From rice paddies, coconut farms, fishing grounds, and upland plots to school and community gardens, public markets, cold storage, delivery routes, and urban farms, the Philippine food story is written by millions of hands before a meal reaches the table.
LOS BAÑOS, Philippines — The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) has opened the milestone 20th SEARCA Photo Contest under the theme “Food for All, Food for the Future.” The competition runs until 30 September 2026 and is open to all Southeast Asian nationals, including Filipinos.
This year’s contest asks photographers to look at food long before it reaches the plate. SEARCA wants images that reveal the people and systems that grow, handle, protect, move, sell, prepare, and share food—and that show what it takes to keep those systems nourishing, safe, accessible, resilient, and ready for the future.
SEARCA is calling on Filipino photographers to document those hands—and the systems around them. Entries can show farmers adapting to heat, drought, floods, or storms; fishers protecting catch quality; women leading food enterprises; cooperatives sorting and packing produce; vendors keeping food safe; families growing and sharing nutritious food; or young people using drones, sensors, mobile apps, and other tools. The contest seeks images with journalistic force: photographs that are visually strong, authentic, and able to communicate why a food-system moment matters.
Photographs may be entered under six sub-themes:
- Nourishing Families and Communities
- Markets, Movement, and Access
- Safe Food, Healthy Lives
- Innovation for Future Food Security
- Climate-Ready Food Systems
- Women in Food and Agriculture
Contestants may submit an unlimited number of entries, provided each photograph meets the official specifications. Entries must be original color JPEG photographs and must be at least 3,000 pixels wide for horizontal images or 3,000 pixels tall for vertical images at 300 dpi.
Each submission must include, in English, a brief photo description of no more than 400 characters, the chosen sub-theme, the place and country where the image was taken, and the complete date it was taken.
SEARCA is placing strong emphasis on authenticity. AI-generated and AI-composited images, misleading staged images, and heavily manipulated photographs are not eligible. Only basic cropping and minor adjustments that do not alter the truthfulness of the image are allowed. Submitted photographs must not have won in previous contests, been published elsewhere, or been entered in other contests during the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest period.
Entries will be judged on relevance to the theme and sub-theme (40 percent), technical quality (30 percent), and impact, storytelling, authenticity, and public communication value (30 percent). The first prize winner will receive USD 1,000; second prize, USD 800; third prize, USD 500; and the SEARCA Center Director’s Choice, USD 500. Winners will also receive certificates.
Entries must be submitted through the official SEARCA Photo Contest website no later than 30 September 2026, 11:59 p.m. (GMT+8). Contestants are advised to read the complete guidelines before uploading their photographs.
Contest details and submission portal: https://photocontest.searca.org/2026
Now in its 20th year, the SEARCA Photo Contest has become a regional platform for visual storytelling on agriculture and rural development. For its milestone edition, SEARCA is asking photographers across Southeast Asia to make the food system visible—not only its landscapes and produce, but also its labor, risks, innovations, relationships, and possibilities.