Workshop 2:
Perspectives on Sustainable Agriculture in Monsoon Asia:
Biodiversity-Friendly Farming and Landscape Management

Date:
August 27, Thursday, 10:00 - 17:00
Venue:
Tsukuba International Congress Hall  Conference Room 202A

Objectives

 The 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP10) adopted the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, including the goal that by 2020, areas under agriculture are managed sustainably, ensuring the conservation of biodiversity. Recently, the 4th Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO4) evaluated the possible achievements of the Aichi Targets. In relation to agriculture, GBO4 reports some progress, such as increasing areas under sustainable management based on organic certification and conservation agriculture, but unsustainable practices in agriculture continue to be responsible for substantial environmental degradation, including biodiversity loss. Agriculture fundamentally receives benefits in a multitude of ways from ecosystems, which are referred to as ecosystem services, but as a result of biodiversity losses, the degradation of ecosystem services in areas under agriculture is becoming of greater concern.
 Environment-friendly agriculture, including organic farming and farming with reduced agrochemical use, is likely sustainable, but has a problem with agricultural productivity. It was pointed out that if agricultural production is insufficient for human needs, more conversion to farmlands may occur, causing a greater threat to wildlife. On the other hand, biodiversity in agricultural areas is well-known to strongly depend on landscape structure in/around farmlands. For example, species diversity generally increases with increasing degrees of heterogeneity in landscape patterns (mosaic landscapes). Thus, biodiversity is expected to increase in agricultural areas by strategically designing farmland development and the appropriate management of landscapes around farmlands. It is also suggested that the effectiveness of environment-friendly practices in agriculture for biodiversity conservation may be improved by taking regional landscape structure into account and/or by introducing appropriate local landscape management.
 This workshop reports several efforts to provide for the compatibility of agricultural production and biodiversity conservation in Asian countries, and presents case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of environment-friendly farming and rural landscape structure to conserve wildlife diversity. Based on these reports, we discuss what sustainable agriculture should be to promote harmony with wildlife in Monsoon Asia.

Conveners

Koji Yasuda(NIAES)
Hiroaki Ikeda(NIAES)

Program (Click lecture titles to download the PDF files)

  1. Keynote and Overview
    Session Chair Time Topic Speaker  Affiliation 
    Akihiro Konuma (NIAES) 10:00-11:00 (Keynote) FAO's Regional Rice Initiative: Sustainable management of the multiple goods and services derived from rice production landscapes in Asia [PDF] / Slides [PDF] Alma Linda M Abubakar FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand
    Jan Willem Ketelaar FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand
    Naoki Minamiguchi FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand
    11:00-11:50 (Overview) Dual values for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes [PDF] / Slides [PDF] Tadashi Miyashita and Masaru Tsutsui The University of Tokyo, Japan
  2. Lunch    11:50-13:20
  3. Country report: Part 1
    Session Chair Time Topic Speaker  Affiliation 
    Yoshinobu Kusumoto (NIAES) 13:20-14:00 Effects of environmentally friendly farming and multi-scale environmental factors on generalist predators in rice paddy ecosystems of Japan [PDF] Yuki Baba NIAES, Japan
    14:00-14:40 The current study for the management and restoration of paddy ecosystem to enhance biodiversity in Korea [PDF] / Slides [PDF] Myung-Hyun Kim National Academy of Agricultural Science, Republic of Korea
    L.J. Choi National Academy of Agricultural Science, Republic of Korea
    S.K. Choi National Academy of Agricultural Science, Republic of Korea
    J.U. Eo National Academy of Agricultural Science, Republic of Korea
    M.S. Han National Academy of Agricultural Science, Republic of Korea
    H.S. Bang National Academy of Agricultural Science, Republic of Korea
  4. Coffee break    14:40-15:10
  5. Country report: Part 2
    Session Chair Time Topic Speaker  Affiliation 
    Satoru Okubo (NIAES) 15:10-15:50 Perspective on improving landscape managements for biodiversity conservation and sustainable production in China [PDF] / Slides [PDF] Yunhui Liu China Agricultural University, China
    15:50-16:30 Environment friendly agriculture and organic agriculture in Vietnam [PDF] / Slides [PDF] Ho Thi Thu Giang Vietnam National University of Agriculture, Vietnam
  6. General Discussion   16:30-17:00(Chair: Koji Yasuda & Hiroaki Ikeda (NIAES))

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