The 1st IDRC-SEARCA Annual Fellowship Plus Conference-Workshop on the theme, “Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture Development in the Uplands: Challenges and Opportunities” was the first of a series of three annual fellowship plus conference-workshops funded under the 3-year project of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) titled, Upland Agriculture Fellowships for Southeast Asia Project which is being implemented by SEARCA from 2012 to 2015. The annual fellowship conference/workshops hope to build the fellows’ knowledge through lectures and paper presentations by experts, encourage informal networking to develop a sense of community among IDRC fellowship recipients, share experiences among themselves as fellows, give them the opportunity to meet experts, and provide first-hand experience of the real situation in the uplands through site visits.
The 1st IDRC-SEARCA fellowship conference-workshop aimed to highlight the current issues/challenges facing upland agricultural areas in SE Asia; illustrate the role played by research and extension in addressing concerns of food insecurity in the uplands; discuss methodologies in assessing food and nutritional security across countries in the region that may be used by the scholars in their respective researches; and provide the opportunity for the scholars to present their research proposals/projects; and visit an upland project site in the Philippines.
