NEAT Working Group on East Asian Food Security

Final ReportTokyo
9 July 20100Introduction
The global food crisis in 2007 and 2008 reminded many political leaders in East Asia thatfood security is a top priority issue to be urgently addressed. NEAT Working Group (WG) onEast Asian Food Security was held in Tokyo, Japan on 8‐9 July 2010 for the second year topropose policy recommendations in this area. 21 experts from all ASEAN+3 member countries,
ASEAN Secretariat and the sponsoring organization, the Japan Forum on International
Relations took part in the meeting, took part in the WG meeting. The WG meeting began withopening introductory remarks by Professor OHGA Keiji, Director of this WG, followed by three
topical sessions and a wrap–up session. Topics discussed in each of three topical sessions are asfollows.

Session I: Emerging Issues on Food System in East Asiaz

Impacts of Basic Food Supply Volatility on Food SecurityzImplication of Declining Trends of Agricultural Investmentz

Increasing Weight of Processed, Livestock and Fishery Products in Food Consumption andTradez

Impacts of Increasing Public Interests in Food Safety on Food System

Session II: East Asian Food Security Cooperationz

Progress of ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR)z

Progress of ASEAN Food Security Information System (AFSIS)z

Present situation of ASEAN Integrated Food Security (AIFS) Framework and Strategic Planof Action on Food Security in the ASEAN Region (SPA‐FS) (Statement on Food Security inthe ASEAN Region)z

Assessment ofz

Prospect of Future Direction

East Asian Food Security Cooperation

Session III: Aspects of Food Safety in East Asian Food SecurityzInstitutional Efforts toward Common Regional Standards and Certificationz

Seeking Harmony with International Standards and Regulations

zCoping with Zoonosis (e.g. Avian Flu, BSE), and Other Animal Diseases

1Proposal for the Achievement of Food Security in the Region
1. Emerging Issues on Food System in East Asia
Food system in East Asia is keep changing fast its shape. The major drivers of thechanges are, among others, integration to the world economy and fast growing economy.
Major developments include increasing exposure to shocks in international market,increasing volume of fresh and processed foods, and livestock products trades andconsumption, changing contents of food basket and increasing inter‐regional food trade,and increased food insecurity of low income households.
Food systems in East Asian countries are far more integrated into internationalcommercial markets and exposed to constantly re‐shaping “cross bordered network orweb” effects. East Asia, as a group, exhibited its insufficient risk handling capacity. Foodsupply chain needs to strengthen its capacity to minimize food supply volatility.
Declining rate of production growth and vulnerable resistance to weather change ofbasic food production are resulted from the insufficient public investment in food sector
over the past decades. We should not be looking at only agricultural investment inproduction but also be in the infrastructure of the entire food supply chain. Investment inagriculture has a long gestation period for payback. Development of new higher yield
varieties tolerant to climatic change and environmental stress must be accelerated. Strong
political will and concerted regional efforts are necessary to accelerate public investments.
Consumption and trade of fresh and processed foods, particularly of livestock
products are fast increasing. Import demands from cost‐sensitive food industry, wholesale,and retail outlets grow fast too. The longer the food supply chain extends, the more shareof food are wasted. People and food industries throw away food.
Increased trade of fresh and processed food products must be associated with the wellfunctioning sanitary and phyto‐sanitary (SPS) measures to assure food safety. Incidents offood poisoning, manipulation of food labeling or outbreaks of animal disease raised publicconcerns for food safety. But whether people want to pay or are able to pay for food safety
differ from country to country.
Progressing integration in regional food system stimulate the food complex to produce
foods by mixing ingredients sourced from multiple number of countries of different levelof processing.

For the public regulators, coordinated international framework under aunified rules and standard is required to assure food safety.
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2. East Asia’s Food Security Cooperation: APTERR and AFSISIn order to address food security in the region, ASEAN Plus Three Emergency RiceReserve (APTERR) and Asian Food Security Information System (AFSIS) are in the processof formation under the framework of the ASEAN Integrated Food Security and Strategic
Plan of Action.
The APTERR, whose preparatory stage initiated in March 2010, is intended to takeover the activities of EAERR pilot project that started in FY2004. APTERR will be the first ofworking international food reserve system though reserved amount is minimal and falls
short of eliminating food insecurity and malnutrition. Indonesia, the Philippines,Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar received stockpiled rice under the EAERR pilot projectschemes when they damaged by natural disasters.
One of significant expected roles of APTERR is financial modalities. New financialmodalities have been examined and member countries commonly acknowledge
importance that APTERR’s finance burden should be borne by all members. Anotherimportant expected role of APTERR is the effective management of stock especiallytriggering or releasing the earmarked rice reserves at the time when it is needed.
Activities of AFSIS started in the early 2003 and now it is at the 2nd phase which willend in 2012. The APTERR and AFSIS are expected to be the two main pillars of East Asianfood security cooperation and their activities are expected to supplement with each other.
AFSIS is the project to strengthen food security in the region through the systematiccollection, analysis and dissemination of food security related information.

The AFSIS

already finished the 1st phase of the project (2003‐2007) and implemented various activities.
The AFSIS constructed the foundation of a regional food security information network
while developing the Early Warning Information and Commodity Outlook.
It is still vague how current activities and discussion of the APTERR and the AFSIS arerelated to the ASEAN Integrated Food Security Framework (AIFSF)
ASEAN summit in 2008.

adopted by theThe AIFSF has potentiality as a comprehensive framework forfood security. The scope of it is broader than those of the APTERR and AFSIS.
It should be pointed that the scopes of the both schemes are so narrow in view of foodsecurity.

The concept of “food security” contains various components including not only

to secure the access to sufficient food but also to achieve food safety, balanced nutrition andfood preference.

In addition, various factors, bio‐fuel issues, climate change, R&D andregulations, should be considered in order to ensure food security in national and regional3level.
3. Aspects of Food Safety in East Asian Food Security
Food safety has been traditionally treated separately from the concept of food security.
Food safety was thought a matter of quality whereas food security concerns mainly aboutquantity. However, by experiencing major food‐related diseases such as BSE and toxic
contamination cases which drastically damaged international food trade, people start toperceive that food safety is a core component of food security. This is a consequence of theglobalization of food market, and food safety issues are thought to be more and morecritical as food items are globally marketed in the form of processed food.
Food safety issues are quite diverted according to the economic and social situations.
In traditional subsistent food consumption, edibility or sanitation is an importantcomponent of food security, and in some country the contamination of genetically modified
crop is a food safety issue. Generally speaking, the more the market develops the severer
the regulations. Thus, regulations and standards are determined based on the requirementof local producers and consumers, and regional/global harmonization has not yet beensuccessful.
East Asian food market is ever expanding by increasing mutual reliance. As
urbanization continues and the diversification of food intake goes on, the needs for acommon system to assure the food safety are strongly recognized. In the field of industrial
sectors, international standards and regulations play major roles in this region as major
trading partners are outside of the region, i.e. European countries and U.S. In case of foodmarket, however, traditional production methods still occupy the major portion, and there
are local food items of which international regulation cannot be directly applied.
In order to create the common regional food system which enables a smooth
expansion of regional food trade, it is essential to first agree with the common food safetyconcept based on the understanding of regional food system or the uniqueness of foodchain in the region. As diversified interests co‐exist and regulations often define thecompetitiveness, it is not an easy task to harmonize the region’s conflicting interests.
Various attempts are going on at international organizations. FAO/WHO’s Codex(CAC: Codex alimentarius commission) is playing the key role in defining international
standards, e.g. in the area of pesticide residues. WTO’s SPS (Agreement on the Applicationof Sanitary and Phyto‐sanitary Measures) and TBT (Agreement on Technical Barriers toTrade) are effective measures to prevent the regulations from being used for protecting the4domestic markets. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is also influential
in regulating food industry.
However, there are many layers of voluntary and mandatory standards in eachcountry, in addition to so‐called private standards which are often the most regulatory inthe business transactions. On top, there have already existed the examples to createcommon regional standards in the area of food. In Europe, CEN (European Committee forStandardization) tries to make methodological standards. The food safety issue requires
the holistic views on the whole food chain starting from consumers as well as
multi‐ministries policy approaches. Four discussion items were raised by theorganizer/moderator.

Policy Recommendations
1. Accelerate regionally public investments in food sector in the infrastructure of theentire food supply chain including R&D to develop technologies to resist climaticchange and environmental stress.
2. Establish a clear mechanism in managing the regional rice reserves for emergency
circumstances; this mechanism should be cost‐effective and sustainable with stablefinancing arrangements among countries involved.
3. Enhance food security information system (AFSIS) that looks at short‐term andlong‐term food supply and demand situations and price fluctuations and projections.
4. Improve partnerships with private sectors to increase direct investments so as to create
more job opportunities and thus contribute to economic development.
5. Take stepwise approach toward establishment of common regional standard and/orregulations, thereby improvement of national food safety is to be promoted first andintegration to the regional/global system is to be gradually pursued. In early stages ofimplementation, such common regional standards, if needed, are better to be flexible
and simple.
6. Encourage exporting countries to harmonize themselves to international systems sothat they can conform to the global standards and contribute to expanding
international trade. While it takes some periods to be able to follow them because of
subsistent agricultural systems in the region, private food chain can play a critical role5for introducing the standard through the setup of corporate standards or contract
farming, in addition to public interventions.
7. Integrate effectively efforts made by various organizations to tackle animal disease
issue, which has become more and more critical as globalised economy prevailed in theregion. In this connection, the region can learn a lot from Singaporean experiences as
the quasi‐perfect protecting system has been implemented there.
8. Promote capacity building in the country where food safety has not yet been aprioritized policy target. Knowledge is not enough, and infrastructure and technicalfacilities must be provided together to make the capacity building practical. The issue
should be incorporated into the common umbrella of regional information exchange
program, such as APTISFS, as specific areas of collaboration on this issue must be
initially identified and studied by member countries.

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