The 13th Annual Meeting of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Working Group on Agriculture (WGA) held in Da Nang in July 2016 acknowledged the need for developing a strategy and action plan for promoting safe and environment-friendly agro-based value chains in the GMS. An outline of the strategy and action plan was submitted for notation at the 21st GMS Ministerial Meeting in December 2016. In October 2016, the WGA established the Strategy Drafting Committee responsible for preparing the strategy and action plan through national and regional consultations. During January and February 2017, seven national consultations were held in the GMS countries. The WGA secretariat provided technical support to the Drafting Committee. The strategy and action plan includes policy, institutional, and investment measures that contribute to the achievement of the Core Agriculture Support Program Phase II (CASP2) vision of the GMS becoming recognized as a leading producer of safe food using environment-friendly agricultural practices and integrated into global markets through regional economic corridors.
The proposed strategy and action plan will intensify efforts to connect the supply chains of safe and environment-friendly agriculture products (SEAP) from the inputs, farm production, processing, marketing, and distribution levels to the consumer markets at domestic, regional, and global levels. These efforts will also provide the guideposts for enhancing market access of environment-friendly agricultural products produced in the GMS.
