Sonny Pasiona (ELP 2024) | Program Specialist, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), Philippines

Molave is a native tree found in the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. It is known for its durability and use in ornamental purposes and wood furniture. It is also a recommended afforestation species for marginal uplands.

At the University of the Philippines Los Baños campus, where I studied and am currently working, several Molave trees stand tall as symbols of resilience and strength. This tree, with its deep roots and solid foundation, has weathered decades of harsh conditions. My institution, the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), adopted a logo in 1966 to feature a Molave tree intertwined with grain stalks and panicles that symbolize unity and food productivity. The logo brings to mind innovation, resilience, and sustainability in Southeast Asian agriculture.

(Left: The SEARCA logo and the SDGs where we are contributing through our programs.)

Inspired by Molave's qualities and SEARCA’s legacy of empowering the next-generation agricultural leaders, I envision a community-centered food systems leadership program – one that brings together stakeholders from various levels of the food system, from grassroots participants to high-level decision-makers.

The food system is so complex and is confronted by economic, health, and environmental concerns such as climate change. To navigate these challenges, we need collaborative leaders who are systems thinkers, capable of transformative changes in the communities that can be scaled up. As a learning and development specialist at SEARCA, I realized that despite extensive training in leadership and technical aspects of the food system, there remains a gap between acquiring knowledge and translating said knowledge into impactful, on-the-ground actions.

What if we bridge the gap by uniting food system actors? What if insights, through food systems analysis, are informed directly by farming communities? What if food systems analysis informed by farming communities could guide policymakers to propose and implement enabling policies for the local food system? What if a farming or marketing innovation by academic researchers banks on the actual needs and capacities of local farmers?

I have always believed that no one has a monopoly on knowledge. We should always strive to democratize knowledge. We need to drive efforts to make knowledge accessible, not only for academics and high-level decision-makers, but even more   for those at the grassroots level. What if we deliberately design a program that would see learning through action?

Using Participatory Action and Learning (PAL) as an approach, I envision the co-creation of knowledge and solutions as a guiding principle for designing learning activities for food system stakeholders. This program puts farmers and community members at the heart of the learning intervention, empowering them as knowledge co-creators, and ensuring that development interventions and policies are well-informed and context-specific. Imagine a learning journey where all actors in the food system are engaged in understanding their needs, exploring opportunities, and charting actionable steps to address food system challenges specific to their community. Imagine having research results applied to the community context, where learning is not only shared in high-level and international conferences but truly applied to the needs of our communities around food systems and climate issues.

In this program, we will provide farmers, community members, local government officers, civil society advocates, and private sector representatives to collaborate in an enabling learning environment. By co-analyzing the "roots" of food sustainability issues as food system actors, they would co-create knowledge and co-own innovative solutions for climate-resilient and future-ready local food systems.

Certainly, several learning and development interventions on each level and component of food systems are already in place. But, I believe that designing a collaborative and community-centered food system leadership program can make learning more meaningful and impactful for all involved. Just like the Molave tree, I hope to see food system actors rooted in strong foundations, growing a culture of collaborative learning and action, and collectively driving a resilient, inclusive, and sustainable food system – one community at a time.

(Over coffee and local food, Sonny (right) listens to a group of women farmers as stakeholders of a Climate-Smart Villages (CSV) project in preparation for a CSV roving workshop, a training program implemented by SEARCA and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR)