Searca Photo Contest

Food begins long before it reaches the plate. It moves through fields, waters, gardens, markets, kitchens, storage rooms, transport routes, laboratories, and community spaces. It is grown, handled, protected, moved, sold, prepared, and shared by many hands.

Themed “Food for All, Food for the Future,” the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest invites Southeast Asian photographers to capture the people and systems that keep food nourishing, safe, accessible, resilient, and ready for the future.

This 20th edition marks a milestone in SEARCA’s visual storytelling on agriculture and rural development. For two decades, the contest has shown the labor, beauty, urgency, and hope of agriculture across the region. This year, it asks a timely question: how do we ensure food for all today while building food systems fit for tomorrow?

For its milestone year, the contest calls on photographers to help tell Southeast Asia’s food story—one that is rooted in people, carried by systems, and directed toward a future where safe, nutritious, and sustainable food is within everyone’s reach.

Nourishing Families and Communities
Families and communities growing, preparing, and sharing nutritious food

Markets, Movement, and Access
Markets, transport systems, cooperatives, and vendors making food accessible

Safe Food, Healthy Lives
Safe food handling, processing, storage, packaging, and preparation

Innovation for Future Food Security
Innovations that improve how food is produced, processed, distributed, or monitored

Climate-Ready Food Systems
Climate-ready farming, fisheries, and food system practices

Women in Food and Agriculture
Women sustaining food systems as farmers, fishers, processors, vendors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and leaders

1. Eligibility

The 20th SEARCA Photo Contest is open to all Southeast Asian nationals, except SEARCA staff and their immediate family members.

2. Submission Period and Platform

Entries must be submitted through the official SEARCA Photo Contest website from 16 July to 30 September 2026, 11:59 p.m. (GMT+8).

3. Entry Specifications and Certification

A contestant can submit an unlimited number of entries as long as they meet the photo contest specifications.

Contestants must certify that:

They own the submitted photographs and allow SEARCA to use them, with proper credit, in knowledge products, advocacy materials, publications, exhibits, and digital platforms.
The photographs are original, have not won in previous contests, have not been published elsewhere, and have not been submitted to other contests during the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest period.
The same or similar photos submitted to past SEARCA photo contests will not be resubmitted.
The photos are real photographs and have not been digitally altered, manipulated, composited, or enhanced beyond basic cropping and minor adjustments that do not change the truthfulness of the image.
AI-generated images, AI-composited images, misleading staged images, and heavily manipulated photographs are not eligible.
In case the photograph contains an identifiable child/minor subject, the child’s parent/guardian has given consent/permission (written or verbal) to use the photograph for the purposes deemed appropriate by SEARCA.

4. Photo Format Requirements

Entries must be digital, colored, in JPEG format, and at least 3,000 pixels wide for horizontal images or 3,000 pixels tall for vertical images at 300 dpi.

5. Entry Information Details

Each entry must include the following details in English:

Photographer’s full name, age range, and sex at birth
Photographer’s country of citizenship
Photographer’s professional status
Brief description of the photo (maximum of 400 characters)
Sub-theme entered
Place where the photo was taken, including country
Complete date photo was taken

6. Judging Criteria

Photos will be judged based on:

Relevance to the theme and sub-theme	40%
Technical quality	30%
Impact, storytelling, authenticity, and public communication value	30%
TOTAL	100%