The APEC Climate Center (APCC) held the 2017 APEC Climate Symposium with Vietnam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) and the National Hydro-Meteorological Service of Viet Nam (NHMS) in Can Tho, Viet Nam from August 18 to 20, 2017. The theme of this year’s symposium, reflecting one of the most central concerns of 21st Century, is Building Resilient Agro-Food Systems from Production to Consumption: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Sustainable Food Security Using Climate Information.

This event sought to bring together climate and agriculture experts of the Asia-Pacific region to share technical information, explore the climate-sensitivity of agro-food systems and promote interdisciplinary discussion on solutions for a food-secure future.

Dr. Hong-Sang Jung, the Executive Director of APCC, gave the Opening Remarks, Nguyen Linh Ngoc, the Vice Minister of MONRE, gave the Welcome Speech at the Opening Ceremony for the symposium on August 18, 2017.

Keynote presentations about Fortifying Food Security with *Climate-Smart Food Systems followed. Dr. Senthold Asseng, a professor of University of Florida, and Dr. James Hansen, a senior research scientist of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University (IRI) provided an overview of global and regional issues of food security threatened by climate change and addressed strategies to help climate-proof food supply chains.

There were four sessions in this year’s symposium. The first session was about Increasing Sustainable Agricultural Production using Climate Information. This session focused on the opportunities and challenges for the utilization of climate information to increase agricultural production and help build food security.

The second session, Beyond Growth: Building Resilient Post-Production Food System, explored the vulnerabilities of *value chains to climactic variation and investigated how promoting climate resilience through the use of climate information can enhance food security.

The third session focused on Large-Scale Holistic Approaches to Climate Risk Management. In this session, success cases to implement climate-related risk management measures at different scales were introduced and discussed. Then, a wrap-up and panel discussion followed during the final session

The symposium was recognized as a resounding success, bringing together a diverse range of participants to meet a complex and global challenge. Dr. Hong-Sang Jung, the Executive Director of APCC, said “The problem of food production being damaged by an abnormal climate induced by climate change is not limited to a local shortage of food; localized disruptions in food production have serious implications for the world as a whole. This year’s symposium thus presented a critical opportunity for Asian-Pacific Nations to come together and discuss the use of climate information to stabilize food supply and construct food-secure systems for the region and globe.” at the closing ceremony.

Each year since 2005, APCC has hosted the APEC Climate Symposium in partnership with the APEC Host Economy, aiming to improve the capability of handling issues related to climate change and invigorate international climate science networks.