The EU-funded SWITCH-Asia programme aims at supporting the development of a green economy and the transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient and more circular economy in Asia, promoting economic growth while decoupling it from environmental degradation. The SWITCH-Asia Regional Policy Advocacy Component (RPAC), implemented by United Nations Environment Programme, is designed to strengthen the dialogue at regional, sub-regional and national policies on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) and thereby contributing to green growth and reduction of poverty in Asia.

In spite of the fact that Asia is the largest contributor to global food production, yet it is home to a large portion of the world’s poor, hungry and food-insecure people. Food accessibility remains one of the key challenges in the region, especially among low-income households. There is rapid urbanization over large parts of Asia and currently about 50% of the population lives in urban area. Studies have shown that urbanization influences both quantity and diversity of food consumption while risks such as climate change, natural disasters, price volatility, etc., impacts the food accessibility of the lower income households.

In Asia, increasing food consumption by a growing population, together with changing dietary habits, poses an immense challenge for the global food system and is associated with healthy and environmental impacts. Improving access to food and facilitating a transition towards healthier and sustainable diet are essential aspects of green growth and food systems transformation in the region.

In this context, EU SWITCH-Asia RPAC in partnership with UNEP, TERI School of Advanced Studies and AIT is organizing a regional dialogue based on the concept of Farm-to-Fork and will further discuss sustainable food consumption with focuses on ensuring healthy and sustainable diets for the low-income households, with key stakeholders and experts in the region to gather first hand insights.

Objectives:

The objective of the regional dialogue is to enrich existing knowledge and identify opportunities to promote sustainable and healthy diets in Asia through engaging wider stakeholders into the discussion on:

• Practical enablers that enhance healthy and sustainable diets in Asia
• Challenges and solutions that will encourage transformation towards more sustainable food systems and promote sustainable and healthy diets
• Existing best practices that showcase impactful yet easily implementable solutions/actions that can bring about radical changes in the way we consume as a society.

Targeted participants:

The regional dialogue is open to everyone, who wish to contribute the sustainable food consumption – from smallholder farmers and research scientists, to community leaders and industry representative, engineers to youth organizers, students and environmental policymakers and teachers. The dialogue will bring both nominated regional experts in policy, technology, business and education and the variety of stakeholder from public in order to diversify and expand perspectives that lead the collaboration and innovation.
— Regional experts from government, academia and CSOs (invitation based registration)
— Any stakeholder who have motivated to contribute and to learn towards sustainable food consumption and healthy diets (open registration)

What will be shared and discussed?

Practical enablers, challenges and sollutions towards sustainable food consumption and healthy diets in Asia will be shared through panel discussion and case studies, followed by 4 detailed break-out discussion groups from the aspects of business model, technology, policy, and capacity building and awareness. Outline of the agenda is listed below,

• Opening Session and Keynote Speeches
• Plenary Panel Discussion — Practical Enablers towards sustainable food consumption and Healthy Diets in Asia
• Moderated Group Discussions with Case Studies: Group 1 on Business; Group 2 on Policy; Group 3 on Technology; and Group 4 on Capacity building and Awareness
• Closing Plenary

Register here:

Should you or your organisation are interested to participate in the dialogue, please kindly register here: https://forms.gle/nt4UuVoMeNtjFGeNA

Date: 10:30 am — 13:20 pm, 27 Jan. 2022 (GMT+7, Bangkok Time)

Venue: virtual via ZOOM

More information about the dilaogue, please visit:

http://switch-asia.eu/event/promoting-sustainable-food-consumption-and-the-shift-to-healthy-diets-in-asia-through-farm-to-fork/