The essential digital gateway to data, information and knowledge on agroecology in Southeast Asia.
Inspiring stakeholders to promote and adopt agroecological practices.
The ALISEA Knowledge Hub is the central platform for the agroecological transition in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar. We provide a collaborative online library and a network of stakeholders dedicated to climate-resilient farming and food security across the region. Explore our technical resources and regional expertise to support sustainable agriculture from Vientiane to Hanoi.
– Collaboration between farmer groups, local authorities, and support organizations proved essential to maintaining supply, building trust, and ensuring stable market access. – Establishing a sustainable market and fair pricing through formal contracts proved to be the most significant motivator for farmers to actively produce. – Field-based, hands-on, and peer-to-peer training proved highly effective, improving both technical confidence and productivity, with monthly yields rising from 2 to 3.5 tons
Did you know weaver ants are helpful for pest control? Weaver ants are considered farmers’ friends as they protect crops like cashews from pests. Introducing weaver ants is just one of many techniques used in Agroecological Crop Protection (ACP), which combines the principles of agroecology, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Organic Agriculture, and regenerative agriculture. This natural solution reduces crop damages, improves yields and nut quality, ends the need to spray chemical pesticides, reduces production costs and increase’s farmers profit margins. Moreover, it maintains the health of farmers and the environment while also improve the resilience of farming systems. Watch this video to learn about weaver ant management techniques and the successful experiences of organic cashew farmers in Preah Vihear province.
Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina, Hymenoptera) have been used for more than 2,000 years for the suppression of insect pests in Asian mango and citrus orchards, thus constituting the oldest known example of biological control in agriculture. Yet, in the Mekong Delta, pockets of smallholder farmers are still conserving weaver ant populations and relying upon these beneficial insects to keep pests at bay, especially in cashew plantations. Weaver ants are found naturally in organic plantations but their benefits are often unknown, as far as the possibility of increasing their population as a way to manage insect pests.
In Xiengkhouang, declining maize yields due to soil depletion combined with rising production costs are pushing smallholder farmers to shift to new crops. Many farmers are turning to banana cultivation. However, banana monoculture is not sustainable and therefore, a more resilient alternative is integrated farming, especially systems that combine bananas, fruit trees, and coffee.
The purpose of this law is to protect consumers and the intellectual property rights of producers and operators, in addition to preserving and strengthening the traditional know-how, national identity and to reduce poverty.
This Agricultural Sector Strategic Development Plan (2014 €“ 2018) was prepared with accordance with the policy goals of Royal Government of Cambodia, the National Strategic Development Plan, and rice policy on the promotion of paddy production and rice export.
Industrial food production contributes heavily towards climate change, environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources €“ and in so doing it erodes the very basis of agriculture. We urgently need to innovate our way out of this agrifood crisis, but we have to be clear about the kind of innovations we want.In this new background paper for decision-makers, Friends of the Earth International explores a systemic change of our food and agricultural systems based on innovations in agroecology, a proposal that is rapidly gaining ground worldwide.A growing body of scientific evidence shows that agroecology innovations and practices are technically feasible, affordable, politically, socially and culturally acceptable, adaptable to local circumstances and environmentally sound. These practices are rooted in ancestral and customary knowledge and practices of peasants, indigenous peoples and other small-scale food providers and many have already been successfully tested in farmers’ fields.
There is consensus that the global food system is not delivering good nutrition for all and is causing environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity, such that a profound transformation is needed to meet the challenges of persistent malnutrition and rural poverty, aggravated by the growing consequences of climate change. Agroecological approaches have gained prominence in scientific, agricultural and political discourse in recent years, suggesting pathways to transform agricultural and food systems that address these issues. Here we present an extensive literature review of concepts, definitions and principles of agroecology, and their historical evolution, considering the three manifestations of agroecology as a science, a set of practices and a social movement; and relate them to the recent dialogue establishing a set of ten iconic elements of agroecology that have emerged from a global multi-stakeholder consultation and synthesis process. Based on this, a consolidated list of principles is developed and discussed in the context of presenting transition pathways to more sustainable food systems. The major outcomes of this paper are as follows. (1) Definition of 13 consolidated agroecological principles: recycling; input reduction; soil health; animal health; biodiversity; synergy; economic diversification; co-creation of knowledge; social values and diets; fairness; connectivity; land and natural resource governance; participation. (2) Confirmation that these principles are well aligned and complementary to the 10 elements of agroecology developed by FAO but articulate requirements of soil and animal health more explicitly and distinguish between biodiversity and economic diversification. (3) Clarification that application of these generic principles can generate diverse pathways for incremental and transformational change towards more sustainable farming and food systems. (4) Identification of four key entry points associated with the elements: diversity; circular and solidarity economy; co-creation and sharing of knowledge; and, responsible governance to enable plausible pathways of transformative change towards sustainable agriculture and food systems.
