This regional synthesis addresses a major gap in knowledge about the effects of COVID-19 on agriculture and food across Asia • Key informants from 20 Asian countries assessed early direct and indirect effects on each of four major regional farming and food systems • The analysis showed Asian farming and food systems were moderately resilient to the pandemic, especially the hill mixed system • System resilience, food and labour markets, and farm and food chain economic benefits are key priorities for recovery policies and programmes • This study highlights COVID-19 effects and informs recovery policies and precautionary strategies against future pandemics in Asia and globally

Mushroom farming has become attractive business in agricultural sector due to its simplicity and flexibility of cultivation and quite profitable. Health awareness of Indonesian people about mushroom gives a positive impact to mushroom business. Behind the good aspects, several evidence argued that production performance of mushroom business is not optimal related to less capacity and deficiently appropriate knowledge. This paper aims to learn the unique strategy and innovation from local mushroom enterprise which is very famous in Cianjur distric, West Java, Indonesia in order to improve the business performance. Using technological (innovation) approach and qualitative method, this study concluded that there are two types of strategies, one relating to the technological part, and the other relating to the organization part. The technological focuses on attracting market and enhancing the yield productivity. The organization part focuses on developing capacity to fulfill the demand by making a contract agreement resembling contract farming with local society. For local society, the contract agreement has benefit to minimize both market failure and production problems under supervison support and without monopoly action. The strategies were capable of being successful innovation by interacting and cooperating with external sources, and performing certain adjustment with local condition.

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The low quality of Indonesian smallholders’ rubber material has encouraged the government to make a policy to establish Processing and Marketing Units (PMUs). However, after 10 years of running the policy, the number of smallholder rubber farmers who are members of a PMU is still very small, even though by becoming a member of a PMU, farmers’ income increases as a result of rising prices. There have been no studies of the reasons why smallholders have not joined as members of a PMU. Therefore this study tries to discern these reasons and PMUs’ performance. The study population comprised 240 smallholders, half of whom represented PMU members and the other half non-members. These were interviewed to record the smallholders’ reasons to join or not join a PMU in South Sumatera Province, the largest rubber production area in Indonesia. Constraints for smallholders to join a PMU include already having a customer middleman, debt with the middleman, and the distance from the farmer’s house to the middleman’s house. Major supports for smallholders to join a PMU include the rubber material price, easily procured support from the government, and the distance of the farmer’s house. PMUs’ performance did not significantly affect the participation of farmers in becoming or not becoming members. Even though PMUs’ performance was good, the interest of smallholders in becoming PMU members did not increase.

Indonesia's steady economic growth in recent decade has led to a gradual reduction in overall poverty in the country. However, according to The World Bank (2011), 43.3 percent of Indonesians live on less than $2 a day. The majority of those poor live in rural area and earn their primary income from agriculture. Through an in-depth look inside the poor farmer households of the marginal land of South Sumatra, Indonesia, this paper exposes that in spite of being food producers, the farmer households are food insecure. They also do not have adequate income and employment in the area. The natural state of the area and the unequal social order in the country are among the roots of poverty. The Government's role in terms of poverty reduction should be strengthened. The current need of the farmers regarding this issue is the regulation on laborer wage and on the practice of bonded labor and moneylenders.