FAO APRC38 Conference: Asia-Pacific Food Security Discussion

FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific aims at “resilience from within”

Director-General urges collaboration as more regional Members move up the development ladder

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu delivers opening remarks at the APRC38 Ministerial meeting.

©FAO/Ajrul Azim

23/04/2026 Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam - Ministers from around Asia and the Pacific gathered in here to negotiate collaboration pathways with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). They aim to harness the region’s increasingly prosperous and dynamic agricultural capacities to bolster food security for all, while ensuring smallholders benefit from technology and trade.

This week’s 38th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC38) will indicate the priority regional and local themes and areas for FAO to take into account while preparing the Programme of Work and Budget for the next biennium, and aligning them with FAO’s Strategic Framework, Medium-Term Plan and country programming frameworks.

“We must build resilience from within, because no external help will be sustainable without our own collective will,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in remarks to the key Ministerial meeting on Thursday. The event was opened by the Crown Prince of Brunei, His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah ibini His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah.

FAO’s Director-General noted that the region, home to more than half the world’s population and food production, has made remarkable progress in agricultural productivity, trade and technological innovation, yet remains home to more food insecure people than any other.

“Public resources alone will not be enough,” he said, urging participants to engage with the theme of financing and investments in agrifood systems, which are at the center of several roundtable dialogues at the APRC38.

Qu pointed to “unprecedented opportunities” for the region through science and innovation, digitalization, investment and partnerships, noting that more and more countries in the region are graduating out of Least Developed Country status and, having a stronger food security base, are aiming to increase trade in their agricultural surpluses and value-added products.

The Regional Conference

The APRC38’s agenda includes bolstering access to affordable and nutritious diets – which are relatively expensive compared to global averages – speeding up low-emission and sustainable agricultural practices, facilitating trade and market integration and mobilizing domestic and international finance and investment and directing it to smallholders, who constitute 80 percent of all agricultural producers in the region.

Among the ministerial roundtables are sessions focusing on bolstering resilient and inclusive aquatic food systems, accelerating sustainable bioeconomy approaches, and accelerating agrifood investment pathways through FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative.

Those subjects align with FAO’s regional priority areas of work, which comprise Blue transformation, One Health, small-scale producers’ equitable access to resources, digital agriculture; healthy diets for all, safe food for everyone; Climate change-mitigating and adapted agrifood systems; biodiversity and ecosystem services for food and agriculture; and resilient agrifood systems.

FAO Members in Asia and the Pacific have been particularly active in various FAO initiatives that support country-owned and country-led solutions, such as the Digital Village Initiative, the One Country One Priority Product Initiative and the Green Cities Initiative.

“Across Asia and the Pacific, countries are no longer only recipients of solutions,” Qu noted, emphasizing how success stories such as those achieved by South-South Cooperation reflect the spirit of dignified partnership that defines the region. “They are providers of expertise, technology, policy innovation and financing models.”

The challenge ahead

While Asia and the Pacific produces 54 percent of global agriculture and fish output, the region is also characterized by a vast number of smallholders, who can be vulnerable to shocks in global food, fuel and fertilizer markets and extremely so to impacts from climate change.

For Qu, innovation that leaves behind the smallholder is not innovation, but exclusion. That’s doubly relevant as smallholder-dominated landscapes under pressure face challenges from water scarcity and overextraction as well as nutrient depletion. Land degradation is a particularly salient risk across the region.

At the same time, there will be another 200 million people to feed in the region by 2050, which will require distributed access to productivity-boosting tools ranging from improved seeds and weather forecasting to digital advisory services, precision farming methods to save water in the Mekong Delta, solar-powered cold chains to cut post-harvest losses in South Asia, and low-methane rice farming wherever possible.

“FAO is fully committed to supporting you,” the Director-General told the ministers. “We must act now, with courage and creativity.”

More on this topic

38th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific
Learn more about APRC38

Contact

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Christopher Emsden FAO News and Media (Rome) (+39) 06 570 53291 [email protected]