On 25-26 August 2025, AFSIS Secretariat participated in the 45th Meeting of the ASEAN Food Security Reserve Board (AFSRB) hosted by Malaysia. The meeting was conducted as a hybrid meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The AFSIS Secretariat was represented by Mr. Charapon Chantorn, Deputy AFSIS Manager.
The meeting served as a platform for sharing information, evaluating, and forecasting food security data within ASEAN and globally from 2024 to 2025. Discussions covered agricultural statistics on the production, consumption, trade, and food reserves of key crops such as rice, sugar, maize, and soybean among ASEAN Member States.
During the meeting, Mr. Charapon presented the progress report of AFSIS in 2024-2025 Q2, the future work plan, and the cooperation projects with Japan, the Republic of Korea, and relevant organizations. He introduced the newly developed Maize Growing Outlook (MGO) Report and the upcoming project AFSIS Geospatial Information System (AFSIS-GIS), aimed at enhancing food security information through geospatial data. He also emphasized the importance of sustainability, in line with the Joint Understanding on the Sustainability of AFSIS, and informed the Meeting about the upcoming Special Workshop in October 2025 in Japan, which will focus on strengthening the financial sustainability of AFSIS.
The 45th AFSRB Meeting concluded successfully with active collaboration among all participants. The 46th Meeting of AFSRB will be hosted by Myanmar next year.
The agricultural sector plays a vital role in supporting food security and livelihoods across ASEAN, where diverse production capacities shape the availability of major agricultural commodities such as rice, maize, sugarcane, soybean, and cassava. This report examines the SSR patterns across ASEAN to emphasize regional strengths, structural imbalances, and the implications for food security and agricultural policy in the region.
The self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) is a key indicator of food security. It shows how well Southeast Asian countries can meet rice demand through domestic production, with the region overall remaining increasingly self-sufficient despite ongoing challenges.
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On 19 March 2026, the AFSIS Secretariat participated in the Asia and the Pacific Food Systems Forum 2026 under the theme “Feeding the Future, Sustaining the Planet” in Manila, the Philippines, organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) . The forum aimed to promote food security policies, review ADB’s related initiatives, and support long-term food systems transformation.
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On 5–6 March 2026, the AFSIS Secretariat participated in the 14th Meeting of the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR) Council via video conference, hosted by the Kingdom of Cambodia. The meeting brought together representatives from ASEAN Plus Three countries, the ASEAN Secretariat, the ASEAN Food Security Reserve Board (AFSRB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the APTERR Secretariat, and the AFSIS Secretariat to discuss key issues related to regional food security and emergency rice reserves.
