LOS BAÑOS, Laguna — Cash prizes and regional recognition await photographers who can capture how food reaches the table, as the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest enters its final weeks.
The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) said the top winner will receive $1,000, second place $800, third place $500 and the SEARCA Center Director’s Choice $500. Winners will also receive certificates.
The deadline for submission of entries is on Sept. 30 at 11:59 p.m. (GMT+8). It is open to all Southeast Asian nationals, including Filipinos. Entries must be submitted through photocontest.searca.org/2026.
This year’s theme, “Food for All, Food for the Future,” asks photographers to look beyond the finished meal and document the people and systems behind it — those who grow, handle, protect, move, sell, prepare and share food.
Stories behind food
SEARCA said the Philippine food story is written by millions of hands across rice paddies, coconut farms, fishing grounds, upland plots, school and community gardens, public markets, cold storage facilities, delivery routes and urban farms.
The center is calling on photographers to make those systems visible — not only landscapes and produce, but labor, risks, innovations and relationships that keep food nourishing, safe, accessible and resilient.
Suggested subjects include 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; and young people using drones, sensors, mobile apps and other tools.
The contest seeks images with journalistic strength — visually strong, authentic and able to show why a food-system moment matters.
Six sub-themes, unlimited entries
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; and Women in Food and Agriculture.
Contestants may submit unlimited entries, provided each meets official specifications. Photos must be original color JPEGs, at least 3,000 pixels wide for horizontal images or 3,000 pixels tall for vertical images at 300 dpi.
Each entry must include, in English, a brief description of no more than 400 characters, the chosen sub-theme, the place and country where the image was taken and the full date of capture.
SEARCA is stressing authenticity. Artificial intelligence-generated and composited images, misleading staged shots and heavily manipulated photographs are not eligible. Only basic cropping and minor adjustments that do not alter truthfulness are allowed.
Submitted photos must not have won in previous contests, been published elsewhere or been entered in other contests during the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest period.
How entries are judged
Judging will be based on relevance to the theme and sub-theme (40 percent), technical quality (30 percent), and impact, storytelling, authenticity and public communication value (30 percent).
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 said it wants photographers across Southeast Asia to show what it takes to keep food systems nourishing, safe and ready for the future.