maladaptive outcomes.

Dr. LLUCH-COTA Salvador E., Center for Biological Research of the Northwest, Mexico (S1-2-5): Two transformational change options were proposed; prioritize the world's food security and implement a climate-responsive ecosystem approach for fisheries management. The first implies reconsidering the process of local-to-regional scale decision-making by means of a scientifically robust, ample-scope, and equitable regionalization of the world ocean; and the second is the generation of ecosystem-level reference points, socio-economic indicators, and improved forecasting capabilities that allow representing plausible ecosystem states at which exploitation levels of individual stocks can be defined. Such transformations would necessitate consensual schemes of international cooperation, efficient information flow into local-to-regional normative frameworks, and the setting of mechanisms for stewardship and traceable evidence of compliance.

Session 1-3: Integrated assessment of adaptation and mitigation

Dr. NELSON Gerald C., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA (S1-3-1): Climate change effects on food sustainability are driven by the physics of solar radiation interactions with greenhouse gasses, the chemistry of biology, and human behavior in response to the changes. As temperatures rise, chemical reactions speed up with a multitude of impacts on living organisms, including those that are necessary for food supply or can positively or negatively affect it. Human responses at specific locations can include altering production practices and changing the crop and livestock mix with components that are more suited to the changing climate conditions. Another option is to change the location of agricultural activities that are more climatically suitable. All of these options require an improved understanding of interactions that involve physics, chemistry, and human behavior to meet food security requirements.

Dr. FUJIMORI Shinichiro, Kyoto University, Japan (S1-3-2): Climate change mitigation measures without careful consideration for the food market and food security could be another driver of food price increases. An integrated assessment representing energy, economy, land use, agricultural market, and climate was done to understand these climate change and food security concerns. The climate change mitigation is not an unignorable factor compared with climate change impacts on yield, and climate change mitigation, particularly carbon pricing on agricultural emissions, could significantly change the food market. Three risk factors also identified: afforestation, non-CO2 emissions reduction and bioenergy crop expansion. Finally, Dr. Fujimori also demonstrated the extent to which the extreme event could influence crop production and food security within this framework.

Dr. HIROTA Tomoyoshi, Kyushu University, Japan (S1-3-3): In agricultural adaptation to climatic change, it is critical that the adaptive measure be adopted by most farmers in the target region. We investigated farmers’ wide adoption of soil frost control in two regions of Hokkaido, Japan. Snow removal in winter is the practical method of soil frost enhancement to reduce volunteer potatoes which survive during winter and become weeds for the next crop season. Farmers, however, sometimes encountered undesired outcomes due to insufficient or excessive soil frost under the changing snowfall pattern. Through the collaboration among farmers, extension agronomists, and researchers, the practical soil frost control technology for optimizing the soil frost was developed and widely adopted by the farmers.

Dr. KERR Rachel Bezner, Cornell University, USA (S1-3-4): Agroecology has been proposed as a transformative approach to climate change adaptation that reduces climate risk while supporting long-term productivity and resilience of food systems by applying ecological and humanistic principles. Agroecology is a holistic systems approach to producing food, which incorporates social, economic, and political dimensions. Social dimensions of agroecology include co-creation of knowledge with farmers, participatory processes, non-wage labor relations, collective property and management of resources, and addressing social inequities. Dr. Kerr reviewed the recent evidence and potential for agroecology as a transformative approach, both as climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy as well as to meet key societal goals such as healthy ecosystems, food security, and nutrition.

Dr. WAGAI Rota, NARO, Japan (S-1-3-5): Increasing soil carbon(C) has multiple co-benefits, which could reduce the crop yield gap and increase agricultural sustainability. First, soil C is largely present as organic matter (deriving from plant and soil microbes) that contains essential nutrients that become available via organic matter decomposition by soil biota (microbes and soil fauna). Second, soil organic matter enhances the formation of porous aggregate structure which allows both efficient drainage (under heavy rainfall) and high water holding capacity (under drought).  Dr. Wagai introduced different approaches to increasing soil C, the mechanisms behind the multiple co-benefits of soil C, and the possible extent to which soil C buildup could close the yield gap for world major crops.

Dr. THORNTON Philip, Clim-Eat. Org., UK (S-1-3-6): Alternative protein sources for human food and terrestrial and aquatic animal feed are increasingly commercially available. These products will likely be highly disruptive to existing value chains but have considerable potential for sustainably delivering protein for food and feed and could lead to significant reductions in climate and land use impacts. Alternative protein sources include meat analogs, insects, certain woody plants, and algae including seaweed. Dr. Thornton reviewed recent work on their nutritional, environmental, technological and socioeconomic impacts and trade-offs at scale and consider the ways in which the alternative protein sector may develop in the next decades.

Session 2: Thirteen speakers from 7 countries (China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand) were invited to present country policy measures and current adaptation and mitigation methodologies for strengthening agricultural resilience and smallholder farmers’ welfare against climate changes in the Asian and Pacific regions. The presentation materials include 12 PPTs, 7 papers, 5 videos. Key takeaways of session 2 were summarized by presentation:

Session 2-1 : Adaptation, mitigation, and social implementation

Dr. PULHIN Juan M, UPLB, Philippines (S2-1-1): Dr. Pulhin aims to scrutinize the type of climate services available to Southeast Asian smallholder farmers and the role of these identified services in the climate change adaptation, through systematic literature review. The poverty of climate change literature indicates the scare research studies on the adaptation strategy against climate changes of SE Asian smallholder farmers, who are responsible for providing 25% of rice in the global market. Dr. Pulhin recommends that, in addition to the extension of climate service to guide farmers toward disaster risk management, incorporation of indigenous knowledge on technological advancements in the field would be beneficial to smallholder farmers.

Dr. HARADA Hisatomi, NARO, Japan (S2-1-2): “MeaDRI (Measures for achievement of Decarbonization and Resilience with Innovation)”, proposed by MAFF, aims to (1) enhance engagement of stakeholders at each stage of food supply chains and (2) promote innovation to reduce environmental load. NARO, as a core institute in Japan for conducting R&D in agriculture and food sectors, launches acceleration strategy on MeaDRI toward the goals of food security/food self-sufficiency, global competitiveness/increase exports, and balance between productivity and environmental conservation. This strategy is also in line with MAFF perspectives of Zero CO2 emissions, Chemical pesticide/fertilizer reduction, Organic farming expansion and Smart farming technology. NARO expects to, by being joint force with MAFF on the “MeaDRI” strategy, achieve a supply of food and environmental conservation under the Moonshot Research and Develop Program by the Cabinet Office.

Dr. JUAN Lau-Dar, COA, Taiwan (S2-1-3): Taiwan has published Taiwan’s Pathway to Net-Zero Emissions in 2050 on 2022, aiming to integrate R&D innovations and industrial green transformation, to achieve the goal of “2050 Net-Zero Emissions” and drive sustainable economic growth. Through the setup of Climate Change Program Office (CCPO) in 2021, Council of Agriculture (COA), Taiwan, ambitiously declares the target of net-zero emission in the agricultural sector will be achieved by 2040, through 4 pillars, which are “reduced carbon emissions”, “enhanced carbon sinks”, “encourage circular agriculture”, and “promote green trend”. Among these pillars, 19 strategies with 59 measures will be implemented through series of training courses design on the stakeholders across agricultural sectors in 2022-2025.

Dr. SUNG Jae-Hoon, KREI, Korea (S2-1-4): Dr. Sung examined and analyzed national implementation plans for climate change adaptation in Korea by establishing the literature-based evaluation framework. This evaluation is to analyze adaptation progress in Korea, especially on agricultural sector and mainstreaming and derived policy implication. The results indicate rare progress of domestic agricultural adaptation as well as limited policy measures to climate change. Other than the methodology, Dr. Sung also noted that external factors, i.e., law enforcement, also related to the extent of adaptation plans implementation.

Dr. TAO Fulu, IGSNRR/CAS, China (S2-1-5): This presentation consists of 3 schemes to discuss synergies and conflicts between climate change adaptation and mitigation in China. By analyzing various data sources of crops species, growing data, irrigation, and fertility inputs etc., the schemes are classified as (1) optimization of genotype x management x environment interactions, (2) development of climate smart agricultural systems, and (3) agricultural systems SOC sequestration and GHG mitigation respectively. Dr. Tao suggests evidence-based planning is critical to managing synergies and trade-offs between climate change adaptation and mitigation. This integrated modelling and multiple-objective optimization method could be further developed as a supporting system for both policy-making and risk management.

Mr. Mohammad Hariz bin Abdul Rahman, MARDI, Malaysia (S2-1-6): To ensure success of climate actions in agriculture, approach of CSA (Climate Smart Agriculture) is developed to manage the potential climate risks and optimize crop production as adaptation and mitigation strategies. The focus of CSA research and application framework not only addresses rice sub-sector in a comprehensive way, meanwhile it also extends into other sectors, such as fruits, vegetables, and livestock. The recently launched National Agriculture Policy 2.0 further emphasizes the implementation of climate-resilient strategies to improve capacities of agricultural production that is better adapted to climate change in a sustainable way.

Dr. ATTAVANICH Witsanu, KU, Thailand (S2-1-7): Given the importance of Thailand as food producer and exporter to the world, this presentation aims to explore the impacts of climate changes on Thailand’s food security and assess relevant adaptations and mitigation options on various crops and sectors, based on literary review. The analysis result indicated limited studies on the production cost assessment and benefits of adaptation and mitigation options, while negative climate changes impacts were identified and focused on major crops only. At final, Dr. ATTAVANICH proposes several policies to reduce the impacts of climate change and promote adaptation and mitigation options to strengthen the resilience of Thailand agriculture.

Session 2-2 : Impacts and adaptation utilizing climate information over the Asia

Dr. NISHIMORI Motoki, NARO, Japan (S2-2-1): Dr. Nishimori intends to revisions the climate change impacts on the rice yield and quality in Japan with improved model simulation by integrating experimental data collected from rice field. The purpose of this study is to, by adopting the currently accumulated climate change impacts (spatiality, high temperature, SAT) on the current rice yield and grain quality in Japan, to project the future dynamics of rice yield and quality. Furthermore, based on the combination of projection results and available measures (heat-tolerance cultivar, shifting planting date), the result shows positive feedback when introducing current measures against climate change impacts in the future. Dr. Nishimori also highlights other relevant issues, such as the extent of natural disaster (i.e., typhoon), pest & diseases prevalence, and urbanization effects, should be integrated to have a comprehensive evaluation and higher precision.

Dr. ZHANG Zhao, Beijing Normal University, China (S2-2-2): Climate change is estimated to have an important impact on crop productivity around world. As for crop breeders, when and where the adaptability of current cultivars will be broken and what is the next character needed is a key question. In this presentation, Dr. Zhang and her team develop a hybrid crop modelling approach to assess the impacts of climate change on rice productivity for 36 cultivars in China. The result shows current cultivars replacement could not significantly offset the yield loss from climate change. The future breeding program should take characters of, (1) medium growth cycle, (2) long grain-filling period, and (3) high photosynthetic capacity into consideration for cultivars with better adaptability to climate change.

Dr. BALTAZAR Perla G., DoA, Philippines (S2-2-3): Climate Information Service (called CIS) provides climate information to guide decision-making on forecasting, long-term trend projection, and disaster risk management. AMIA (Adaptation and Mitigation Initiatives in Agriculture) program, under the governmental measure of OneDA Framework by the Philippine Department of Agriculture, links stakeholders from regional, municipal to local governmental units, to successful enable the CIS service and prevent the loss of 546 million USD in rice and corn, especially for the smallholder farmers, from extreme weather events in 2020. It is also suggested that DA-wide integration of CIS and LGU-based co-production needs to be strengthened in the future.

Mr. CHEN Chu-Chung, TARI, Taiwan (S2-2-4): Mr. Chen applied process-based simulation models to analyze the impact of climate change on two major crops in Taiwan, soybean and corn. Data sources, collected from field sites where growth data of various local varieties, were used to develop and validate the models. The results showed seasonal yield difference in both crops. In the Fall, yields are expected to be increases while in the Spring, yield prediction is uncertain depending on the climate scenarios setup in the models. Dr. Chen recommends changing the planting date or adopting shorter growth season variety/practice might avoid the heat stress in the future Spring season in which temperature would rise earlier due to the earlier beginning of hot season.

Dr. KIM Kwang-Soo, SNU, Korea (S2-2-5): Dr. Kim aims to build a crop distribution model whose background information is limited in terms of solar radiation, cultivars, sowing date, fertilizer management and calibration. The simulation result of this crop distribution model, by adopting experts’ knowledge and existing database of Coffea robusta, will be empirically compared to current crop global distribution map to verify its effectiveness. By adopting fuzzy logic algorithm system, the result demonstrated correspondence between simulation result and real-world distribution. It is also expected this methodology could be further extended to better assess and predict the impacts of climate change in the regional and global perspective.

Dr. SUGIURA Toshihiko, NARO, Japan (S2-2-6): The high temperature could have been worsened further by the climate change in terms of frequency and occurrence. According to the field observation, the commonly found situations under high temperature in the tropical yards includes: (1) delayed coloring, (2) prolonged fruit growth period, (3) delayed hardening of wooden trees, (4) budding disorder due to delayed chilling accumulation, and (5) sunburn. In this presentation, Dr. Sugiura focuses on how the climate change derived high temperature would impose negative effects on the fruit industry in Japan, and recommends several countermeasures (field technology, cultivar adoption, tree species conversion) from physiological damages due to high temperature.

Suggestions and conclusions

• Adopt ecosystem-based approaches such as land restoration, agroecology, and agroforestry to strengthen resilience in food production system, which can contribute to yield stability and ecosystem health under climate change.
• Implement sustainable resource management in response to distribution shift of terrestrial and aquatic species by climate change as an effective adaptation option to offset the negative impacts on food supply and nutrition diversity.
• Develop mixed production system, characterized by its resilience capacity contribution to both local and global food production system, as an adaptative approach to climate change which are mainly located in low- and middle-income countries.
• Design global framework and implement local-to-regional management plan to facilitate the transition to a climate-resilient agricultural value chain, overcoming the long-term constraints of limited knowledge and understanding.
• Integrate knowledge and extension efforts from local farmers, scientists, government officers who can tentatively formulate adaptation and mitigation solutions against climate change impacts on the local food production system.
• Understand and consider the costs and limitations of global agricultural adaptation capacity to climate change, under the framework of policy-making, which is critical for strengthening farmers’ ability to face challenges coming from the environment and value chain.

Outcomes

480 people registered, online plus onsite, and a total of 655 people participated in 3 days’ symposium including participants from Japan (64%), Taiwan (13%), Philippines (12%), Thailand, China, Korea, Malaysia, USA, Egypt, Cambodia, Jordan, Canada, India, Vietnam, Mexico, and France. Among the participants, 55% were from research institutes, 18% from the public sector, 17% from education, 4% from the private sector, and others from international organizations, NGOs, and farmers. The peak number of online participants reached 171 at the plenary session of 1st day. The Feedback form was circulated to the registered participants immediately after the symposium. Nearly all respondents were very satisfied with the workshop in all aspects (content, relevance and logistics). Overall, the workshop was regarded as successful in terms of planning, coordination, and execution..