Media alert - Regional Forum to Advance Pacific Community Agriculture

Bringing research and extension experts together to dialogue, review good agricultural practices, and find innovative ways to take Pacific agriculture into the future is the aim of the research extension forum to be held in Apia, Samoa, 24 – 28 August, 2015, themed Strengthening Agriculture and Forestry Research and Extension Linkages for Sustainable Food Security and Trade.

The regional forum is made possible by the European Union supported Pacific Agriculture Policy Project (PAPP), implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) is a co-sponsor for this event.

Promoting research into new crop varieties, improved production yields, post-harvest value addition and continued investment in research methods for strengthening climate change resilient crops is vital to food security, farmer livelihoods and growing the agriculture sector in the region.

The forum will look to ways to strengthen links between regional and national research institutions, and promote inclusive research agendas with engagement of private sector interests. Equally important is continued investment - both public and private, in good extension practices with innovate ways to support farmers.

The forum will recognise the role of extension and rural advisory services (RAS) in transforming new knowledge into farmer-friendly extension messages, and adoption and uptake by farmers of new technologies. Globally there is rising demand for RAS to play a wider facilitation role to effectively support farmers in addressing new and emerging challenges in agricultural development such as climate change and trade.

The research-extension knowledge sharing and exchange forum is being organised by the Land Resources Division (LRD) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), and co-hosted by the Samoa Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF), the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa (SROS), and the University of the South Pacific’s School of Agriculture and Food Technology (USP).

Main outcomes will look to produce a new Regional Extension Strategy to strengthen innovative farmer extension approaches, identify national and regional research priorities and the role of the private sector and NGOs in promoting research and extension, and production of compendiums of best practices on research and extension approaches.

The Media is invited to cover all sessions with prior arrangements.

Media Contact: Emil Adams (Emila@spc.int), Information and Communications Officer (+679 7263969), or Ms Anju Mangal (AnjuM@spc.int), Knowledge Management Specialist.