An RDA staff member talks to local farmers about agricultural technology at The National Centre for Organic Agriculture in Yusipang, Bhutan, on Aug. 31. Courtesy of RDA

By Kim Jae-heun

The Rural Development Administration (RDA) has been accelerating its efforts to help Bhutan and other Asian nations bolster their food security by sharing its advanced agricultural knowledge and experiences, the state-run agricultural research institute said, Wednesday.

RDA has come forward to provide its agricultural technology acquired over 60 years to developing countries in Asia. The agency aims to help them increase food production and improve local farms' incomes based on its Asia Food Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (AFACI).

The AFACI is like a welcome rain after a drought for Asian countries that are facing difficulties improving their agricultural technologies to increase food growth in the country. It is a multilateral consultative body jointly established in 2009 by the RDA and 12 Asian countries including Vietnam. The member nations set regional goals to contribute to improving agricultural productivity and achieve sustainability in the field. So far, about 10 projects have been completed and five are ongoing.

As the AFACI's achievements gain recognition throughout the region, non-member countries are showing increasing interest. There were a total of 13 member countries, including Bangladesh, Bhutan and Cambodia, but Uzbekistan joined the multilateral consultative body as of this year and Pakistan has also asked about the membership procedures recently.

Looking at the major achievements of the AFACI's completed projects, its "Agricultural Meteorological Information Production and Service," published in a report by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was pointed out as an example of global climate change R&D excellence. It is the RDA's very first accomplishment reported to the U.N.

Under the project, the RDA not only provided its technology to the member nations, but also shared its collected and analyzed agricultural weather information, as well as weather observation equipment, to minimize damage from the climate crisis in Asia.

In addition, the consultative body also aided the food safety management systems of member countries through the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) project. The RDA supported GAP production technologies for the representative exports of agricultural products of member nations. For Bangladesh these products included tomatoes and mangoes, and for Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, they included peppers and mangoes.

Member countries were able to expand crop exports through agricultural quality management, which helped increase local farms' income at the same time. The Philippines more than doubled its income after harvesting taro leaves compared to when it only farmed rice.