Sharing experiences on BET 4 Sustainable Food and Agriculture in the Asia-Pacific

Yes. All right. Uh good morning distinguished speaker, esteemed colleague, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the session of the FAO technical lecture series 2026. on behalf of the uh food and agriculture organization um yeah uh on behalf of the food and agriculture organization of the United uh nation FAO the Assean UC network for agriculture and food security afan network AUN and UCRA Malaysia uh I'm delighted to welcome all of you to today's webinar all right it is wonderful ful to see um participant joining us from across Assean and beyond as we continue this exciting lecture series. Okay, before we begin uh allow me to show a uh to share a few housekeeping reminders. Uh first today's session is being recorded and the recording will be upload after the webinar and the Google Drive link has been uh shared in the Zoom chat. And second uh please keep your microphone mute through the session. And third, uh we encourage you to submit question to the lecture using the zoom Q&A feature and I will moderate the discussion following the presentation. Okay. And thanks uh thank you once again for joining us uh this morning. All right. Okay. Let's we start uh introduction uh of the today lecture. Okay. Agri food system uh are not only about increasing uh production uh they're also about creating value uh preserving culture heritage and improving uh rural lifelihood and recognizing this uh FAO launched the one country one purity uh product OCP initiative um which uh encourage country to identify and promote uh one distinctive uh agriculture product with unique characteristic and strong market potential. uh through sustainable production value addition and responsible value chain development uh the OCOP initiative contribute to economic growth uh environmental uh sustainability and improve uh livelihood for farming communities. Today's lecture provide an opportunity to learn uh directly from uh FO about this uh important global initiative. Okay, let's uh we start for introduction for our speakers this morning. Okay, it is my honor to introduce our distinguished speaker uh Dr. Dr. Zan Lee uh senior policy officer at the FAO regional office for AIA and the Pacific. Uh Dr. Lee currently serve as the secretary of the regional uh OCOP uh secretariat and has uh extensive uh experience in agriculture policy uh regional cooperation and sustainable agri food system development. Um through her career she has worked closely with government across the Asia Pacific region uh to strengthen uh agriculture value chain uh improve food security and promote sustainable rural development. Okay. her leadership in advancing the OCOP initiative has helped countries uh identify uh innovative opportunities uh to enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of their unique uh agriculture product. Uh ladies and gentlemen uh please uh join me in uh welcoming uh Dr. Zani or before that uh let me introduce myself. I'm Dr. Ida Zakaria from uh Unicra Malaysia. I'm your moderator for today. Okay, Dr. Lee, we are honored to have you with us today. Uh the session is now yours. >> Very much chair. Good morning everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my great pleasure to join this uh technical webinar series and sharing our FL regional initiative um implementation of the OCOP. Um as you know OCAP is the dire generals of FA's flagship initiative launched in 2021 is up to now almost five years and in our region probably one of the most active um the region that have carried on the um FL's uh the work in connecting to all four better systematically. So I'm very pleased to share with you how this has been implemented in our region under the overall guidance of the of the HQ framework. Um just uh as um the moderator advised um let me share with you briefly about my uh personal um career path. I um did my study and my PhD um in uh Switzerland. Um my first PhD is in economics and my second PhD is in law and um I had been working in the intergovernmental organization in the last about 25 years and I was initially in the south center and I worked later on joined uh in headquarters um and initially was in the IPA secretary and then I was in the offster general and then moved to their regional office. Um uh I had been in this region I've been leading their regional uh initiative on zero hunger um which has um you know developed a number of initiatives such as the you know future smart food initiative and the mon agriculture initiative probably the first one on future smart food initiative is very much closed closely linked to our coronal work um which is the OCO but that is focused on what criteria or scientific based criteria that can you know prioritize the um kind of product or or species, what are nutritious sensitive, what are climate resilient, what are potentially economic viable and also locally available or adaptable uh for those species to be uh prioritized by the country. That was kind of a technical um the integrated approach and now um after our DJ has initiative I have been leading this one uh in our region and I'm very pleased that we have 23 countries in this region as many of the many of you are part of this uh OC country uh most likely um and then uh so this kind of briefly um my role I've been here um for almost 10 years and uh I do enjoy the time here Um okay so let me if you um allow I will start to move on to the um to um our session. See? Okay. Can you see my screen? >> Yes. >> Yes, it's good. >> Okay. Very good. So, as you mentioned, the OCOP is very excited initiative in our region. um has been very um kind of inspiring from their overall global region and and uh country. So what is our mandate about OCOP work? Our mandate is to achieve food security for all make sure that people have regular access to enough high quality food to eat active healthy diets and four batteries are our goal to encourage and and achieve and it is following the FL strategical framework 2022 to 31. Um and this is to guide um our work for more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agro food system. And why this topic matters is basically to uh address the global challenges require the knowledge innovation and collaboration. Okay. What is mainly um there our today's learning objective? Basically first would like to you to understand what is key concept and principles related to their OCOP initiative and also to get familiar with the OCOP framework and also regional OCO implementation strategy approach and or and also challenges and achievement building on this one I'd like to to identify the opportunities and and challenges for research and innovation related related to the special agriculture product development SAP and also you can you know explore how this topic will contribute to the transforming agro system and why is this topic important give you a background globally we have more than 30,000 um of the um the planned genetic resources globally And there are large amount of the of these species are remain under utilized. However, meantime, our table we are have very limited can of food uh options available and that links only 100 or less and most can frequent our food or make remain in stable crops or stable food. And if you think about global food security and nutrition or hunger and malnutrition figure you will see in our region and also rest of the world are large number of the people are remain hunger or malnourished especially in terms of the um of intake of the micronutrient and so on is which is called healing hunger and here the role of SAP or special agricultural product plays is a significant roer at the potentials to offer nutritional food and how to really maximize or you know rediscovering this um this resources is important to achieve their hunger goal. Number two is create the opportunity for farmers um for better life. We have to really get support for farmers for small holders of the SAPs. They remain the SAP remains underutilized which give a little opportunity for them to or incent for them to produce or develop and therefore have rather limited availability of SAPs um for the consumers. Unless these value chain are connected very well, you will not be able to materialize. You will not be able to uh make profit from it. Uh third one is that we this one is important um we have to help them to connect producers um markets um and with innovation and also with support of the partners. How to get this connected is a question and we need a lot of the answers that you to contribute your thinking and your wisdom to make it happen. And here is also we will try to make this one to advance for better systematically uh and make the sustainable agro food system. But this is not an easy job. Rome cannot be built overnight. So we need more of our colleagues to work together and make happen. But today you're going to see how our region has been advancing for better in a systematic approach. No matter coming from which background either you're from nutrition or agriculture or environment background. You are going to see the word works as a system especially special agriculture product. It needs to be addressed as a system and how we can through our own entry point to jump into this topic and together hands in other topics working together is a big test uh a big question mark for us to work together. Okay. So do you know right now how many countries uh are the OCO um the participating country? there are more than 90 countries already and in our region we have 23 uh the OCOP countries. So my outline of today's lecture is I will start give you an overview of OCOP both at regional and global picture. Secondly is to give you how our region what is our implementation strategy in this region. Third one is about uh our also repeat the implementation in Asian Pacific about core activities and then we will have question uh and answer. So starting with the overview OCP one country one part product it was launched by a direct journal in 2021 uh to address global agriculture challenges. Here I want to highlight already called one country one part product. It does not mean that we only support country uh or only encourage country to focus on one part product. Instead this is to intend to support special agriculture product as a whole. But we used one brand product that FA would support directly to showcase how a special agriculture product should be organized, should be performed, should be connected, should be supported systematically. So this is very important. So it is the using the specialization to the wise diversification and OCOP by nature it is a countryowned and countryled initiative and this is the important to know it is not always launched by FL but it's the owned by country so only those country who has um requested and join and also take ownership um and that's deposited their wish to we will not considered it has been uh activated and countries to want to nominate their priority product. It can um they can pick up either you know crop or livestock or fishery or um forestry product etc. As long as it is countries they consider as priority we call it nominated uh product or nominate SAP. Our goal of the OOP is to produce more with less and is aimed to build more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agood system. So here is very important to understand background. We know the word is scarcity resources scare is scared. How we can make better of their of production with less input is very important. As we know much of the sustainable crops the reason why why cannot rely on um them alone not only because it they could not provide sufficient nutritions uh food uh for our um population but also in terms of their um the up the productivity there is the uh dimission return while giving more input you'll not be get sufficient increasing of the output to match based continuous increasing global population. So therefore relying on those limited stable crops or stable food will not be able to sustain or provide food security and nutrition for the population. This is background. We have to really you know have produce more with less this kind of the um our uh environmental construct and we focus on the special agricultural product to strengthen the spe the sustainable food system and value chain to support uh small holders. This our kind of goal and this is to uh what is called special agriculture product actually is special in terms of a geographic location. So as long as this product is specific to a drift area and that is kind of the you know be part of it and most in most of cases it has been the remain as the neglected and on the species in most of the countries which has been um kind of the often crops or food uh has been u forgotten for a long time. Um and uh so this is the rhythm we have to revive uh this hidden treasure for our physical nutrition. So here is the OCB sematic areas um of the framework um I will then later on to give a bit of the uh flavor how our region has been expanded further along this uh framework. So basically our goal is to optimizing the production, processing, storage and marketing and minimizing environmental social impact and also maximize the benefit for farmers and manage actors and um here we consider of the value chain um across this different um their you know component from production, storage, processing and marketing. So in terms of production we focused on variety and in seeds um based on their research we see the variety um kind of improvement accounts for majority of their productivity. This is one of the focus that we encourage country um to give um you know emphasize on and uh unless we have this strength of our own capacity we will not be able to you know achieve the major productive increase and of course and crop management soil fertiliz water management mechanization andization are very important but these are building on this kind of you know variety uh improvement itself. Um and uh by the way this year in November we're going to have the um Asian Pacification Conference. It will be held in Philippines. Um that one where we're going to see the our um international regional uh you know and kind of gaggling of the mechanization uh for uh for the product development. Um second one is under um green storage we focus on the post-h harvesting handling and treatment sorting mat packaging no carbon storage etc. And in terms of the green processing, it will focus on the onset processing um and high efficiency processing, byproduct value chain and vi processing and green marketing is green wise mechanism, marketing strategy, brand strategy and so on. But in our region uh as mentioned uh we have been uh moving a bit more uh further up is to connect on the better nutrition. So green nutrition or uh health diet is one of the component has mainstream here and also trade um connecting the especially international trade is one of the main areas in our region that are both linked to the better life uh and better nutrition. So special agriculture product um as you mentioned about it uh SAP um are agriculture product with unique qualities linked to special uh specific locations and traditional farming practice and culture heritage and here u people uh to to clarify how this one will be positioned in their um bigger category of the agro bodiversity here's kind of the uh figure to help you to understand better if we consider a biodiversity as a bigger circle inside there is the component of the crop of stock fishery and what species um or varieties and then within which there is special agriculture product um which is closely linked to but not limited to GI product not every product has been cons has been nom become a GI but is GI part of it but within this gram we have the OCOP and we important to notice the entry point for SAP development OCOP. It is considered entry point. Uh but we our goal is to promote bigger special agriculture product. Okay. And right now globally we have uh you know um um many members become OCOP and there is um covering different type of product from the field product from forestry product from livestock uh product and also the hockey quadrant product and in our region we have 23 countries um have nominated SAP which um some of them have been the same SAP so we have 20 different SAPs. Okay. And you can see for instance um um Cambodia and Philippines both have nominated Mango um as the um their country um SAP and while most country nominated one product some country um have even moving a forward to nominate two product they found is very important for different type product to learn and to to um to be you know uh uh supported uh at country level. So these are kind of uh you know snapshot of the country. You can see most of them are you know from their uh field crop and also from the uh livestock we have the p tree and we have camel milk uh from golia and we have the you know mountain product like tea and and also like the um teas from the la pedior and uh in um um in Vietnam they have nominated their of the honey uh so it's very diversified of our um product has that has been nominated by the government. Okay. So here we like to give you an idea how regional COP implemented strategies is being developed and also being implemented. Our op strategy is under the go under the leadership of our ADG uh regional representative of our regional office. It has been a DJ flagship initiative. So in the global their structure of governance is in HQ in headquarters. It has been the steering committee has been established uh under the lead of the DG and the d deputy dire general best besto uh she is taking lead of this uh initiative at HQ supporting the DG and there is global OCP secretary headed by the director of the NSP and there is the secretar supporting the implementation on daily matters and in our region so of course mimic the glo global um structure. We have the chair which is ADG um which we organize we have inceptions regional organizing group well it's chaired by ADG and we have also vice chair coming from the research and innovation partner uh this is important uh to the reason behind is that we consider OCP initiative is the is initiative need uh working closely with stakeholders especially with the leading institutions s leverage their science innovation um capacity to support countries implementation. That's why we we're seeking advice from leading partners to seek their views, their insights and help reshape our focus and also also support seek their support to support implementation and members of their of ROG covers you know there at regional subreional level we have FAO country representative we have sub regional regional coordinator we have HQ um secret and and so on and it's been supported by Iraq OCB secretary or secretariat which I'm I'm heading the secretariat and to be uh to clarify more how this secretariat is been working on the right or USC within our secretariat we have you know expertise or technical task force covering different area of the work including production um processing marketing trade nutrition statistics and also policy. This is within our regional office is on the ADG and the deputy region representative and in the country level the same we are advising the government and and also from our FA country office to work together steering committee at their you know the um uh decision making level and in terms of technical level uh it will be also supported by a team uh in collabing in collaboration with national agriculture inst uh institute and um were standed with the universities and academy to support us similar structure uh that we are here and here is one of the key slide like to highlight um this is the one we have developed our regional OCP implementing strategy and what is go we try to more you know um focus on the area that um the go to be more specific we focus on improve improving productivity, improving traceability, improving compactiveness of the SAP, improving the connectivity and accessibility which is more on M access and then healthy diet in the whole systematic view. So it connect each and every building component from production, storage, processing, marketing and consumption. And we noticed in this value chain largely we are not connected well. Most of the reason behind is most of the areas belong to the different ministry. Some are below the within the mandate of the agriculture ministry. Some are within the mandate of the health or public public health or or other ministry. Some are belonging to the ministry of the education. Some are belong to ministry of the commerce or industry and some are um you know this are because of this connectivity that's we consider connectivity is also very important uh in terms institutionally but also connectivity of the value chain itself which is more on the micro level is also important. Most of the farmers they can produce the product cannot really you know has been transported in an effective way. Therefore it will remain in their in their cultivation uh place. So this is kind of the upper goer of this our OCOP um uh in our region. But in to achieve this goers we have developed dual track strategy of the implementation. On the one hand on the left part is regional regional OCOP platform has been established. On the right side you can see the country O implementation ST and project implementation has been initiated. these two at both regional and country level like like two wheels of those region. So much of the knowledge sharing we keep at regional level. So each allowing the country can learn beyond their own uh territory. They'll be able to learn for better of the uh how it works systematic which I will discuss later on and on the right side is more focused on country's own implementation. Then we leverage the outside technologies together of the countries you know send the own kind of you know the leading um technology together to help the country implementation to connect these two wheels in our region. We strongly focus on the OCO regional science and innovation network. This is a network has been launched two two years ago but previously we have already working closely with our partners and we decided to launch this network and right now we have been expanding this network. So far it is the mostly to connect with the leading institution globally and regionally to help our country but we are planning to expand it to regional and also country level network. So allowing our regional and country institution to work together to benefit each other and become to learn through this system itself. Okay. So so this is our kind of strategy in a snapshot. So the reason as I mentioned briefly just now the reason why we have this kind of stretch implemented is because there is a number of key strategy or key challenges cause the special agriculture product value check. We know in the production majority of special agriculture product remain low productivity which limit their chance to get profit. Same thing for the posth harvest they have very high posth harvest loss and that also red incur a lot of the cost for total production and profitability as well and processing wise there is a limited value addition has been um developed for SAP much of the product actually are um based on the primary u the commodity shape and marketing wise We based on our analysis we realized almost our country product has limited access to global market as a whole. um much of the some of the major market like in China we check the majority of our product has no access to one of the biggest importing country um in our region uh of China and other countries are similarly and consumption wise we still have limited access to this nutritious food uh or uh their growth great potential. So in terms of the OCOP important part is the on the partnership building and this also one of the reason when I hear um the invitation from the you know HQ PSU I'm very pleased to join this initiative because I I have noticed the country has been constrain from partners much information do they do not know how to handle unless you will be connected with suitable partner and the partner they have potential to offer but they do not know who will be the one to talk to. So we are the one to connect each and every partner together along this uh power for the value chain of SAP and our structure of the working is as following. We starting from prioritization, production, postco handling, market and trade and consumption and each and every level stakeholders we are you know we try to connect them in as long as they belong to or taking lead in one of the area we will try to building this kind of the you know partnership through database or through connectivity such as let them work together. So essentially it is a multi sectoral and multistakeholder kind of our approach and you can see later on some of the country um they have really implemented very well for like bud Budan is a country um which I will explain more how they are connected all the different together to move forward so leading uh based on this one we have bu strong partnership uh and that become our regional site innovation network. Okay. So after talking about our strategy uh in our region, I'd like to share with you what is our OCP implementation uh in our region in terms of core activities uh and men achievements. But this is the ongoing work and I um warmly inviting everyone to you know uh keep yourself and also join this initiative and um from your perspective as well. Okay. So let me first give you an overview of the OCP implementation in our region. Uh as you mentioned it start from 2021 and up to now it's 26. So it was launched September uh 2021 and we have in our region we have very good um work or history on the one village ground initiative OVOP uh which was launched by Japan in 1970. So we have more experience on this on this area which is give the inspiration for the OCP to develop later on and um we have piloted uh about six countries um for the OCP and in 2022 we're the first region launched OCP um in the region and also which was Nic platform um on OCP in the region which is the one of the active um website you can you can access. Now you can following what is the major output uh in this uh website and um in um uh later on we have um have a very you know uh important is sharing as well um and in 2023 we have the regional country TCB technical cooperation project has been launched in a number of country and regional overnighting group uh ROG has been established with the governance of their fail region office that set up the our leadership um and structure and don't underestimate of the governance structure actually the OCP the reason that we can moving effectively um and um collaborating strongly is because OC op has three layer of governance from HQ from regional office from country office and in each and every country office we have three focal focal point is in FL country office there is has been designated by the FL representative number two well the focal point in the FL uh in the government so government has nominated focal point and there is third focal point is nominated in the national agriculture institute that is also um the important so you can see the team is the key for us to moving work uh you know collaboratively and in 2024 um we have the FL O special event ministro event has been held in the APRC and one of the highlighted MOU signed between FL and IGSNR of Chinese cabin sciences and this is become one of the later on become one of the our uh vice chair of ROG and also become center of excellence um there through the implementation uh um and in terms of uh last year we have um high level inter regional knowledge exchange on OCP models in uh in Vienna it held last in July and it was interministerial event between um between the African and um our region it's the general's uh initiative and has highlight the UN as local cop um the program and also regional uh for better model of the OCOP has been very successful and uh um our region has been awarded as FAO employment recognition because this successful organization itself and this year we have launched of the center for excellence of the OCOP uh during their um the Asian Pacific foot forum in in Bunai 9 um in April during our APRC and also we have um you know they're continuously u published and a number of their key knowledge products such as market intelligence um of their of the series has been published. Okay. So here this is about uh launched the original OCOP platform. What is coverage of this platform? On the one hand, it will give their section on the major event in terms of their ministral event or APRC event or others mostly are uh event with the high level guidance from the government. The second import component of this platform is to bring them our major knowledge plat knowledge product at both regional and country levels and which covering in our regional office. We have produced a series of their uh knowledge product such as the um you know the um posters, we have fact sheets, we have mock intelligence um and also case studies. We have different uh feature of this product for instance on fact sheets that's based on building on their you know what is kind of their u major facts of this varot what the status of their um production and so on and market intelligence focus on trade. So we position the product in the of the national or country um country trade within the global trade context that the purpose of this one is to understand or trying to figure out potential area or country um with high potential for market access. example um for instance um in Bangladesh Bangladesh one of the major u exporting country of jackf fruit uh and uh however um while this product has been mostly exported and successfully in the Scandinavia countries in UK in Sweden and others they have almost zero import to China which is neighboring country and the biggest importing country in the world of jacket fruit. So this facts has been analyzed and figked out through our market intelligence and way forward actually is to understand why there is a bottleneck and why there is the bottleneck and then eventually which needs to be how can we mitigate this gap and that will be requiring the technical assistant and so on. Okay. So the each and every work we are moving is there's a lot behind and we want to move forward to to resolve issue for the country and through our um evidence based analysis and also through our package building and case studies here case study instead of focus on their OCP product we focus on um their sharing the experience of the country that are related to special agriculture product as a whole. It was mostly the previous the good work that have been done and they can share with the rest of the country. For example, one pro one product program which has been part of our last year this inter you know uh ministerial or inter regional sharing. Okay. And we also produced our you know postal card um series for our product and so on. And in terms of our OCOP video, we are trying to build both video at regional country level to promote our um the OC product at and also activities at both level. So here is the OIP case studies I mentioned. Um country these are collected from the country based on their submission from government. Um what they wish to contribute to share and also what we consider really as one of the good cases. Um so we have count up uh some of the good uh um you know the package of the experience and here is OCP um country posters uh we provide for each and every country of the uh product here and uh we have OCP fact sheets uh which you can also access to online and this is the market intelligence where again we're um covering all the countries right uh we have finalized for South Asia, South uh specific island countries and some of the uh Southeast country as well. Okay. So now let's moving to the country um level. This is about OIP country project uh category. This has been launched um by headquarters and also uh supported by our regional office as well. So this is kind of template for the country to join OCP and we are providing the project to support implementation and in as you mentioned uh in our region we have launched this regional sign in network to be specific how is one being working. So we basically we consider for better four better on the left side left upper part of the better production we focus on productivity and which is also have a strong implementation uh for their uh for the improving the competitiveness. So improve rarity or digitalization or malization and also good practice of belong to this component. So this one we in order for us to you know to support country on one hand we are collaborating our key partners um um in our region um like UAW wea and also with China sciences we try to help them to improve the priorities on the other hand we really um emphasize on the building our national capacity on innovation it's really essential uh for the country to maintain and or to achieve sustainable uh or sustainability of their of their uh uh production um at country level. Second one on the right part on the battle uh nutrition we are supporting we're conducting the scientical evidence uh based laboratory work others to evaluate nutrient um assessment and also building a nutrient assessment we are building or developing the healthy diet recipe that are tailored made to different consumer group for instant um patient um for instance infat For instance the ad um the reason for that is that you can see many of the product actually or our patient they can you can access this one for easily availability. If we do not know which one suitable for what they will not be able to connect and if we based on our scientical based analysis the hospital can easily adapt for specific for uh you know the the um the group which has been planned in the country like they have connected the kova to almost all the hospital they will know how to really serve the hospital food which integrates kinoa all the patient uh just example and a better uh a better environment. Here we are applying the traceability tool which is the um example of the um remote sensing and digital um you know the technology here um and we use this big data to connect through the GES methodology connecting consumers producers and also production environment itself. So consumer can scan the product. It can easily trace by coming from Himalayaria area of um of the Nepal or coming from Cambodia or from you know any other country if they have done this you know traceability work soon and uh and then under better life one we our focus one is to support connectivity and also market access. So here one of the way we can uh help is on the GI is one of the G isolation and registration but others on market intelligence uh which we are supporting them to understand what potential. So here I want to give you two examples of our partnership uh in action and the reason we pick up these two is because they are part of the our original original member of the regional science innovation network that was launched in 2024 and they are also um become our center of excellence um has which has been designated last year by the d deputy dire general of AO um and has been awarded by ADG in uh in November last year. So congratulation for these two institution and also appreciating their institution support for our implementation. So here the first one institute of geographical sciences and natural resources research Chinese can sciences they they are the one who has uh initiated theirou with us two years ago. The MOU focus on three areas. The first one is on capacity building. Second one is knowledge sharing and third wise technique transfer and in the last almost three years time we have you know implementing this MO concretely we're covering that not sharing for all the countries uh including OC but also beyond OCP countries and also capacity building for all the OCP countries so far and and they add also techno transfers at country level so a number of country has already implemented this GI Yes country. The focus of this one is to build traceability of SAP for the uh for the country and the reason why he has selected this technology is because this technology is applicable for special aquaculture product in general not specific to any of specific product. Some of technology can apply to one product only. uh they cannot be applied to extend to others. Uh some of their production capacity or technology are limited to that one. It's tailor made is very good. But here the reason we select this one to have the wide application. The second reason we pick about this one is it can apply to the different agroecological zone. Knowing our special agriculture product coming from different kind of you know uh drug areas either tropical or in mountainous areas or oceanary areas whatsoever. We need to have our technology that can't be applied widely otherwise it will limit our capac possibility to learn from each others. So this is the rhythm for for select this part and it was signed in 2024 as mentioned and then since then we have organized the regional nor sharing and capacity building in 2023 24 and 25 and this year in September we're going to organize another um regional sharing sharing in September again. So the topic covered including the field visit to learn how can be done on site um we have organized to learn how to identify the geographical scope of the GIS site uh and to learn how to organize multi-isiplineary team for assessment led by the local government and we also learn how to conduct assessment to monitor the ecological environment using the comprehensive drug growth science science and technology which is the the station the ground to the ground station has been installed at the uh site of GS which have been nominated by the government and also how to analyze product quality for appearance sensory characteristics chemical compositions and nutrition component this is one important area point and gap we have fig out many of the country um no matter um more kind of you know developed or underdeveloped countries our special agriculture product nutrient assessment is largely missing. So here especially it's missing in terms of the location meantime there is a strong connectivity or causaction um has been observed uh between the product nutrient and also location. So but what what is kind of the you know nutrient in a specific area is largely missing. So here is part we are trying to mitigate and supporting in connection with our next COE to work on this one together which will discuss a bit later. And then here another part we learned of of this uh GI to is how to manage and publish the data set. We're using the open science um extended the methodology and encourage uh and to have the consolidate of the data and have the peerreview procedure and in eventually we'll be published uh in the open journal and then we'll be able to uh review and authorize u of the OCG and so far techn transfer has being um implemented in a number of countries for instance in Bhutan in Nepal and and all the countries such as the Cambodia and uh Indonesia and many other country on the way we're trying to support one by one as long as the country are you know are ready to implement um so even the P pacific island countries such as the Fijian Samoa are also in the pipeline so we're trying to u make this one be available for all our OCOP countries and um next one. So this is the OCOP um our center for excellence of the of the imu the institute of nutrition mid university. So this one covering the assessment um and also recipe development and also capacity building as well marketing and this is the one of the um big area of the missing uh we have noticed in our region so we focus on our SP a few country already we are u trying to build up capacity for our countries on the nutrition for different age group um to conduct food competition analysis product formulation development and also product nutrient labeling and so on. And um and also we try to support you know in the in the in the kitchen how they can actually handling of their food preparation based on nutrient and then how this one nutrient profiling be conducted and um on site. These are some of the examples that about nutrient assessment and also recipe. Um we have also showcased this full battle uh for better cookie has been uh you know shared in a different um conference which has been uh uh welcomed by a participant. Um and these are examples of the um recipe or kind kind of you know the uh mango how has been developed um into different species and okay now I'd like to give a you know more about case study of the budan and also another example of the Nepal these two countries um I pick up before as examples to demonstrate how this country has integrate four better work together on the OCOP. So on the one hand um in terms of their um better production in we know in uh in Budan Kinoa is one of the um product has been introduced um in 2015 which has originated from their uh ends um which is Lin America and has been introduced to this region and through the kind of original application in Pan this one has been found very effectively. um you know they're planted in the country and then later on the majority he's met he's at the king of the of Bhutan has considered as one of the king's product and prime minister has given high focus of this product and nominated this one has been nominized by OCOP product so we're trying to support them on var improvement and exit more higher um productivity recipe while trying to support their national capacity. At the meantime on the nutrition profiling part um we have um um the our country has connected between the ministry of the agriculture and the ministry of public health. They have done the you know the food recipe department labeling nutrient profiling and also even competition. Um and then to pick up and awarded rose most delicious and nutritious recipe and uh this have been very you know have been widely received and in terms of a better environment we have implemented OOPG um in uh in the country you can see the ground stations being stored this has been providing the real time data uh for all the country and then uh for all the uh for for for the government um which it can access it can extra cure easily and in in terms of the farmers better life because of this has been uh connect to their u potential uh their u buyers so this one also given and al hospitals and different type of their you know target group so income of the farm has been increased and for nepo npal has so many large cardinal um and This is another example has implemented for better systematically. So um they through traditional farming to climate smart um agriculture uh creation um in in the country in Nepal. And then they also have the um good better nutrition uh assessment and the recipe department. And they also have the better uh green uh recognition um of their um of the country um in terms of their GE as well. And we have this building the good strong community um for the country. So these are two examples of the country that has been implemented for better system uh systematically and with this one I would like to um share with you some of the resources. So here if you can if you want want to explore OCP resources and publication you can scan here. We have also videos which you can access to here. We have also digital technology um on the GES which you can see how this one we applied G station in in Bhutan uh in Tashkan and also e-learning some of the resources or on the um training and so on are here. So with this one I want to um yeah in um open for any questions and discussion. I'm sorry that take a bit longer. Um but still um if the um moderator allows we can take some questions as you consider the problem. Thank you. All right. Uh thank you very much uh Dr. Lee for your uh insightful and inspiring presentation. Okay. I believe um we have all gained valuable knowledge about the OCOP uh initiative and its role in promoting sustainable uh agri food uh system. uh from today lecture uh one important uh message that I take away uh that success in agriculture is no longer measured by only by increasing production and this is also about uh identify our unique local product uh adding value through innovation uh building um sustainable value chain and ensuring that farmer receive uh greater economy benefit And uh I believe that uh OCOP initiative uh provide uh an excellent framework okay for achieving this goal and congratulation for OCOP initiative and we will now move into our question and answer session and thank you everyone who has submit question uh through zoom Q&A function and we have received a few of interesting question and I will try uh my best to cover as many as time uh allow. Okay, maybe we can go for the first question from Ahmed Zamir. Uh Dr. Lee, how to address uh this uh SAP challenge globally? Hey Dr. May I invite your comment? Okay. You want to collect a few questions or you want to we um respond one by one? >> Okay. Uh we we we I think better we respond one by one. Yeah. >> Okay. So the first questions how to address SAP trend globally? Actually the the reason why OCOP initiative has been uh launched is to address the SAP challenge globally and from our document um in our framework document you can see it has been illustrated SAP challenge from production processing marketing trade um in a building block. Uh so this is the one that we understand uh this is the kind of the uh key component that SAP are facing and that is also reason that OCOP are developed to establish not only the technical package but also you know data and also what is the intervention here. One of the common challenge of the SAP let me tell you is the data. You can hardly find available data or statistics related to SAP. This is the reason that when we for instance um when we conducting market intelligence uh series largely you cannot even find the HS code related information of product at country level. they do not even have HS code uh at and at national level. So that is the reason at regional or global level we can hardly find uh reliable data uh can be consolidated at global level. So if you ask me what a how to ac um address challenges I would say we should have a strongly we we should start with the central level of the work solid first we should understand what are these common challenges at country level and then we'll be able to aggregate it of common challenges in a more precisely a central based uh uh of the matter and unless Unless we know each and every product what it precisely are facing it's not easy to um have their scientific level based of their assessment itself of globally. However, uh in terms of the challenges, the common challenge that OCOP uh are facing uh already know. So here is about how we can really use our research um the tools to elaborate and to concretize of the of those challenges um on um at basis level. >> I see. Okay, Dr. Thank you very much for uh raising that point. Uh hopefully uh this answer can um uh Zame can uh answer your question. Yeah. All right. So we go to uh next question uh Dr. Lee uh from Benny Nabila. Uh okay. The question is uh in many developing countries uh agriculture policies often emphasize increasing staple food production to achieve food security goal. Meanwhile, OCOP promotes the uh development of unique high value agriculture product from FO perspective. How can these two approach work together? Okay, Dr. really may I write your comment? >> Thank you very much for this excellent question. In fact, this is the one of challenges um that we have noticed at country level and this is also the reason a couple of years ago country um we have already supporting the country to um to move forward from the um monopolization to diversification. So this initiative of previous initiative has been focused on diversification. Um this is not easy job because um the focusing on stable um or stable food production is one of the result since the last 19 1960s of greener revolution. We have continuously rely on this you know high input high and high output. This has resolved one of the key issue of their food availability. However, the disconnect of the available food from this kind of approach uh with the gap of the food of the malnutrition is not well not really noticed by by many of the country and on this point important part is again scientical or ethnic based analysis in F region office. Well, in my previous, you know, our initiative on their hunger, we have conducted country specific analysis and we have figured out the disconnect of this production and also the high correlation between the low productive and low availability of nutritional food with a high um prevalence of the malnutrition in some of their LDC countries that shows very alarming effect of high corction. So that actually the as a result of this one the country took the initiative to d to diversify their food production and that's how we opped or promoted by the countries kind of large kind of big background. So I would say to this the the question I think is very good one is because I noticed this dis disconnect or imperial approach and and how to resolve the issue in my view from positive perspective is evidence-based analysis. Unless you demonstrate to the person maker what is the issue why position and how to solve it person maker may continue to go with the pro they are familiar with and they have not they may not have chance to really you know review and reshape their country in kind of the priority. However right now we do notice the country are taking different approach and giving more of emphasize um special agriculture product right now. So this is very encouraging. We will continue to support SAP and this is become an issue not only um you know not only our region but also globally. This is really kind of the kind of the moving forward. As you can see some of Ken are requesting to FL to support can we have the second SAP on OP or even more you can see they realize the potential and they want to learn the most advanced technology to support their development. They know the potential is on the special agriculture product which is very big um as opposed to stables. So again in in nutshell evidence based analysis is the key to advise the government um the of the you know shift of the policy that's is this will also one key approach of regional oppress to continue to support government. Thank you. Right. Okay. Thank you very much Dr. Lee for your inspiring comment. Okay. Uh let move on to our next uh question. Okay. What role can university play in supporting the OCAP initiative uh through research, innovation and community engagement? Uh what's your comment Dr. Lee about it? >> Thank you very much. Um in fact I believe university plays a key role um at both national and potentially at a regional level. I I consider university is the you know like the brand at the country level um for the government for the communities and for the local farmers. This prayer are has a cumulative and longstanding um of the wisdom in the university and what I can see is it has two role one is to give another is to take the what can give is university is in a very good position that can provide interdisiplinary um of the technology support at a package technical package to be offered effort but needs to be guided systematically to the community of the OCOP product uh of the government in the local area. University can designate a focal point for instance on the OCOP and which can coordinate or less with the relevant institute in the institute of the agriculture in the institute of nutrition with the institute of you know environment and also in terms of economy or trade making them working together and then you can develop a certain approach marketing tool a specific product in the country preferably of the OCP product in the in your own country but also you can even moving forward uh it can apply to other product if you have the mass developed once you developed you will be able to have provide consorted efforts for the product development it has connect not only serve the country for your own people but also given a channel for the students for the profession professors for them to apply the knowledge or theory in their in the classroom in the practice. This something very important. This is the one that you can direct to give. Another one is to register yourself in the FL country office or government. As I mentioned right now regional office are trying to build a bigger or expand the regional science innovation network where soon after open the hall or open this kind of the window for the country to join this regional science innovation network. So once we are building this network, we will be able to you know allowing each and every you know national university or academy or institute to share or know your peer in your own country but also in other country. You'll be able to figure out who can be your potential peer in other country and you can also directly or indirect to access to our regional capacity building can you know which continuous offering from time to time throughout the year. So or you will be able to you know access to other technologies which can join our you know workshop or other kind of field work at kind of their in different manner. So this how university can um contribute and can also learn from the regional or even you know globally. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you Dr. Lee for the comments. Uh I I completely agree uh that university have a much uh broader role than conducting research alone. Okay. uh they also serve as a bridge between scientific knowledge and practical solution for farmers and local communities. I believe this present an excellent opportunity for university across Assean to contribute um meaningful uh to cons to sustainable agreefort uh development. Yes. Okay. Um let's move to our next uh question. Okay. How can young people become involved in the OCOP initiative and uh what skill should they develop? Yes, Dr. Lee, may I invite your comment? >> Thank you very much. In fact, as I mentioned, OCOP is a partnership um you know multistakeholder initiative and we encourage um especially youngsters join this initiative because OCO development are relying on our next generation. It won't be uh need just to finish in one or two years time. It will take continuously effort for SAP development which has been you know just like previously for green revolution you know takes about 50 years and this one is a big issue just at a starting point your your youngsters wisdoms you know interventions contributions are largely required to support and how they can be engaged um I would say first at country level you can add a student For instance, you can already learn what or you know build your capacity or understand what the key key kind of challenge of the SAP program in your own country. try to figure out from your own perspective how I can share of myself what is kind of knowledge gap I I need uh to build or to mitigate in order for me to provide u good kind of support for OCB development and also you can also um connect yourself with the your university and university as a whole to connect with the FL or with the our you know the government what we can offer what we can contribute What of which what is our ideas? You you are invited to you know put to put down your ideas and share with them and your insight will be another you know important kind of input for FL or for government to consider because this is advantage of being um you know the youngsters with more creation and also does require creativity does require continuous of the reshaping of it. So this one you have you are offering this kind you know imputance for development is always welcome by every country office regional office and the government. So what skill do we need to develop? I would say um what do what this one you can see LCOP cover all the four batteries and each and every area can have ent point OCP but based on our assessment if we want to offer a stronger kind of or systematic support we should have two level of expertise to develop. One is develop in depth of your own area. It's very important. The deeper you are able to you know dig further and you will be able to understand the gap the deep you will be able to understand what is kind of you know the missing what what is the cutting edge of technology in this area what is the possible solution you can go further in depth analysis. Uh this is on the one side. On the other hand is you can have you know expand your knowledge space trying to push yourself become interdisiplinary itself trying to get your knowledge base be covering different area then you will be able to see at different horizon that you will see okay now solution can be differently and once you understand at higher horizon you will be able to provide it in integrated approach that to be shared with their um in OCP implementation. So I would say both horizontal and in-depth are important and areas of the skills or something depend on where you start. You can see draw a circle surrounding your area and you draw another circle those development at the which is calling from production processing marketing and trade. You can see where you position yourself then you will be able to connect where you are and what it should be. Once you understand these two and turn it together, you will be knowing better what should I what kind of skills should I develop based on where we are and then you will be trying your best to enrich yourself build your knowledge connect with different kind of you know the knowledge partners or institutions or professors or so on and keep your questions always in mind what I can contribute what is specific question I have in mind to resolve you use the questions to guide yourself to focus on where you want to focus next and then gradually you expand further okay >> thank you >> all right thank you Dr. Yes, I agree. I think this is a very um encouraging message for our student here. Uh agriculture today is no longer limited to farming. Um today is also about uh involve technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and global business opportunity. Yeah. All right. Uh so maybe we go to the next uh question. I pick up one. Okay. Um, from FAO perspective, uh, what opportunities do you see for Malaysia uh, in strengthening its OCOP product uh, and expanding into, uh, international market? Yes. Uh, Dr. Lee, uh, may I invite your comment? >> Okay, thank you very much. Um, here I would say this is very good question. I would say this is something that we do wish we can push forward of our SAP OCP product globally and right now we are taking quite a bit of efforts in this area. Um on the one hand as I mentioned um we're trying to build um key part of the product um let's say we are building the digital product u passport for the SAP um the reason we focus on FMS analysis is to give the the science label for the product we we through the GIS to collect the data um kind of you know build this kind of soil, water um you know the variety and the metro and all other social economic database at the meantime we build the data of the nutrient of the product that become a core element for this SAP so once the OCP product has acquired so-called this digital product passport then they will be able to carry as a whole it will be can be integrated into how the product, the chain and export into the country. And right now we still have a lot of work to do is how this one can be developed systematically and also be recognized by the um customer office of the importing country. This is still a question to be resolved. Uh but we believe if we are with starting something meaningful, we can help them um to move forward. This is one thing starting from the beginning part. Meanwhile, we're trying to we're building this evidence analysis through market intelligence to um figure out what is potential area um potential market globally which is different from what they are uh right now exporting. So this gap itself you will understand well then we'll be able to see how we can really materialize this um the importing country. Then here to from here to here you will have to understand what is the you know tariff non-tariff barriers what is kind of regulatory compliance requirement then you need to learn will help the country uh help the farmers to learn all these requirement then you will be able to see once you understand all the regulation barriers we need to provide technical support helping the farmers to mitigate this gap then you'll be able to um you know to close this gap But the meantime very importantly is to connect the importing country and the exporting countries of the traders ideally preferably or farmers in the local in our oce country. They can themsel come uh exporting uh you know communities or or you know um the the actors they can connect to the importing countries of trader directly. they can get more of the benefit which can be conferred back to sharing knowledge back um to their own people. uh then once you connect these two actors the trade will be materialized and this is not something you know uh just in theory in practice um multiple country for in years um we have tried in other region already like Panama Panama there the OP product is the coffee and they have been implemented of G years in the country and the local actually university they quite good efforts to help the country have the local communities uh and then they build uh their local trade um you know capacity for the local communities. they are the one to initiate and they have through this GIS they will be able to connect to the Chinese the you know the importing partners um in China and then this trade has been already you know breakthrough and they have already exported the in China and get got good profit already. So this is the example that how science innovation can help them to um access to the importing market. But here not only our OC focus is not only just let them to trade but also to support them to access to the premium market. Okay. The special part in trade term it should be considered as the not the like product. you should be considered as the you know the product with differential and the feature which deserve of the premium price but how to really materialize this premium price is not by just present yourself I'm good you have to use the science and technology to convince the partners or you consumers we are very good we have the data we have all the science behind these are super quality okay let the choose to tear yourself don't let your own to be your spokesperson. Thank you. >> Thank you Dr. Lee for your very inspiring uh answer. Okay. So I think uh for the last maybe I can pick up uh one uh question. Okay. Uh Dr. Beside technical support uh many participant uh may be wondering uh about the financial aspect of the OCAP initiative. So are there uh funding opportunities available and how can countries uh access them? May I invite your comment? >> Thank you. Um the OCOP initiative um this actually um by nature is country owned initiative and country um country led. So we consider country will be the one to take lead in mobilizing resources and with FL support um which has been doing at both regional global and country levels. Therefore, currently in uh HQ and the regional office, we are implementing a number of project together with country office to have their you know national a national project um led by their you know FL to support in the country and this including the SAS corporation project uh including their regional TCP including their you know their u much of their extra budary funds uh project at country level to support country meantime Um this is another um important resources we are we are um leveraging is through our regional site partner. So we invite our partners um at who has capacities uh in ter technology but also in terms of their financial or income contribution. They are building they are putting their resource coming to support our work such as the COE the two COE center of excellence um of Chinese animal sciences and also Mahito University institute of of nutrition both of them at different kind of scare they put um not only share their knowledge but really put on their resources especially at CS they covered all the you know supporting implement country implementation uh regional implementation part uh for OCP country. So country can join the all this knowledge sharing and national capacity building for free. Uh and for the mah university they also building and contributing in kind for implementation and supporting our vision level of knowledge sharing um as um at the same level. So um in terms of how you can access two roles kind of the uh resources on the one hand again you please connect to your government express your interest um to be part of COP both indicate what what you wish uh what you can contribute and also what what you wish to learn and then that information will be consolidated at country level and also at region level we will uh you know collect those information from the country we'll be able to um see when the come when opportunity arise we will share to all the you know the network partners for them to be able to you know familiarize and example like the country like Indonesia Indonesia one of the university they just you know reached out to us um they are right they are they would like to build an MOU with our partner of Chinese Academy of Science and also join you relevant kind of the you know the training and also contribute uh to the country. So we are the one to facilitate the connectivity of this kind of you know partnership and in so again in short is the we need to be clear what we can contribute um and which aspect we are you know specialized in but we also um infl the center of excellence have another important um you know the approach we emphasize is B plus one so we do not just focus on one better. We ask them to focus on better plus one. You at least go another one to to form this interdisiplinary part. Again at central level try to push yourself to have you know um better what you are you are good at uh of the better but plus one area you wish to be connected that will allow yourself to be met in the right place where you wish and you there is other partner who has the strong strengths to cover this part to be connected. Okay. So um there are many resources but we need to contribute and we share together. Thank you. >> Right. Uh thank you once again Dr. Lee. I think there is uh no more question from the participant and once again Dr. Lee uh thank you for sharing your expertise. Okay. Uh we also thanks all participant for your um active uh particip particip participation on uh trfulful question. As a reminder, uh today recording will be available through the Google d uh Google drive link share in the zoom chat and our next lecture will begin this afternoon uh at 300 p.m. uh Malaysia time and the title is integrated agriculture aquaculture system and um governance mechanism for sustainable aquaculture uh development. So, um, we hope to welcome you again, uh, later today at 3 p.m. Okay, before we end, uh, may I kindly invite everyone to stay for a group photo. So, please turn on your, uh, camera and give us your bigger smile and let make uh, this a memorable group photo.