19th – 21st November 2015 in Beijing, China
Wallapa van Willenswaard, Hans van Willenswaard, Suan Ngen Mee Ma social enterprise’s green project team and TOA delegate from Vietnam attended the 6th URGENCI International Symposium held in conjunction with the 7th Chinese national CSA Conference (CSA is Community Supported Agriculture). The symposium seeked to highlight the phenomenon of “Rural Regeneration” and focus attention on CSA’s potential in mitigating both climate issues and food insecurity. Rural Regeneration is attracting young, highly-qualified urban dwellers back to the land, bringing new energy and inspiration to rural areas that have been abandoned and depressed.
Firstly, Professor Wen Tiejun, (China), Elizabeth Henderson (USA) and Andre Leu, (Australia) presented the reason for CSA becoming a classic model for supporting organic agriculture.The convener of the conference was Shi An, the founder of Shared Harvest in China and she joined for TOA in Thailand in 2013. The CSA model can build up good health and resilience, empowering communities of humans, animals,micro-organisms. Another presentation on the second day was in the topic of‘People Care, Regenerating Farming and New Generation of Peasants & Agroecology’. CSA gives existing farms means to regenerate and also allows new people to devote their lives to farming with community supports. For consumers who have lost a confidence in healthy food supply, CSA provides connections to trust farmers who grow food products with respect to the laws of Mother Earth.
The last day was URGENCI Allies presentation under the topic Fair Share and Regenerating the Economy.Group workshops were organized throughout the 3-day conference on many topics of CSA; natural sciences and CSA, CSA group network development and CSA and international advocacy. The next URGENCI Asia meeting is planned in parallel with the next Mindful Markets Forum in 2016.
Furthermore, the conference organizer offered a field trip study on 17th-18th November 2015 before the conference. Several CSA farms and Green shops in Beijing welcomed conference participants by giving well information and demonstration. And also, Suan Nguen Mee Ma also published the book of Elizabeth Henderson in title: Sharing the Harvest: A citizen’s guide to Community Supported Agriculture in Thai language.
Towards Organic Asia 