9th Regional Forum on Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization in Asia and the Pacific

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Following up on the Independent Dialogues co-organized by ESCAP-CSAM for the Food Systems Summit, and building on the momentum for the commitments to advance local and national food systems transformations, the 9th Regional Forum on Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization in Asia and the Pacific will:
1. Examine the role of sustainable agricultural mechanization in transforming food systems;
2. Promote knowledge exchange and prioritization of efforts among stakeholders; and
3. Enable regional cooperation and networking.

The role of sustainable agricultural mechanization in increasing agricultural productivity, output and farmers’ income such as by enhancing cropping intensity, and improving the precision and efficiency of field operations has been well recognized. Appropriate agricultural machinery and equipment are also an important part of approaches for nature-positive production like conservation agriculture and integrated crop residue management. In addition, agricultural mechanization is key for climate-smart agriculture and for achieving both adaptation and mitigation goals, for instance through water efficient technologies. However, equitable distribution of the resulting benefits requires that smallholders, women farmers and marginalized groups with limited resources and capacities are able to get access to and sustainably adopt the necessary machinery and equipment.

The deliberations will be structured around three action tracks of the Summit, namely:
• Advancing equitable livelihoods
• Boosting nature-positive production
• Building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress

The Regional Forum on Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization (Regional Forum) is an annual strategic initiative of the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization (CSAM) of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) with the aim to promote policy dialogue, knowledge exchange and regional cooperation on relevant shared or emerging issues of member countries in Asia and the Pacific. Since initiation in 2013, the Regional Forum has addressed various demand-driven themes in the context of mechanization including public private partnership, custom hiring, human resource management, climate-smart approaches, national strategy and policies, financing and recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.