Transformation towards Sustainable Agriculture, Rural Communities, and Ecosystems: Reviewing Global Trends and Local Realities Based on Interdisciplinary Approaches: Part 2

Abstract

Asami commended a hybrid symposium being held for the first time in three years after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Taniguchi referred to the MeaDRI strategy established by the Japanese government and the importance of social science contributions. Both underlined the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to tackle the current socio-economic challenges. Throughout the symposium, Maharjan served as chair and Masuda and Sekine as moderators. Concept of the SymposiumRecently, key issues such as the sustainability of agriculture, rural communities, and ecosystems; food and welfare security of producers, local community, and consumers; agrobiodiversity; and landscape features face significant challenges due to climate change, globalization, urbanization, and environmental degra-dation. To respond to this crisis of the agri-food system as well as the entire society, the governments, business circle, grassroots farmers, and civil society promote various alternative solutions such as agroecology, farm diversification, climate resilient agriculture, digitalization, and precision agriculture. The global north (e.g., Japan, the US, and EU) declared their short-and long-term strategies to make the current agri-food system ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable since 2019. For example, the UN Food Systems Summit of 2021 was part of these initiatives. However, global farmers and civil society groups firmly contest the way in which these initiatives promote and claim that ecological farming, localized food systems, and the associated traditional knowledge of farmers, including small-scale family farmers and indigenous peoples as the guardians of resource conservation, deserve to be heard and placed in the center of the debate.To learn from global research trends, this symposium invites three experts of participatory guarantee systems, digital farming and on-farm diversification, and resilience of small-scale farmers to present concepts, related studies, policies, debates, and controversies. These issues build on the last year's topics of agroecology, small-scale farmers and organic farming, and climate smart agriculture. Dwelling on their rich