Indonesian Yusuf Ahmad, Filipino Arturo de Vera Jr., and Thai Hansa Tangmanpoowadol won the top three prizes in the just-concluded Southeast Asia-wide SEARCA Photo Contest 2015 sponsored by the Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA).
The art competition, which had “From Farm to Plate: Smallholders’ Participation in Inclusive Value Chains” as its theme, was open to nationals of the member countries of SEARCA’s mother organization, the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), an inter-government body founded in 1965 to promote education, science, and culture.
Yusuf’s first prize award-winning entry shows a child helping farmers process cocoa in Bambang, South Sulawesi, highlighting how Indonesian farmers controlled cocoa pests which have lowered yields in the past decade. Vera’s entry, which placed second, depicts a fisherman delivering his newly caught fish right in a family’s doorstep in Malabon City, Metro Manila. Hansa won the third prize with his entry showing a woman-farmer harvesting strawberries in the Royal Agriculture Station Angkhang in Chiangmai province, northern Thailand. SEARCA Director Gil C. Saguiguit Jr. said the 2015 edition of the SEARCA photo contest sought “entries that best capture how smallholders participate in the value chain (production, aggregation, processing, and distribution) of fresh produce (crop and livestock), commodities, and handicrafts as a means of promoting agricultural and rural development in Southeast Asia.”