The eleventh Annual Meeting of the Asian and Pacific Network for Testing of Agricultural Machinery (ANTAM) was held from 3 to 5 December 2024 in Kathmandu, co-organized by the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization (CSAM) of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP); the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC); and the Nepal Agricultural Engineering Research Centre (NAERC).

Dr. Govinda Prasad Sharma, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development of Nepal; Dr. Doj Raj Khanam, Executive Director and Principal Scientist of the Nepal Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Shreemat Shrestha, ANTAM Chair for 2024, Director of the National Agricultural Research Institute and Chief of National Agriculture Engineering Research Centre of Nepal; together with CSAM in representation of the ANTAM Secretariat, welcomed delegates from 19 of the 20 ANTAM participating countries. The meeting unanimously elected Bhutan and Türkiye as Chair and Vice Chair for 2025, respectively.

Following the opening ceremony, ANTAM delegates visited an exhibition featuring small-scale agricultural machinery displayed by private sector suppliers. For the first time the Annual Meeting was also attended in person by delegates from authorities in charge of standards and accreditation. During the exhibition, they held a preliminary session that included an overview of the ANTAM initiative and a presentation on trade benefits of mutual recognition of test reports, and during which they discussed with their respective National Focal Points on the way forward for the development of a mutual recognition system for the test reports, and the adoption of ANTAM Codes at the national level.

During the plenary session of the Annual Meeting, the authorities in charge of standards and accreditation presented their efforts for adopting and/or aligning national codes to the ANTAM harmonized codes. The Meeting adopted a roadmap for the establishment of a task force/expert group that will be consulted for facilitating national level adoption of the Codes (if applicable); advise and recommend terms for the mutual recognition system, to be convened in 2025.

The Annual Meeting approved common items developed for all the ANTAM Codes in the sections on Engine performance, Noise measurements, and Vibration measurements. Following the presentation on common items, the Chairs of the Technical Working Groups on Power Tillers, Mini Tillers, Misters-cum-Dusters, Paddy Transplanters, and Combine Harvesters presented their respective Technical Working Groups’ (TWG) work on Codes’ development and the meeting adopted the Codes’ versions of 2024 along with the updated ANTAM procedures. The meeting also reviewed the results of the power tiller interlaboratory round-robin tests conducted in five member countries to ensure consistency of test reports, gave guidance on the accreditation of testing stations in the Network, and agreed on the development of video tutorials for the performance of the test Codes.