[29 Jul 17] One of the meeting held during the ONES 2017 (Organic and Natural Expo and Symposium) was the inagural meeting of representatives from natioanal organic agriculture associaitons from 8 countries, i.e. Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mynamar, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The meeting concluded with the founding of the ASEAN Organic Federation.
The Federation has one member from each countries (exception could be accepted in some case), and the members must be national association of private sectors for organic business.
The meeting also discussed possible collaborations in 3 areas, (a) market and supply chain of organic products, (b) policies, standards, and certification recognitions, and (c) sector development. The meeting elected Mr. Vitoon Panyakul, representative from the Thai Organic Trade Association (TOTA), as interim convenor.
Based on primary survey, members of the Federation works with over 12,000 organic farmers and their combined business on organic trade was over US$ 14,500 million, of which over US$ 10,000 million was their export business.
