Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture

AMCHAM Membership Meeting: Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture  

On Sept 23, AMCHAM hosted AMCHAM Membership Meeting: Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture, with presentations organized by the Food & Agri-Business Committee. The meeting was attended by over 50 registrants and began with AMCHAM Board Governor, Tibor Pandi, presenting Chamber business and future endeavors. This meeting was particularly important for AMCHAM members as candidates running for the Board of Governors 2020-2021  were announced by Nominations Committee Chair, Heather Suksem, to be decided by membership vote. This year we have 12 candidates running for the Board with seven positions.  

After the announcement, AMCHAM Food and Agriculture Business Committee Co-Chair Alan Adcock introduced guest speakers Christy Owen, Chief of Party for USAID Green Invest Asia and Claire Pribula, Managing Director, Asia Pacific for The Yield Lab, who highlighted opportunities for sustainable agriculture in Thailand and regionally, and provided insights through their presentations how two very different organizations - USAID Green Invest Asia and The Yield Lab Asia Pacific (YLAP) - are catalyzing investment and innovation in sustainable land use.  

Christy spoke about the different projects that USAID is working on with the private sector to empower communities and nations to become self-reliant through sustainable agriculture. Claire spoke about the existing food gap, supply chain challenges, and the great balance that the world needs to achieve in order to sustainably feed 9.6 billion people by 2050. Both Covid-19 and the accelerating global climate change has led to 256 m people facing food insecurity. There is a need to drive inefficiencies out of agriculture industry and align stakeholders in the world’s future to deliver transformative innovation. 

The session was followed by a question and answer session with AMCHAM’s members with questions that focused on regional challenges, Thailand’s capability, talent, and expertise in driving green investment.