The 8th session of the Technical Committee (8th TC) of Center for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization (CSAM) was held in Kandy, Sri Lanka, on 23-25 October 2012. The 8th TC was hosted by the Farm Mechanization Research Centre (FMRC) of the Department of Agriculture of the Ministry of Agriculture of Sri Lanka. Participants from 14 member states including Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as representatives from FAO, UNIDO, OECD, ENAMA (Italian farm mechanization body)/ENTAM (European Network of Testing Agricultural Machinery) attended the meeting.

The 8th TC was held against with the renewed mandate of the Centre to promote sustainable agricultural mechanization and green agro-technology transfer for food production in the Asia-Pacific region. UNAPCAEM has been renamed to CSAM effective 1 October 2012, repositioning it to spearhead regional efforts to address the emerging challenges of climate change and regional sustainable development.  

The 8th TC was divided into three thematic discussions on sustainable agricultural mechanization strategy (SAMS), the establishment of the Asian and Pacific Network for Testing Agricultural Machinery (ANTAM), and deliberations on the work report of 2012 and work plan for 2013 of CSAM.

Dr. Ravi Ratnayake, Director of Trade of Investment Division of UNESCAP, and Mr. Asoka Siriwardhana, Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture of Sri Lanka opened the meeting on behalf of ESCAP and the Sri Lankan government. Ms. AI Yuxin, Senior Expert and Officer-in-Charge of CSAM, presented a summary of activities undertaken by the Centre in 2012 and the work plan for 2013.

TC members expressed unanimous support to the work of the Centre in sustainable agricultural mechanization and in promoting the ANTAM (Asian-Pacific Network for Testing Agricultural Machinery) process for the benefit of the whole region. TC members endorsed the work report of 2012 and work plan for 2013. TC members emphasized that communication with respective national designated institutes and higher level policy makers should be strengthened with regular communication of programme activities of the Centre. TC members also appealed for concerted efforts to mobilize financial resources to support substantive projects of the Centre, while tangible results of programme activities need to be delivered. TC members also stressed that consistency of TC representations be maintained for efficient and better coordination. Agreement was reached on the focal area of the work of the Centre in 2013 to launch ANTAM by the year-end.