Dr. Hang is delighted to be here on behalf of the FAO regional office for Asia and the Pacific, and we are very proud to be partnered with the government of Thailand. In terms of sustainable soil management, Thailand plays a global leadership role as well as regional leadership. For today's meeting, it was a pleasure to see the partners of their network and research community come together and discuss what we can do for sustainable soil management and to bring CESRA into the role of the regional center for excellence in soil management. I would like to introduce you a little bit to whatever you are doing in our new strategic framework and how CESRA is featured in the house like a framework of FAO, whatever you are doing in building partnerships for sustainable soil management at the global level and regional level, as well as how we can continue supporting CESRA to play the role. The first one is to introduce you to the new FAO framework for 2021 and 2030. We are aligning ourselves very strongly with the sustainable development goals of the 2030 sustainable development agenda, so after many years of working on agriculture and food issues, we realize that we need to look at agriculture and food in a systemic way. Moving from production to the whole value change, we move beyond agriculture to look at sustainability, natural resource management, and the issues of nutrition, health, and social goals. This is what we call the food system. So, transforming the whole of agriculture and food production towards agri-food systems is on the global agenda. The UN system food summit in 2021 set and came up with the global agenda for agri-food system transformation.

The FAO's new strategic framework is actually really an angle for real agri-food system transformation for a more efficient, more sustainable food system that is going to help us with what we call the "four betters": better production, better environment, better nutrition, and better life. So around these four betters, we have about 20 program priority areas, and those range from how we are going to apply sustainable production, really reserving and protecting the natural resources, to how we are going to bring nutrition issues into agriculture and food, not just producing cheap food but nutritious food, changing the diet for better health in the global, as well as climate change adaptations and medications in agriculture and food production. In the regions with four betters and 20 priority program areas, we divide four regional priorities. The first priority is really working with the old member countries to transform the agri-food system. The countries have made their commitment as a country pathway for agri-food system transformation in 2021, and FAO is going to work with countries to deliver that pathway for the transformation that is the first regional priority, and that one is covering better production and better nutrition. The second priority is natural resources management, biodiversity, and climate actions; those need to be working on interacting and working together for a better environment, and the third regional priority is supporting the inclusive program transformation for sustainable systems and equitable rural priorities. This is to deal with poverty and increasing inequalities in the regions through agri-food system transformations. The last regional priority is focusing on the Pacific, the small island developing states that are in special need of support, and those 4 priorities actually cover the four betters and 20 priority program areas in the Pacific regions. We are doing these 4 things that we call food for a healthy diet, and when you talk about soil biodiversity and sustainable soil carbon, it’s really for a better environment to achieve climate change medication, adaptive agri-food systems, and biodiversity, and particularly now that we are in the decade of ecosystem restoration.