LOS BAÑOS, Philippines — The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) has launched the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest, turning its lens on the future of food in Southeast Asia under the theme “Food for All, Food for the Future.”
For two decades now, the SEARCA Photo Contest has invited photographers across Southeast Asia to look closely at agriculture and rural life—not only as fields and harvests, but as people, labor, knowledge, culture, innovation, and hope.
In this milestone edition, SEARCA calls on both professional and amateur photographers from across the region to capture the many hands and systems that bring food from farms, fishing grounds, gardens, laboratories, roads, markets, kitchens, schools, and communities to the plate.
Entries will be accepted through the official SEARCA Photo Contest website from 16 July to 30 September 2026, until 11:59 p.m. (GMT+8).
Food systems in focus
SEARCA emphasizes that food begins long before it reaches the table. It is grown, harvested, transported, processed, protected, sold, prepared, shared, and sustained by farmers, fishers, vendors, researchers, innovators, families, and communities.
Through this year’s theme, SEARCA urges photographers to tell the fuller story of food systems in Southeast Asia—how food is made available, kept safe, made nutritious, moved across places, adapted to climate realities, and secured for future generations.
The 20th SEARCA Photo Contest also aligns with SEARCA’s 12th Five-Year Development Plan: Sustainable Transformation of Agricultural Systems through Innovation in Southeast Asia (SUSTAIN Southeast Asia), which advances the sustainable transformation of agricultural systems through innovation. The theme reflects the Center’s commitment to food and nutrition security, inclusive livelihoods, resilient communities, and stronger agricultural systems across the region.
Guide themes for photographers
This year’s contest seeks images that go beyond plated meals or standard harvest scenes. To spark the imagination of photographers, SEARCA has identified six guide 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
These are not fixed categories but creative prompts that give photographers the freedom to frame their own visual stories of how food systems in Southeast Asia nourish communities and prepare for the future.
Contest mechanics and eligibility
The contest is open to all Southeast Asian nationals, except SEARCA staff and their immediate family members. Contestants may submit any number of entries, provided that each entry meets the contest specifications.
Photos must be original, digital, colored, in JPEG format, and must not have won in previous contests, been published elsewhere, or been submitted to other contests during the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest period. Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated, AI-composited, misleading staged, or heavily manipulated images are not eligible.
Entries will be judged based on relevance to the theme and guide theme, technical quality, impact, storytelling, authenticity, and public communication value.
Prizes and recognition
The contest will award four winners:
- First Prize – USD 1,000
- Second Prize – USD 800
- Third Prize – USD 500
- SEARCA Center Director’s Choice – USD 500
Each winner will also receive a certificate.
Winning photos and selected finalists may be featured in SEARCA’s physical and online galleries, website, social media platforms, newsletters, publications, exhibitions, publicity materials, and knowledge products on food systems, nutrition, resilience, innovation, and inclusive agricultural development.
Call for entries
For its milestone year, the SEARCA Photo Contest calls on photographers to help tell Southeast Asia’s food story—one rooted in people, carried by systems, and directed toward a future where safe, nutritious, affordable, and sustainable food is within everyone’s reach.
Photographers across Southeast Asia are invited to turn their lenses toward the region’s food future and submit their entries by 30 September 2026.
For more details, visit the official SEARCA Photo Contest website or email the SEARCA Photo Contest Secretariat at .