LIRNEasia hosted a Workshop to discuss the policy level implications and business level possibilities of using ICTs to reduce transaction costs in the agricultural value chain as well as to improve traceability and enhance quality of products sold. The Workshop brought together key stakeholders consisting of policy makers, private and public sector participants and researchers, both in agriculture and ICT. It was based on the pilot projects conducted by LIRNEasia in 2007, which was discussed in detail at the Workshop.

All presentations made at the Workshop can be found below:
Traceability: International Perspective – Visoot Phongsathorn

Linking Sri Lankan farmers to global markets – Dr. Harsha de Silva

Traceability in agricultural markets – Shamistra Soysa

Benefits of ICT applications to farmers with emphasis on transaction costs: experiences from India – Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar

Cost of information in agriculture markets – Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara

Using ICTs to create efficient agricultural markets – Dr. Harsha de Silva

The ‘original’ Mission Statement is:

“To improve the lives of the people of Asia by facilitating their use of information and communication technologies; by catalyzing the reform of the laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses; by building Asia-based human capacity through research, training, consulting and advocacy”

After the Kandalama discussions, two options are currently on the table for comment and discussion. Some kind of closure on this is required by the 23 July 2007, so LIRNEasians are invited to provide feedback by such time. The two options are as follows (but please do see the summary of the discussion here, plus the previous discussion on the Mission from November 2004):

Option 1:

“To improve the lives of the people of the Asia Pacific by facilitating their use of information, communication and related technologies; by catalyzing the reform of the laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses; , by conducting high quality policy-relevant research, by building capacity of current and potential policy actors and by proactively intervening in the policy process”

Option 2:

“To improve the lives of the people of the Asia Pacific by facilitating their use of ICTs and related infrastructure; by catalyzing the reform of the laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses, by conducting high quality policy-relevant research, by building capacity of current and potential policy actors and by proactively intervening in the policy process”

In addition, LIRNEasia is considering adopting a Vision Statement; the Kandalama discussion can be summed up as follows:

We should develop a Vision statement for internal purposes; it should be an internal distillation of LIRNEasia’s values, a ‘timeless beacon’ which gives us a future identity (versus the Mission, which tells us why the Vision will be achieved). Our vision should emphasize commitment to the public interest: example: “to become the foremost public interest research and capacity building organization in the region.” Feedback is invited on the to