Countries in the Asia-Pacific region have launched an online platform to showcase their priority agricultural products and raise international awareness of their unique qualities to upscale their marketability, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced today.

The Regional Knowledge Platform on FAO’s One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) Initiative to support the transformation of agrifood systems in Asia and the Pacific was launched during the FAO Asia-Pacific Symposium on Agrifood Systems Transformation, a hybrid event in Bangkok, Thailand.

This country-led initiative stimulates the sustainable value chain development and market opportunities of Special Agricultural Products (SAPs). SAPs have unique qualities and special characteristics associated with geographical locations, farming practices and cultural heritages. Integration of green innovations on SAPs can bring about resilience and sustainability, and increase their direct or indirect contribution in improving food security and nutrition and provide an entry point for food systems transformation.

Advocating and promoting the diversification and integration of agrifood systems, the OCOP initiative is a five-year plan (2021-2025), launched by the FAO Director-General in 2021.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the OCOP initiative was launched with Ministers and key partners in May of this year. Countries in the Asia and the Pacific have rich experience in SAP’s development and expressed strong desire to share knowledge on their SAP development approaches and innovations, such as One Village One Product, Geographical Indications, Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and others.

OCOP – a country led and country driven initiative

Responding to the needs and requests of FAO’s Members, and in order to promote knowledge sharing on innovative solutions and showcase their success stories, the Regional Knowledge Platform on OCOP aims to share technical, policy, socio-economic, financial and institutional innovations that strengthen the sustainable development of SAPs, promote exchanges and prepare the sectors to take advantage of, and shape, new opportunities presented by agrifood systems transformation.

As the OCOP initiative is country-inclusive, product-inclusive, value chain-inclusive and stakeholder-inclusive, FAO encourages Governments, academia, private sector and all stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific to actively exchange knowledge, disseminate innovations through the Regional Knowledge Platform on OCOP, and ultimately work together in partnership to accelerate transformation of their agrifood systems.

OCOP – contributing to an agrifood systems transformation in Asia and the Pacific

This Regional OCOP Platform launch coincides with a high level event during the FAO Asia-Pacific Symposium on Agrifood Systems Transformation, in hybrid format, in Bangkok. The Symposium brought together Agriculture Ministers from across the region, private sector, civil society, academia and others, and included participation by FAO’s Director-General.

The Symposium is the world’s first follow-up to last year’s UN Food Systems Summit, where world leaders pledged to urgently re-tool our global agrifood systems that failed so obviously during the pandemic and have faced further setbacks by climate change, conflicts and disasters in the region. Transforming the region’s agricultural and food systems will underpin acceleration not just for alleviating hunger, but also poverty and inequalities.