On 29-30 August 2023, the AFSIS Secretariat held the Regional Workshop on the Strengthening ASEAN Food Security Information System (AFSIS) Function for Emergency (SAFER) at Novotel Sukhumvit 20 hotel, Bangkok, Thailand.

The workshop was honored by the following distinguished representatives which were Mr. Vinit Atisook, Deputy Secretary General of OAE from the MOAC of Thailand delivered the opening remarks and opened the event, Mr. Hosaka Masahiro, Deputy Director of the Statistics Planning Division, Statistics Department from MAFF, Japan delivered his remarks, Dr. Sumanya Ngandee, AFSIS Manager delivered the welcome remarks and participated in the discussion during the workshop.

24 participants from ASEAN Plus Three Countries which were Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan attended the workshop physically. While participants from the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and the observers from relevant organizations from Indonesia and Philippines attended virtually.

On the first day, the workshop was directed by Mr. Miyake Yasuhiro, a Japanese Expert of the SAFER project, with the main objective of discussing and selecting additional commodity that will be added to the AFSIS database, Agricultural Commodity Outlook (ACO), and Early Warning Information (EWI) reports, including the definition and methodology to collect the data.

On the second day, an international consultant, Mr. Kimura Shoji who is in charge of monitoring crop growing condition activity in SAFER project, lectured on how to monitor the growing conditions by satellite agrometeorological data (JASMAI) for the Rice Growing Outlook (RGO) report to all participants, especially 2 new ASEAN Member Countries (Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia) that will join in the AFSIS’ RGO activity. Tentatively, details in the RGO report on October 2023 will consist of the rice situation from 9 countries in ASEAN, except Singapore.

The workshop successfully ended with great collaboration from all participants and appreciation toward the AFSIS Secretariat for organizing the Regional Workshop to strengthen food security information in the ASEAN region.