Private sector and food security for the region

It’s been more than a week since the ASEAN Summit and our own ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) meetings in Cebu and Boracay. But the work doesn’t stop at the big national meetings; it will continue throughout the year, up until the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in November. In the next few days, in fact, I will go and meet with business organizations and more private sector partners from the region as part of my duties as this year’s chair of the ASEAN-BAC.

I have probably had my share of complaining about the number of meetings on my calendar, but I think in the end, the outcomes are worth all the hours we put in trying to gather insights from experts, trying to come to a consensus and figuring out how the private sector can best contribute to the inclusive and sustainable growth of ASEAN.

The meetings of the last few weeks, for example, have been very fruitful. At the recent ASEAN-BAC council meeting in Boracay, the product was a five-point action plan that defines the role of the private sector in helping ASEAN become a more integrated region, one that is inclusive and whose growth will be uninterrupted. These plans were drafted with a view to the current global disruptions caused by war and now, increasingly, by climate change.

The plans call for keeping trade open during crises by using “green lanes” for food-related items and avoiding abrupt export restrictions. They also emphasize prioritizing energy for food systems so that processing, cold chains and logistics can continue operating during energy stress. To maintain production and jobs, the plan supports SMEs and farmers by improving access to trade finance and liquidity. It further proposes regulatory agility through fast-track approval processes for low-risk alternatives without lowering safety standards. Finally, it calls for establishing a standing public-private resilience mechanism to monitor disruptions and coordinate rapid, region-wide responses.

Of the five-point action plan, two are directly food-related. This is because food security is inseparable from and reflective of supply chain resilience. It is the one metric that every ASEAN citizen feels immediately.

The private sector can contribute to food security in so many ways. It can help boost agricultural productivity and innovation. One relevant example would be through weather forecasting, which in the Philippines greatly helped revive the local tobacco industry in the north. Another way is in facilitating domestic, regional and global market access. One persistent problem among our MSMEs in agriculture is compliance with international standards, which can greatly help our small-scale producers scale up by tapping the export market. The private sector can also help with infrastructure investments, such as cold chain facilities and value-added processing. And last but not least, the private sector can help mobilize finance and technology to help farmers scale up and become more productive.

One of the legacy projects we will establish as part of the Philippines’ chairship of the ASEAN-BAC is the ASEAN Food Security Alliance, or AFSA. This has roots in Go Negosyo’s Kapatid Angat Lahat sa Agri, which is premised on integrating small-scale farmers into the value chain of “big-brother” agri companies. The hope is that they will benefit from the technology and processes, as well as the market access of these large corporations, helping them to scale and raising their productivity. AFSA itself has had several pilot initiatives that show that yes, this can work. It can help steer agriculture away from fragmented efforts into a coordinated, investment and data-driven collaboration that will leverage the strengths of each ASEAN member-state. The work started more than two years ago, and the work continues to this day.

Not a few weeks before the ASEAN Summit in Cebu, ASEAN-BAC Philippines signed MOUs for food and agriculture supply resilience between a Filipino company, Yovel Agriventures, and the Singapore logistics expert, YCH Group. The partnership aims to promote deeper supply chain resilience in priority food and agricultural commodities, not only within the Philippines but across the broader ASEAN region.

This collaboration comes at a critical time when global supply chain disruptions continue to challenge food systems, impacting availability, affordability and access across Southeast Asia.

The beauty of this MOU is that it leverages technology, specifically YCH’s SG Connect platform, a digital and physical supply chain ecosystem that integrates logistics, data and trade facilitation solutions. By improving end-to-end visibility and coordination, SG Connect can help reduce bottlenecks, optimize distribution networks and enable MSMEs to access regional markets more effectively.

For the local company, Yovel East, YCH’s expertise and experience will provide innovative and proven solutions that ensure ease of access and connectivity of supply chain corridors. What this will ultimately mean for the ordinary citizen is lower food prices.

There are several structural challenges present in our region’s food systems. These include port congestion, high levels of post-harvest losses and inefficiencies in farm-to-market logistics. This partnership can help improve the availability and affordability of food and agricultural inputs, particularly during periods of market volatility and external shocks.

YCH Group’s SG Connect platform has already been successfully implemented in Vietnam and Cambodia. With hope, this MOU with Yovel will also benefit MSMEs in the agri sector, as well as smallholder farmers across ASEAN once it scales.

AFSA is meant to bring ASEAN nations together to help the region build better food systems – ones that can stand up to shocks and still reach everyone. The goal is to connect farmers, markets and businesses more smoothly, cut out avoidable waste and delays and encourage smarter spending on things like logistics, new tools and infrastructure. In the end, it’s about making sure ASEAN can feed a growing population reliably. And in a world where disruption is no longer the exception, these priorities aren’t just important – they’re urgent, and they demand our full attention.

Source: Go Negosyo - www.philstar.com