International conference on agricultural transformation for sustainable food systems

Organiser: Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), ICIMOD and HI-REAP

About the event

The Faculty of Agriculture at Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal, is organizing an international conference on “Agricultural transformation for sustainable food systems” from 2-4 February 2025. This event aims to address the critical challenges faced by agriculture and allied sectors, such as climate change, land degradation, and water scarcity, which threaten their sustainability and productivity. The conference will bring together students, researchers, academics, industry experts, and policymakers to share ideas, exchange knowledge, address pressing challenges, propose policy recommendations, and explore pathways for developing sustainable food systems and a greener future.

As part of this conference, the Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP) under ICIMOD is facilitating a panel discussion on agroecology as a Nature based Solution (NbS) for mountain food systems. This collaboration aligns with ICIMOD’s ongoing efforts to support AFU through capacity-building initiatives, curriculum integration of NbS and organizing workshops and conferences.

Objectives

The specific objectives are to:

• Promote agroecology as an NbS: Highlight the role of agroecological practices in addressing food and nutrition security challenges while ensuring environmental sustainability and biodiversity conservation
• Foster knowledge exchange: Facilitate the sharing of innovative practices, research findings, and policy recommendations to scale up agroecology for sustainable food systems
• Encourage policy and community engagement: Advocate for inclusive policies and community-driven initiatives that integrate agroecology into broader food security and climate resilience strategies

Background

The great majority of mountain people (almost 80% of the population) in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region depend on agriculture for livelihood. Despite the emergence of non-agriculture income sources, agriculture still contributes 18% of the total GDP in the South Asian economy. However, mountain communities, particularly smallholder farmers, are seeing falls in crop diversity, productivity, and food security. Therefore, to tackle the threats to sustainably of HKH agriculture, such as climate change, loss of agrobiodiversity, shift to inorganic practices, declining youth’s interest (outmigration) and feminization with margination of economic stake, there is a need to promote competitive and sustainably productive nature-based solutions (NbS).

Agroecology is an integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems (FAO, 2018). ICIMOD’s HI-REAP programme works to promote Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for socio-ecological resilience and aims for wider adoption and scaling of those solutions.

With an objective to build greener environments and more inclusive and climate-resilient communities in Nepal, we are expanding climate resilient agriculture (CRA) solutions by bringing NbS dimension and agroecological elements.