 It's 10 a.m. Bangkok time. So good morning to all of you from Bangkok, but then we also realize you're all joining us some of you at fairly inconvenient hours early in the morning in Europe late in the evening in the Pacific and in the afternoon in other places. Welcome everyone to the launch of the Asia Pacific, one country, one priority program, one priority product program, which has just been launched by FAO last year at the level of headquarters. And today we will be launching this program in the Asia Pacific region. And to do that we have a number of distinguished speakers who will explain to us the importance of this program, the relevance of this program and how it will contribute to AgriFood systems transformation in this region. AgriFood systems transformation is at the center of FAO's mission for the next 10 years and this has been outlined in our strategic framework. And to know more about our work in this region and how one country, one priority product will help us to advance towards the goals of sustainable agriculture food systems transformation and to the SDGs. So I now first invite the assistant director general and regional representative of the FAO office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Mr. Jong Jin Kim. Mr. Kim, over to you. Thank you, Serida. Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen. Very good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and even very good early morning to some colleagues joining from Guam. Greetings to all of you from FAO regional office for Asia and Pacific based in here, Bangkok, Thailand. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to the regional launch event of one country, one product, priority products, or we call it simply OCOP in Asia and the Pacific. I'm very pleased to welcome all of you to the regional launch event of this OCOP. Particularly, I'm honored to witness the very high level ministerial participation in this event today. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation and gratitude to the honorable ministers and the senior officials of member countries, as well as DC mode, ITC, and grow Asia and others for joining us today to share their excellent experiences. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. It is an urgent need to transform agri-food system to become more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable with a view to achieving the sustainable development goals. The Asia and Pacific region has still a high prevalence of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. The funding issue is a parallel increase in overweight and obesity in the region. Though coexistence of triple burden of malnutrition indicates that the current agri-food system failed to deliver sufficient and nutritious foods to meet the healthy diet requirements for everyone. Today, global food supply relies on a few crops and animal products. Indeed, 75% of food currently produced and consumed comes from just 12 species. Low production diversity focusing on carbon-hydrate-dense food contributes to unbalanced diets leading to persistent malnutrition. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the ready for agile agri-food system, while even before that, most staples products produced had already reached their upper yield potential. But the pandemic exacerbated vulnerable food supply chains and food-related logistics and services, which have been severely affecting food security and livelihood, especially among the most vulnerable population. The conflicts in several countries in the region have further jeopardized food security and the prospect of food recovery from the pandemic. When we talk about building back better, we need to use the opportunity to transform agri-food systems to be more efficient, resilient, inclusive, and sustainable. Diversifying agricultural production systems can offer a tangible and affordable solution to those issues. Through the production of specific crops or special agro-products, local food systems can strengthen to increase the availability of foodability, accessibility of diverse and nutritious food, while building resilience to climate change, uncertainties, and conflicts, while increasing farm income and the improving livelihood of local communities and preserving social and cultural traditions. Special agro-products are agricultural products with unique qualities and special characteristics associated with geographic location and farming practices. They are important examples of agricultural products, which contribute to ensuring food security, healthier diet, and improving farmers' livelihood while protecting the environment and biodiversity. The Asia Pacific region has a huge food heritage and diversity, offering a wide range of unique special agro-food with comparative advantages and potentials of integration into high-value domestic and international markets to be competitive, inclusive, profitable, and sustainable. The OCOP One Country One Priority Product initiative has been developed to support FAO member states to transform agri-food systems to become more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. And it's an excellent vehicle through which members can accelerate and showcase the better and green development with their special agro-products. Let's not forget that the birth of OCOP was inspired by One Village, One Product initiative. A local community movement driving rural development and economic revitalization, which originated in Japan in 1979. Many Asian countries adopted this movement and have since developed and diversified their own homegrown models. We would therefore like to build this OCOP upon this already rich foundation. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I want to highlight that OCOP takes a systemic approach to connect production, processing, marketing, and consumption. It intends to provide a holistic framework with a set of innovative and effective solutions to address interlinked challenges that smallholders are facing. Production is the foundation. With no productivity, there can be no competitiveness. Science, technology, innovations, including digitalization are key to improving productivity. We'll hear about the way to do this during this forum today. Connecting production and trade is an important area too. If no connectivity, then difficult to secure profitability. It is important to ensure value addition, access to market, promotion and trade facilitation to be connected with the production of a special agro-product. The smallholder farmers is our primary target. To improve their productivity, competitiveness, and profitability for smallholder farmers, OCOP will focus on identifying, demonstrating, and promoting effective and pro for innovations. And we will hear more about this, including all important financing innovations. I would like to highlight that OCOP is a country-owned country-led initiative. I encourage members to identify a priority product with established country programs and clear gaps requiring technical assistance. We understand that different countries have different priorities. Different environments and different areas for technical assistance. There is no one-size-fits-all for this OCOP. Finally, I look forward to collective efforts from all relevant partners, governments, research institutions, universities, farmers, cooperatives, civil society, private sector. All of them to engage, demonstrate, share knowledge and experiences, and to transfer technologies and innovations for this special agro-product development to help our region and the world achieve the SDGs. Together, we can achieve better production, better nutrition, better environment, and the better life for all living on the island. Thank you very much for your attention. Over to you, Srinu. Thank you, Mr. Kim, for providing that excellent background as we talk about the launch of the OCOP in the Asia-Pacific region. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, and while we have got the program started, we are now approaching almost 200 participants, which outlines the high level of interest in this region. And as a knowledge agency and as a knowledge sharing organization, we encourage you to use this as a forum for providing your expertise and your knowledge and sharing it across the region. While we are going through the webinar, you're more than welcome to introduce yourself on the chat, and I can see many of you are doing that, as well as contribute your ideas and experiences on one country, one priority product, or similar programs that you're aware of and have the knowledge about. We'll be very happy to learn from all the knowledge that is around the table here. At this point, I now invite Ms. Beth Bechtel, the Deputy Director General from OF FAO, who's based in FAO headquarters, who will be giving the opening remarks. She is unable to join us live because of other commitments, but we have a video message from her. So, Secretary, please play the video. Ladies, dear participants, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning and good afternoon to you. It is my pleasure to join you virtually to mark today's important launch event of a special initiative. FAO's Director General, Dr. Choudong Yu, officially launched the green development of special agricultural products, one country, one priority product, now referred to as OCOP in September of 2021. OCOP is a global action, and we are implementing it now in specific regions across the world. In March, we launched in Africa, with an event that was attended by over 1,000 stakeholders, including representatives from FAO members, our country and regional offices, academia and research organizations, civil society, private sector, and resource partners. Today, we launch in Asia Pacific, and it is terrific to see ministers and partners from across South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific all joining today. I would like to congratulate the governments, as well as FAO Regional Assistant Director General JJ Kim and his team for spearheading OCOP in Asia Pacific. OCOP was developed to address the increasingly complex set of challenges faced by small holders and family farms. Our shared and ultimate objective is to contribute to and achieve the UN's sustainable development goals. To get there, to achieve zero hunger, to eliminate poverty, and to address inequalities, we need to produce more, but we need to do it with less. OCOP provides targeted actions to address the barriers to this progress, helping small holders and family farms to develop and advance their enterprises, and ultimately transform their livelihoods. OCOP fits with national and regional priority programs, helping to deliver on the FAO's strategic framework for 2022-2031, and the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agri-food systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. Dear colleagues, this region is especially important. More than 50% of the world's population lives in the Asia Pacific region, where agricultural development and rural livelihoods are a top priority. FAO's core leadership, our resource and development partners, pay close attention to the region, which has a long and rich history of agricultural development. China, India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are considered to be the earliest and largest centers of origin and diversity of cultivated plants. Many plants and crops that have become worldwide favorites come from Asia Pacific. Rice, tea, chickpea, soybeans, buckwheat, radish, cucumber, sugarcane, black pepper, cotton, millet, and fruits such as pears, peaches, plums, and many others. But the potential of many crops grown in the region is still not fully utilized. OCOP is designed to bring opportunities, to develop sustainable food value chains, and to promote selected special agricultural products to regional and international markets. It's important that we all embrace this opportunity and engage together. The success of OCOP depends on our collective support and robust contributions from all stakeholders across regions and across sectors. This means involving researchers, universities, farmers, cooperatives, and private sector entities to demonstrate, to share knowledge and experiences, and to transfer innovations and green technologies. OCOP is a country-led and country-owned initiative. It needs strong government leadership and commitment. Our OCOP secretariat stands ready to initiate this work together and provide support that is needed to successfully implement field projects and other activities. Thank you again to each of you for being with us today. For your interest and your engagement with all of us here at FAO. I look forward to joining efforts with you in the coming months to drive the change that is needed for farmers and rural communities. We thank Deputy Director General Beth Begdahl for those very interesting remarks and for setting the scene as we begin to learn more about the program. And to give us an overview of the global action on OCOP, I now have the honor to invite Mr. Jangyun Shah, the Director of NSP at FAO Headquarters, who is leading the program. Over to you, Mr. Shah. Thank you for joining us very early in the morning from Rome. Thank you very much, Senator, Thrender, the Facilitator of this meeting. Honorable Ministers, is the Teamquist Assistant Director General of FAO in JJ came. Dear participants, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. I'm very pleased to provide you with some keys on the OCOP. In my presentation, I would like to brief you about the four major components. Why to do the OCOP? What to do the OCOP? How to do the OCOP? Then, who to do the OCOP? Now, why to do the OCOP? Nowadays, we are living in a world full of change and of challenge. The major challenge we want increased productivity, ensuring health dealt, reduced crop and food losses, safe water, and optimize the use of minimizing agricultural chemical input, and mitigate the climate change. How can we make it? The solution will be green agricultural is a key approach for sustainable development in the context of a current global challenge by ensuring food security, improving human welfare, and providing decent work for all. Without depleting natural resource, well, the health ecosystem. So, the green development of agricultural special agriculture products, what we call the OCOP, which will promote all kinds of agriculture products with a unique quantity and a local characteristic, have your potential to be integrated in the local, national, regional, and global market by optimizing positive components, minimizing negative components impact, and maximizing integrated agriculture profit. So, our objectives have four major objectives. Number one, facilitate the development of sustainable and the inclusive value chain for farming and smallholder by putting family farm-centered products at the center of intervention. Second, support the members by assisting implementation of a country program framework more concretely. Number three, strengthening the implementation of FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31, supporting the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agri-food system for better production, better nutrition, better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. Thirdly, can be built to achieving the UN STG or the 10G 30 agenda, particularly STG 2 and 1, by promoting green innovation for sustainable agriculture production. So, what we should do? There's the K-5 major principle, but in a summary, it's important. This initiative designed is a collaborative design, is a country-led implementation, and the second is a demand-driven and a comparative advantage-oriented approach. Number three, integration production with the value chain approach. Number four is approach centered on agro-ecological ecology and the regime and the production system to promote green technology. And lastly, we take a multi-discipline approach and the engagement with the different stakeholders, government, research, academia, extension, NGO, private sector. In a summary, we have four major character of OOP, we call the four inclusiveness. Number one, country-inclusive, all relevant members, whether you're developing country, developed country are encouraged to join the OOP. Second, productive-inclusive, all kinds of agricultural products in gay can be covered. And number three, all the value chain covered. We focus on production, but also include some other elements of the value chain. And lastly, it's stakeholder-inclusive, all relevant stakeholders are welcome for joining OOP. So, what is the major area for our working on? There's four major areas. We call it green. Number one is green production. We're going to have covered five key technology from a city to harvest. And then three technology for storage, we call the green storage. We have three key technology from a post-harvesting until storage. And then number three is green processing. And also we have three major key technology on side processing, low carbon and high efficiency processing, and the bi-product value-added processing. Number five, four, and the four technology for green marketing, including green price mechanism, green marketing strategy, green brand strategy, and green service strategy. So, what is our expected outcome? We expected four major outcome. Number one, productive and resilient production system are created. So, in this case, the productivity increased by 5% to 15% and the value-added by 30% to 50% through processing of selected soil. This means contribution to better production. Second is food security and the nutrition is issued by increasing the quality, productivity, and the diversity of selected soil. In combination with reduced crop and food losses and waste by 30% to 30%. And a fair and efficient marketing access under the trade so that can do better nutrition. Number three, environmentally, environmental is substantially improved. The use of agriculture inputs is reduced by 10% to 30%. Reduce the greenhouse gas emission, land degradation, and biodiversity losses so that contribution to better environment. Now, lastly, inclusive economic growth is issued. The livelihood of a smallholder and the family farmers improved through the creation of a decent job and an increasing income by 30% to 5% to 50%. As well as increased involvement of a different social group use for women in promoting a global action. So, contribution to better life. So what is our expected output? And we expected high five key component of output. Number one, established technical network for innovation and transformation of a green environment of a syrup. Number five, pilot side. Second, and the disseminate a serial of a technical package for green development of a syrup. Number three, produce a set of green enabler for green development of a syrup. Number four, formulate an efficient marketing access for the form for green development of a syrup. Number three, set up an efficient correlation mechanism for green development of syrup nationally and national wide. So what is our planning for budget planning. This OCP is a very dynamic and the wide rate inclusive. So we follow a few in this criteria for countries category and provide some support is a share cost. In this developed country, and then the project will be support 80 to 90% co funding at the country will be 10 to 20% and the other developing country and the project will be support and the 60 to 70% and co funding by 30 to 40% will be in transition and the pro in this country for 20 to 30% will be provided by project and the co funding will be 80% even divided by nation can be also enjoyed and the project will be supported less than 10% over 90% will be by their own funding. So what is the time plan now, what's the time planning for it. And the 2021, we already done the development of this global action mentioned in headquarter, and also established a mechanism in headquarter. So 10 to 22, the first semester, we have lunch events for all the way five, if you five region, and then set up the pilot, and then started demonstration, and then I get some more experience. 2022, 2023 to 24, we're a large scale extension for all the products. And then last year, 2025, we make a conclusion or the vaccine, ocean, and say what the way forward. So now, how can we do OCOP, and the three major number one is correlation implementation at a few headquarter and the global level, and also global Syrian committee as a setup, and if you headquarter already, and then chaired by FLDG, and then chaired by DDG batch. And then under this committee, we have IPPC sectorial OCOP sectorial, hosted by a few NSP division, so I'm the one executive secretary for this OCOP. And then nation on in the region level, or regional organizing group will be set up for each region, coordinated for implementation OCOP be chaired will be chaired by regional aid. And then nation on also a working group will be established to support regional organizing group. At last stage at national level, even the project country, they should set up a national implementation task force, and then should be chaired by senior officer of responsible ministry. And then there will be OCOP work team will be established to support national task. And then we should do some synergy within the FAO, a link with the relevant FAO initiative, like hand to hand, green city, southern advantage, digital advantage. Also, we should link with the relevant FAO program, and the TCET, South South Corporation, sustainable dry land, full animal control, putting important agriculture heritage system. And then lastly, we should build technical synergy with all relevant FAO initiative, program and global, regional and a national level to support and contribute to implementation of this global action. And all we can do it under external cooperation and the major and many we have three category, number one, technical cooperation, mobilizing technical resource from research, training institution as well as various technical products from private sector and global, regional and national level. And secondly, enhanced cooperation for fund raising, fund raising globally, through donation from a financial institution, organization, foundation, private sector, etc. And lastly, and work on human resource cooperation will come all kinds of type and in-kind contribution worldwide to support and the contribution to this great initiative. And then now, who will do it? In this answer, the country owned and the country led initiative. So, start from today's lunch events, all the country are encouraged to apply the country project. And then now here is some principle here. Participate members, all the members eligible to join the OCLP with the priority one located in the tropical region, dry land and mountain region, the priority region. Number of support SERP, only one SERP to be support each members, members with more selection is okay, but you should have your own funding, we call the one plus N model. And the type of selection of SERP and we are going to have two phases, plant products and food, cash crop, horticulture and the first to be supported at the first stage. And then later on with any more products livelihoods and the fishery will be done in the second phase. The area of support, the production of food will be support plus or one or two aspect of other vanishing element like storage, processing or marketing with more selection allowed through the members or own funding support. This is the template for project application form. Now the concept of those for project application, we have lying major component and later on we have already and the detail action plan, and then with the 66 page is very long. Everything is there. How to apply the country project. Now submission and approval this important data line. And then we hope in the March and April submission from a member countries from member country to FEO country office. And then second stage will be from March, April to May, we evaluation by FEO regional office. And then FEO office will submit to headquarter in June, May or June. So, and then headquarter sectorial will make a consolidation, and then in the first semester by the end of, we should have make decision, who is the first around of demonstration and the pilot country. So this whole time zone, so time is very hurry. And for more information, please contact us, we have OCOP sectorial. Also, you can contact the way and this P plant production and the production division. Very much over to you. Strinda. Thank you, Dr sharp. Excellencies ladies and gentlemen. So Dr sharp provided us a global overview of the entire program and what it will achieve I'm sure all of you found this very informative. And we are open here all the time to get more requests on how you would like to apply to this program and how we can develop projects. And we will give more information on that, and especially on the regional aspects, and which are very prominent in the Asia Pacific, the various programs that are there on their OCOP. We now have the presentation by miss Juan Lee, who is the regional lead for this program and the senior policy officer at the FEO regional office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. Thank you very much chair. Good morning. Good afternoon. It's great pleasure for me to share their regional implementation plan, which gives them more regional facilities. Why, what and how we're going to implement implement OCOP in the region. Okay, be very quickly. We will give the regional context on the farm food system, and I will then follow by the water SAP proposed by the countries in the region. And what is there our original organization plan in Asian Pacific. As JJ and the ADG mentioned, we have pretty kind of the hunger, my nutrition situation are getting serious, especially during the COVID-19 and also uncertainties in the global politics arena. So here we have the region have almost 50% of the global undernourished people in 2019, and it's getting more severe doing to their COVID-19 situation. And as we know the my nutrition is there, there is a leading cause for persistent nutrition, my nutrition is the poor dietary diversity, and it further on was due to their very limited production diversity. And this connections gives their indication of the what is kind of entry point for us to make their intervention. As we can see, there is the low diversity in many of our countries in our LDCs and all in general in our developing countries in general as well. And we also have the low production diversity in many of our countries, and primarily in this region we are having their reliance on the stable on the, such as the rice. So here if we look at the total production gaps, and also on the nutrition gap, these are quite significant, especially in terms of their roles nutrition food that can deal with micro nutrient deficits. If we situation into the context of their resource constraint on climate change on the water scarcity on their oldest kind of their, you know, their on the barrel diversity loss, and if you also look at growing demand also changing diet from their, urbanization, and also on their different changing patterns, then we're going to see food system is required to change for diversification. So what are the SAPs, many countries may have the query, are we going to promote diversification or what for promoting their one product only, actually, we are promoting diversification. And here if you look at agro biodiversity, there are many type of the agro diversity including the crops, livestock, fisheries, and so on. And within this, there's special, the specific other different variety and species, there were a bunch of their special agro product, as opposed to their stable crops or stable of their food. And within this we use the one country, one priority product at the entry point to dress their special agro product, their development. So we are in under the principle of the diversification versus the specialization. So here, if you look at in our region, or even in the globally, we have a really huge of the agro diversification available potential available, however, 70% of the work on their food comes from only 12 plants and five animals, their species. And out of the 30,000 of their edible plant species, 7000 actually can be tested already edible, but only 100, even less than only 62 crop species are currently used as a major supply of their nutrients. But if you look at our countries, we have already looked into again on the hidden, hidden, hidden treasures of on the uterus species and promote special agro product on the OCLP. Here are a number of their preliminary proposal from the countries who has identified such as the red rice, quinoa, bread fruits, and pine nut, ceramic, banana, coffee, taro. We can see they have a lot of different features as the nutritious or health benefit, and also climate resilient. And meantime, we see a lot of their geographic indication product in the region, as we see OCLP has related, but not limited to geography indication product. And in our region, we have a lot of very successful at different stage of development of the GI product as well. So what are we going to do in the region? Let's start with what is kind of the common challenge of the development for the SAPs. So as we have seen the production, post harvest processing, marketing and consumption has been fragmented. And normally we see this kind of the disconnect between the different, different part of the value chain is kind of a generic challenge for our countries. So it leads to their low productivity, no value addition, low competitiveness, no profitability, and also no connectivity. So how we can really help to get their change into better, we need to strengthen their systematic approach and strengthen the governance to connect different major component. So in terms of our intervention towards the implementation, we have this five major areas of interventions, coordination mechanism. Second one is enablers from policy, legal, financial, institutional interventions. Third one is the technical packages. Fourth one is improved market access. Number five is technical network for innovation and non-sharing. And it will apply for farm production, post harvest processing and marketing trade. And at this stage, we will cover dependent country needs, but we are certainly will include production, which is one of the fundamental for the implementation. And here we will promote climate resilience and also nutrition-sensitive agriculture in the integrated manner. And we should not forget, as JJ mentioned, if they're in our region is rich for their, a lot of their good experience such as the OVOP, one village, one product, which is a well-connected production and trade. And we have many countries are successful in this initiative. Here is a list of countries, select countries, which has implemented OVOP schemes in the region. And also look at geography indications is another effective tool to connect production and trade. It is linked to connect between place, people and the product. And we can see it is the legal instrument that can boost the trade and will be able to get their access to their foreign market where there is the GI regimes available. We also look into the many kinds of digital tours and technologies such as open science to identify where the rose product coming from. It is not limited to their geography indication product, but open for all the special agricultural product that will allow to identify where are, what are the kind of environmental features and how it will be better access to their consumer through the traceability. So what we were going to do the approach will be we will emphasize the innovative solutions from technical, from strategy, economical policy, legal, and also agribusiness and environmental dimensions to share all this kind of the best practice within the countries. We also highlight country specific the cases with success stories and lessons learned for our original OCP platform. So here's a platform that we are going to hear from their experience from all. In order for us to move forward, we have established their original implementation organization structure. So in it is open for all the countries, as Dr mentioned, and is we already have the six pilot countries in the region, and we are to support all the countries to have the good implementation. And RAP has established their coordination lead by their ADG and with different task force team, and we also propose for the countries who will join this event or join this initiative to have national coordination mechanism between their steering committee and task force and set up between the government and FL together. So as Dr mentioned here is their project document that we invite all the members to prepare their country approach proposal. And last but not least, is very importantly, we need partnership, we need strengthen partnership from their different stakeholders to have this the multi sectoral and multi stakeholders collaboration. So if we have the high high and DVI other initiative will also join together to support countries. I'd like to give the credit to our partners, who has been supporting our, our pilot country, like bacon Institute by worse international and kg and kg. In some areas, and we also appreciate today you're going to hear many of the partner today to share the experience such as the ECMO, ITC, and University of the UVA, et cetera. So with this, I thank you very much for your joining. Thank you, Shuang. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, that was the regional overview, which gave us a very rich presentation on the opportunities in the region, and how they can be utilized under the OCOP program. We see on the chart, there is a lot of interest and a lot of messages going back and forth on how this program can actually be implemented. So to all those. So all those of you who are interested in agencies organizations, you may please contact your country office, we have 17 country offices in the region and the sub regional office in Samoa. So you're welcome to contact those offices. If you do not have a country office in your region, then please contact the regional office, and specifically show only whom you just heard. So at this point, we will now shift gear, and we will now hear from the countries in the region, and from our member states on their perspective on OCOP, and also on some of the great initiatives that they already have undergoing in their respective countries. So to start that off, we will first have the speech from His Excellency Syarul Yasin Limpo, the Minister for Agriculture Indonesia. His Excellency is not able to be here with us today, but he has kindly sent us a video message. Secretary, please play the video. The highest appreciation to the FAO on this global initiative is that it supports the process of transformation of the agricultural system through the development of the field of farming, which has a specific characteristic, a special basis for agriculture. So how does he express himself in our invitation, No. 18-2012, about farming? The Indonesian government is committed to building a farming system and a more healthy, diet-nutritious, inclusive, equitable, resilient, and suitable. Through the invitation, we continue to be the ones that have a more advanced farming sector, independent and modern, through the development of agriculture and farming products. For us, this is very crucial because it is the responsibility of the members of the various fields of farming that are full and safe for 273 million Indonesian people. We have made this concrete commitment to raise the level of farming and farming system as one of the issues of the priority of the work group of the G20 farm of Indonesia. At present, the same happiness, the sector of farming in Indonesia at present is quite significant, which is seen from the contribution towards the total GDP of up to 16 percent, and prepare the work environment for almost half the total population of Indonesia. In the last two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, farming has become the most important sector in supporting the speed of economic growth. To raise the level of farming to the level of the household, we have consistently promoted the program of agricultural farming in order to promote family farming, to promote local farming, and to promote healthy food. We have also continuously promoted agricultural farming in order to produce agricultural products that are beneficial and sustainable. During the pandemic, many agricultural products have been sought to increase immunity and support healthy diets and the hope of using the Green Development method. At present, we would like to give the opportunity to show the development of horticulture commodities in Indonesia in supporting healthy diets. At present, we have developed 566 horticulture commodities, including vegetables, fruits, biochemicals, and ornamental plants. One of the main strategies that we have done is to increase the productivity of horticulture commodities through the development of horticulture villages, one village, one variety. We also promote the development of UMKM and digitalization, through the development of horticulture product information systems. In the program of horticulture villages, we do intensive farming from the beginning to the end, as well as facilitating access to convenience, mechanization, irrigation, employment, supply and other needs. In the hope that horticulture villages can become a part of the corporation to make the needs in the country and export, as well as the development of agrovisata and agroduvisata. For the export market, the main product of horticulture is to include quality aspects, to include price and standard aspects. There are standard S&E, ISO, HCCP, and so on. Certification, GAP, and GHP, organic, as well as aspects of other needs. The same thing applies to horticulture villages. One of the most potential commodity to become a one priority product in Indonesia is banana. Banana is a fruit that is rich in nutrients, such as hydrohydride, protein, fiber, calcium, fiber, vitamin B6, and C, as well as potassium. Banana has a good development prospects, because it has a high economy economy and a potential market that is increasingly open and wide. Data FAO in 2020 shows that Indonesia is the third highest production country in the world in the number of largest banana production, which is 8.2 million tons. It has just been able to export around 12.3 million to 12,345 tons of banana, or the world's 30th largest banana. The number of banana exports supports the second highest position in Indonesia. In terms of potential, Indonesia has a high culture of banana. It has about 325 kinds of banana, both buddhidaya and liyar. Until 2021, there are 56 banana villages that have been developed with economic scale. From the green development aspect, we continue to support GAP and GHP and the registration of banana villages to reduce its traceability. Most of the buddhidaya has been producing green production through the organic buddhidaya system, which ensures the quality of the banana is better. We hope that in the future, we will be able to get the highest demand in the global market. Mr. and Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to say goodbye. In this regard, we appreciate the various F.A.O. initiatives to support the distribution and production system, including through the initiative of One Country, One Priority, this product. We hope that if we are able to produce an innovative production model for the country in this region, we will also support the expected outputs that will be produced from this initiative, including the support of the government, employment, platform access to the market, innovation and technology for the green development in the future. We are ready to share the experience with F.A.O. and the state of Rangotan is sure to promote the development of the priority community, such as the one contributing to the 2030 Agenda Agenda, the goal of the next development. Thank you for your attention. May peace be upon you. We thank His Excellency Syarul Yasin Limpo, the Minister of Agriculture Indonesia for those remarks. Before we move on to hearing from His Excellency, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries in Samoa, we will quickly have a group photograph of all the dignitaries who are present here today. So, can we just have the gallery view please and have a quick photograph and then we can move on to the next one. I recommend everybody switch on their cameras and have your smiles as wide as possible. Can you switch to gallery view please? Okay, so, Secretary, let me know when the photo is done. Thank you very much for staying for that photo. Now we will the program at this point. Again, it is our honor to invite the honorable Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries from Samoa in the Pacific region. Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for joining us at this late evening hours. Over to you. Samoa, can you hear me please? Okay, while we wait for them to come back online, we will then invite the honorable Minister from Thailand. Oh, are you there? Yes, Your Excellency, please go ahead. Thank you very much. Do you hear me properly? Yes, we do. Hello. Yes, okay. Greetings and to all of you all. I'm Mr. Hanan Pes Vegto, Deputy Director General of FAO. Mr. Chang Kim, Assistant Director General of the Region Representative of FAO office. We seem to have lost the connection with Samoa. So while they are getting ready again, we will now have the speech from the honorable Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand. Your Excellency, Mr. Chalem Chai Sreeong, he has kindly sent us a video message. So, Secretary, please play the message. Thank you. Mr. Chalem Chai Sreeong, he has kindly sent us a video message. So, Secretary, please play the message. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In our country, there is a partnership with the World Trade Organization to develop sustainable products that Thailand has always provided. According to the plans of the development of special products such as green, or SAP, for the development of agriculture in one of the countries. In Thailand, there are many products that have a partnership and have a partnership with the World Trade Organization, SAP, and many other products. I would like to first change the experience of developing SAP products with the help of the Ministry of Health that uses many products both in food production, health care, health care, and the Ministry of Health. It makes the need for the Ministry of Health to grow rapidly all over the country and all over the country. With the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Health to continue developing the BCG model in the development of the European Union to use many products including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Health. In addition, the Ministry of Health to help develop the European Union and the Ministry of Health to build a strong relationship with the public and build a strong relationship with the public. Finally, I and the Thai government would like to emphasize the importance of the cooperation in the first exchange of knowledge and the development of one country, one country, which is part of the development of the European Union to develop the economy and food that is sustainable for all of us. Thank you. Thank you, Excellency, the Minister of Agriculture and Co-operatives from Thailand. We will now go back to Samoa who unfortunately we lost connectivity a few minutes ago. But Samoa, can you now your Excellency, can you please now speak and hear us? Your Excellency in Samoa, can you hear us? Please go ahead. Thank you very much, Madam Beth Benzler, Deputy Director General of FAO Mr. Chan Chin Kim, Assistant Director General and Regional Representative of FAO Office for Asia and Pacific Your Excellencies, Ministerial Colleagues, Distinguished FAO Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen It is indeed with great pleasure for me to be invited to say a few words on behalf of our government and our country for the launching of our cream development for specialty culture products. One country, one priority product for our Asia and Pacific region. Food remains as an integral part of our Samoan culture with ties with our land and region. However, in pre-dependence of imported processes food fueled by changing dietary habits vulnerability of our climate change, rising permanent on communicable diseases and inherent limitation of our small island economy. Both challenges in ensuring our food security and nutrition are growing population of our future generation. We are also living in unprecedented time due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has created a new norm for our lives and has resulted multiple challenges as health, economy, social and political all empowering to us at the same time. The COVID-19 has inspired many of these challenges searching in further retitution of our food and income securities due to financial pressure and regularly disruptions in our food supply chain. Samoa is now facing health related challenges for our community spread of the virus in addition to our social economic impact across to our island country. Samoa has recently launched its five year national development plan called the Pathway and Development of Samoa 2022-2026 and one of our key priority strategy is the realization of the represent of sustainable effects, culture, fisheries and agriculture sector which will create employment improve of our food nutrition security and reduce of resilience of food import. Also with the support of FAO and other UN agency Samoa has completed its national food system pathway 2030 which paved the way to transform our food system for resilience of healthy Samoa and also help us to achieve relevant code of our 2030 agenda. Given the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our other key economy sector our tourism industry we are looking to increase our agriculture fishery export for new foreign exchange earning and food import substitution in addition to our life to be food nutrition secure. This is to include promotion of upgrading of our current farming practice to mechanize farming and to assist our less resourceful farmers and land preparation activities that were sustainable and environmentally friendly. Further due to the expected severe of our long-term impact for the climate change and COVID-19 we have established a district development fund scheme to develop our rural communities and increase our agriculture and fishery productions to maintain our food and nutrition security and increase our import substitution and export effort. As part of our government effort to support these economy developments we are in the process of establishing our import and export authority in addition to increasing export value addition and import substitution. Now most of our agriculture productions for our food and nutrition security import substitution and export effort for new foreign exchange earning including agriculture crops which mainly fruits and vegetables and cash crops mainly taro and other crops have our products from our cocoa and coconut resources such as chocolate cocoa paste and our popular cocoa samoa organic virgin of our copper oils and coconut greens and products from our taro and breadfruit resources such as taro and breadfruit chips and breadfruit flour. These locally produced and processed agriculture products market mainly to our samoan community and other pacific islands living aboard of some of our most popular and our european consumers. Further some of those crops has divide products have unique quantity and especially characteristic associate with some on farming practice with our culture heritage and so I recommend for the green development of specialty culture products or one country one priority products initiative that will direct some policy attention to share good practice and nutrition to our health benefits and consumption for them their consumption will be promotion of diversity balancing health diet and health style and reducing loss and waste of local grown food we are implementing numerous development projects in agriculture space with financial and technical support of our development partner into the FAO to support our farmers and fisheries to increase their productions and productivity through the application of various production technology and digital initiative and addressing vulnerability of agriculture and food nutrition due to climate change and COVID-19 pandemic all these project aim to support our farmers fisheries and other key players our food chain value transform our food system to support our reductions and our healthier diet and increase of our import substitution and export effort we look forward to the development of our new project under the first phase of this initiative in collaborations with FAO and Custom Cotton Association focusing on one to two priority products that will promote as Samoan made products we also look forward to the second phase including the green development for the livestock, agriculture and fishery especially to active products as have the new products that are more and significant to our life holds and our culture heritage in closing I would like to acknowledge FAO for this great one country one priority product initiative and also for the FAO sub-region office for the Pacific for the ongoing financial technical support for our Pacific countries I wish you Madam Deputy Director General of FAO Your Excellency my ministry colleagues, FAO and staff of all participants God Blessing and may the peace of our passing to all understanding to keep your heart and mind in his knowledge and love for his son Jesus Christ our Lord Thank you for your attention Thank you Your Excellency Honourable Minister of Agriculture and from fisheries from Samoa for giving us that very important perspective particularly from the point of view of the small island developing states who are an important focus area for FAO We shall now hear from his Excellency Li Xinjiang Chief Veterinary Officer Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China Your Excellency Over to you Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese 引导示范村开展绿色食品,有机食品认证,有超百分之七十示范村得到了相关认证。 四是注重产业融合发展,讲农业生产,与文化艺术,观光旅游,健康养生等产业深度融合。 各位同志,一国一品全球行动是基于粮农组织,2022-2031年战略框架制定的,只在为特色农产品打造绿色价值链。 是应对当前全球粮食体系挑战的战略性举措,中方愿积极支持,为此我就一国一品具体实实提出一下建议。 一是指导参与国制定实施方案,希望粮农组织立足各国资源优势,引导参与国选择最具特色的农产品,体现国家差异性,实现以小接口带动产业大发展,让更多的小尔美、小尔特的农产品走向世界。 20引导参与国发展新业态,注重坚持农业绿色发展理念,创新运用数字技术,延伸产业链,提升价值链,挖掘农业征收潜力,推动一二三产业融合发展。 30倡导参与国互建交流,总结提炼各国实施一国一品典型做法,经常性的组织开展经验交流,推动行动形成全球的合力。 In the end, we hope that the global action of one country will turn the world's food system into a machine. Thank you very much. And we have His Excellency, Mr. Tom Pat Wong-Madi, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, who will give his remarks. Over to you, Your Excellency. I am honored to be a part of the global action on green agriculture and products, one country, one priority products of the FAO regional office, for the Asia Pacific. The initiative of the FAO regional office for Asia Pacific on global action on green development of species and agricultural products, one country, one priority product, OCOP, provides a very useful platform for exploring and sharing our ideas and experiences. In addition, this program, excuse me, will also provide direct benefit for small owners. From our perspective, allow PDR, the program will focus on the comparative advantage of the country and make it more profitable for the country and producers. The program will likewise discuss the application of innovative ideas, scientific knowledge, and digitalization in agriculture. On along the value chains from farm to farm, to bolster agri-food system transformation. This transformation entails focusing on climate resilience solution, also an area of focus of the program. Needless to say that this initiative will encourage countries. We seem to have lost the connection with allow PDR. Okay, I don't see them right now. So without any further ado, we'll go back to them if they come back online, but we'll now move to another country in the other small country which is Bhutan. So I now invite from Bhutan, the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forest, Mr. Thinlay Namgyal. Mr. Namgyal, over to you. Thank you. Excellencies, FAO officials, representatives of partners, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all. On behalf of the Royal Government of Bhutan and the people of Bhutan, I would like to offer my heartfelt greetings to everyone present in this launch event and beyond. I take this opportunity to convey the warm greetings of His Majesty the King of Bhutan, His Excellency the Prime Minister of Bhutan, and His Excellency the Minister of Agriculture and Forest of Bhutan to all the distinguished delegates. I would also like to convey the apologies of my minister for not being able to attend this very important session due to some urgent assignment. In his place, it is my honor to address at this special occasion of the regional launch of the global action on green development of special agricultural products, SAPs, one country, one priority product in Asia and the Pacific. Bhutan is proud to be a part of the one country, one priority product initiative, and we are pleased to inform that we have identified Kenawa as the crop for OCOP. Kenawa was first introduced in Bhutan in 2015 through FAO support, mainly to reduce nutritional gaps. We are promoting Kenawa as a nutrient dense climate resilient and economically viable crops across all agro ecological zone in Bhutan and lately as potential niche organic crop for the export market. Bhutan has established Kenawa as one of the key national commodity program to harness its multi-dimensional benefits. Due to the versatile capacity of the crop to adapt to different growing conditions, Kenawa has successfully adapted to the challenging mountain farming environment where various abiotic stresses like various varying precipitation, dry spells, extreme temperature regimes and frost limit farmer's choice of food crops production. Kenawa has been selected as OCOP to enhance food and nutritional security of the Bhutanese people. To diversify the cropping and food basket, it is a climate resilient and versatile crop for a diverse agroecology as well as potential export crop for income generation for farmers. There is potential to increase production and improve marketing efficiency through technology intervention in production and value change. As part of the OCOP initiative, we seek FAO's technical support to provide innovative solution for Bhutanese Kenawa to address the existing challenges and to improve productivity, profitability and sustainability. Given the very fact that Kenawa is a new crop for Bhutan, we seek support in these areas from FAO and partners. Increased production and improved productivity, interventions are short right from accessing high yielding germplasm and germplasm diversification, the adoption of smart agriculture, precision farming with land development, mechanization and automation, smart irrigation system, development of aggregation and processing facilities. Number two, improve value addition, market access and trade, supporting Bhutan to develop tailor-made strategy connecting Kenawa production, value addition, quality assurance, certification schemes and trade. Bhutan would like to establish geographical indication regime to protect and promote trade for Kenawa and many other special agro products and apply innovative technologies to trace the origin of our special products. This would greatly help us to penetrate wider markets for higher profitability and better income for rural communities. Such interventions will not only provide added resilience to climate change, improve food security and nutrition, attract and engage youth in farming, but also help to mainstream gender into farming. Therefore, to address the key challenges and issues Bhutan would like to enhance collaboration and seek collective support from FAOs, donors with research institute, academia and private sector. The Royal Government of Bhutan has connected OCOP to another FAO program of the hand-in-hand initiative for synergies and coherence in governance where we want to pursue crops such as asparagus, strawberry to boost the production. We are highly hopeful that adopting Kenawa as Bhutan's OCOP will improve food security and nutrition security and also ensure better income for a better livelihood for the rural communities. Our production is also aimed at benefiting fellow countries in the region, mainly in terms of creating access to high value and nutritious food and thereby jointly help achieve the targets indicated under SDG 1, no poverty, SDG 2, zero hunger and SDG 10 reduce inequalities. We would also like to urge the private sector and business entities to explore and connect with our farmers to allow farmers to benefit from business opportunities and to build up farmers cooperatives. Your role will perhaps be the most critical to integrate Kenawa farming into an efficient marketing system to help Bhutan to build marketing information system, market analysis, market access and trade facilitation. You will not only be a precursor driving production to increase food availability but also could play a key role in transforming food supply chain to be resilient, inclusive and sustainable. We will strive to work hard to build a global reputation as a proud producer, consumer and exporter of Kenawa. At the same time, Bhutan would like to announce that our farmers are seriously pursuing organic farming and would like to request the private sector and business entities to kindly come forward to take part in the supply chain. Finally, I take this opportunity to thank the FAO for all their support and we look forward to working closely with everyone in implementing the green development of special agricultural products, one country, one priority product. I thank you all for your time and attention. Thank you. Thank you Mr Namgil for not only outlining what is Bhutan's priority, but also the linkages with other programs that are ongoing in your country. We will go back now to Laos apologies we lost the connection but now we see his excellency is back online so excellency please resume your remarks or to you in Laos. Thank you. Thank you very much. Once again. Excellencies. Miss Deputy Director General of FAO. Mr. Jong Kim Assistant Director General and Regional Representative FAO Regional Office for Asia Pacific. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am honored to be part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the government of Laos. I am honored to be part of the global action on green development of special country, one priority products of the FAO Regional Office of the CIA and the Pacific. I am honored to be part of the FAO on global action on green development of special agricultural products, one country one priority products provide a very useful platform for exploring of ideas, experiences in addition this program will also provide direct benefit for small owners. From our perspective in Laos PDR the program will focus on the comparative advantage of the country and make it more profitable for the country and the producers. The program will likewise discuss the application of innovative ideas, scientific knowledge and digitalization in agriculture on along the value chains from farm to monster agri-food system transformation. The transformation until focusing on climate, climate resilience solution also an area of focus of the program. Needless to say that this initiative will encourage country ownership, strengthen collaboration and establish sharing of technical expertise among members in the region. It will also support traditional in the country to access market information, production technology and applying agricultural innovation in the businesses. The Laos National Social Development Plan from 2021-2025 in Laos last year is the master document guiding government policy and it focus on six priorities areas for agriculture, including the promotion of agriculture and as a sustainable sector the increase of agricultural production and improve access and use of technology to increase agricultural productivity. Key challenges that need great attention as part of the recovery effort within the framework of the nine National Social Economic Development Plan are the impact of the COVID-19 and recovery measures. Current state of agriculture, natural resource management, food security and nutrition. Some key areas that need special attention, just the promotion of climate resilience, agricultural practice, eco-ecology, participatory and use planning, agricultural innovation system to promote sustainable production for needs market, development of technological capacity to improve and maintain agricultural productivity. Please allow me to take this opportunity to thanks FAO for continued support and excellent contribution to Laos development and also to highlight some of our key priorities for FAO support. First, implementation of the nine National Social Economic Development Plan with close alignment to FAO programming. Strengthening capacity from national to community levels including scaling up, digitalization advance and innovation for farmers such as integrated regional market sharing system. Second, expertise exchange and tri-ancular cooperation to bolster Laos PDR capacity. Among the farmer and vulnerable demographic groups, women, youth, ethanol, linguistic as focus of intervention especially to address recovery from COVID-19 impact on rural and livelihoods. Continue hand-in-hand support for development of green growth economic corridor especially since the Laos PDR has gone from landlock to land link in December 2021. The initial idea for one product from Laos PDR for inclusion into the OCOP process is coffee. Laos produces around 80,000 tons of coffee every year and around 60% of is exported mainly to Thailand, to Vietnam and to some EU countries. Black coffee has been registered as AI products. It's free from chemical use and mainly employed women. Therefore, it does not only have a unique taste in the global coffee market but also transfer income into the most vulnerable segment of Laos society. Coffee has the potential to transform the livelihood of the large number of poor households and the benefit will spin off to other sectors such as health, nutrition and education. I would like to mention that coffee is the source of income for communities in Laos Highland that have otherwise limited source of income. On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Government of Laos PDR, once again I wish a great success to this event and good health, resilience and prosperity to our host and the regional and country dedication present here and attending virtually. The Laos PDR would look forward to a successful and continue working relationship with FAO and our partners to attain better production, better nutrition, better environment, better life and living no one behind. Thank you very much. Thank you, Your Excellency, from the Honorable Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Laos People's Democratic Republic. Our final speaker representing our member states will be Solomon Islands and we have Ms. Ethel Francis, who is a Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of the Solomon Islands, who will be speaking to us and giving her perspective. Over to you, Ms. Francis. Deputy Director General of FAO, Beth Bejdo, the Assistant Director General, Jun Jin Kim, Excellencies, Listing Waste Ministers, Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is truly an honour to come in on behalf of our Minister who is unable to be here but send his apologies for missing this important event. So we want to thank the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for extending an invitation for Solomon Islands to join in and share some remarks in the launching of this great initiative. The one country, one priority product for Asia and the Pacific region. Solomon Islands is grateful that it was proposed as one of the pilot beneficiaries for this initiative. So we wish to register our country's appreciation. This one country, one priority product initiative has the right structures to enable the much needed transition of agri-food systems in our countries to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable systems. And we anticipate and look forward to the benefits this initiative is designed to offer for better production and value chain of food system that can help minimise crop yield losses, food losses and maximise farmers' economic gains so farmers can live on their farming sustainably. Solomon Islands National Task Force on the one crop, one country, one priority product under the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock have selected Kasaba as its special agricultural product because this crop has huge potential for mass production and secure our food supply. For the reasons that it is suitable for our climate, it can grow easily anywhere around our many islands and is a whole year seasonal crop. The crop is regarded as one of the second choice for household around the country, but its climate and local resilient ability can truly be the food security crop for our islands. Its overseas demand can bring in foreign receipts to support our economic recovery efforts. So the government has already invested into commercial farming of the crop and processing infrastructures with plans to develop this to become one of our cheapest healthy food choice and to be one of our biggest agricultural export commodity in the future. So while the above is true of the product there are a lot we do not know about this crop in terms of the value addition processing potential for local consumption and export and even the variety to plant for export purposes or for animal feed or flower. So we know we can downstream process to flower and starch and animal feed, but how we do it is what we do not know. So we are excited about this opportunity to discover what this amazing crop can do to our families and nation. As a country, we rely heavily on imported food and rice is now becoming a staple food around the country, even in our communities. Rice is the biggest is the highest imported agricultural product to Solomon Islands. The disruptions to global food supply chains caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic. And now the crisis in Ukraine is very concerning. But at the same time is offering some tough lessons for us. We can no longer depend on other countries for the food security of our own people with security must be sustained locally. So we are happy to collaborate with FAO to scale up planning opportunities for this initiative, which will allow value chain development office crop. Countries differ in their agriculture sector development phases so we focus so focusing on value chain development and tailor made nation specific solutions is a great start for us in the Solomon Islands. Solomon Islands is still at its infant stage in downstreaming or value addition space, due to lack of proper infrastructure and market access. And Solomon Islands will need a whole value chain development for our selected product so it can deliver the anticipated outcome of this global action to reach our sustainable development goals. The success of these global goals will depend on collective actions and investments, information sharing and knowledge exchange of innovative technologies, technology transfer and growth agricultural practices. So we support therefore the call for active participation and collective partnership in rolling out this one country, one priority product initiative by all stakeholders who must contribute strongly strongly across our region. The Solomon Islands pledge its support to this great initiative, and we'll do so by ensuring our selected implant implementing partners. And at the moment, the custom gardener station for the copies for the scoping study, and we are willing to partner with others to make this successful for Solomon Islands and this initiative. Solomon Islands is devoted to its global commitment to delivery of its sustainable development goals, and is pleased to note the intention of this work and this initiative to help us deliver against our SDGs. In closing, I want to congratulate other easier and Pacific countries who agreed to be part of this initiative, which will truly offer an entry point for greater agri-food systems transformations in our own country and our Pacific region. So Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, let me thank FAO again for this great initiative and wish you all the best for this implementation. May God bless us all. Thank you so much. Thank you Ms. Francis for delivering those remarks on and we thank also his excellency the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of the Solomon Islands for for those kind words. So Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, while this has been an extremely rich webinar and we heard a lot of experiences shared by the countries who have spoken so far. We have also of almost 30 minutes behind time, but actually it points to the level of interest that we've got in this region. And we have all the participants in the webinar listening to every word very carefully and sharing a lot of information and comments on the chat and also asking questions so please keep that conversation going. But we will now move on to our partner organizations in OCOP and in the interest of time I would request each one of them to keep the remarks to four to five minutes. So first of all I invite Mr. Pema Gyansho, the Director General of the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development or ECMOD over to you Mr. Gyansho. We can't hear you well. You need to be closer to the mic. Slightly better. Please go ahead. We can't hear you sir. No, you're very far away. You sound very far away. Yes. I will ask my colleague to read out from the office. I am out in the field and it's probably difficult to fix that. So would it be okay if I ask my colleague to read it out? It's okay now. Okay. Go ahead please. Yeah. Excellencies, Unmovell Ministers, Assistant Director General of APU and other senior officials from APU and partner agencies. On behalf of the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, ECMOD, I would like to thank you for inviting us to be part of this important event, the launching of the global action on green development of special agriculture product. One country, one priority product, OCOP in the region of Asia and Pacific. Please allow me to take a brief moment to introduce ECMOD. ECMOD is an intergovernmental regional learning and sharing of knowledge center on and for the Hindu-Kurish Himalayan region that extends across 3,500 kilometers covering Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. Our mission is to build and share knowledge that drives regional policies and actions to address transboundary issues and attract investments that enables our diverse member countries in the Asia region to transition to greener, more inclusive and climate resilient development. The Hindu-Kurish Himalayan region is often referred to as the third pole or water towers of Asia as it has the largest area under ice and snow cover outside the poles and is the source for 10 major rivers of Asia. We refer to it as the pulse of the planet because what happens in these mountains not only affects 240 million people living in the mountains but also an estimated 1.65 billion people living in downstream basins of the rivers. In the HKS region around one third of the population is facing food insecurity of some form or other. Malnutrition is rampant particularly among children and low income groups. Almost 40% of children below 5 years of age suffer from stunting and 35% of women aged between 19 to 49 years face anemia. Food and nutrition security in the mountain region is mainly impacted by topographical and climatic constraints, limited arable land, lake or particulate water or irrigation, shortage of farm hands, inadequate access to market and other institutional services. Excellencies ladies and gentlemen, the Hindu-Kurish Himalayan region is highly vulnerable to climate change in this risk and these risks are likely to increase in future. Precipitation and temperature patterns are changing and the incidences of extreme events, floods and droughts are increasing both in terms of frequency and intensity. These are serious implications for mountain food system through impacts on water and energy availability, crop productivity, crop damages, land and ecosystems degradation. Another important area that requires attention is the financing mechanisms for sustainable agriculture. Current financing mechanisms are mainly encouraging inorganic practices in the agriculture and are reducing agro-biodiversity. Subsidies on a few food commodities originating from non-mountain areas, chemical fertilizers and pesticides and lack of credit and insurance mechanisms for mountain crops are negatively impacting productivity. There is an urgent need to redirect and reorganize financial support systems for nature-positive and sustainable practices, particularly for the mountains. Finally, I would like to commend FAO in coming up with this initiative to promote a priority crop for each country. After listening to all the presentations earlier from Director Jin Shuang-Shia and Ms Lee Shuang, I am convinced that this will lead for more efficient use of resources, for example land, labor, seeds and funds, better organization of supply of inputs, distribution and value chain development. On the other hand, I think we have to be mindful that when we specialize on a certain crop, we are also increasing the potential risk. I think we have to have full-back mechanisms in place and be able to respond quickly to climatic shock, socio-economic shock and have those in place already. We hope that we can join hands with FAO and other partners for taking this initiative forward, and we look forward to further strengthen our collaborative efforts towards a more sustainable, greener, resilient development in the Hindupur region. Thank you and over to you, Mr. Jin Shuang-Shia. Thank you, Mr. Yang Shuang and I understand you are on a very tight schedule, but thank you for staying on and delivering those very important remarks. So, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, so we are now looking at different dimensions of OCOP and Mr. Yang Shuang just gave us the perspective from mountain agriculture. So, now we will hear from Professor Kadambut Siddique, who is the Agriculture Chair and Director of the University of Western Australia and an FAO Special Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses. Mr. Siddique, over to you. Thank you. We heard a lot about the cropping system. How do we implement this diversified system in order to meet the goal? Again, I won't go into the details. We have a significant number of people, 811 million still hungry and it's increasing, and significant number is in the Asia-Pacific region. And of course, the pandemic has really put a dent and whether we are going to achieve the SDG-2 is going to be in question. So, the focus is in Asia-Pacific region. Shuang Lee mentioned that 381 million, but continue to face a high prevalence of malnutrition. So, if you look at globally, the picture is very clear, but if you focus on Asia and also the Oceania region, there is still quite a lot of wasting and stunting. So, for example, 75% of wasted children in the middle-income countries, 64% in the standard children in the low- and middle-income countries. I leave the Sub-Saharan Africa for this talk. So, what is the problem? High consumption of harmful food. So, I won't repeat, process to meet all the way to high starch and salt, etc. But low consumption of the so-called the diversity food, whether it is the fruits, vegetables, the nuts, the grains, and of course, seafood. So, this leads to unhealthy diet, malnutrition, and risk of non-communicable disease such as standard children, obesity, heart attack, and so on. So, one of the problem is that if you look at the futures of agriculture and food system, we heard relying on three or four staple food. Wheat, rice, maize, in some of the member countries, rice is the major staple food. And it has low protein and also significant amount of starch. So, therefore, we must diversify our food system. So, if you look at, we really need to increase the food protection, bridging the food protection gap, no doubt about it. And if you look at the rate of yield improvement in major crops is one percentage or less than one percentage. That's not enough to meet the demand. More importantly, today's topic, the nutrition gap is the biggest problem. So, we need to address that. So, the solution you heard from many speakers, diversification is the way forward. So, if you look at the traditional underutilized crop or neglected crops, and there's a lot of benefits, they are nutritionally dense, climate resilient, adapted to harsh environments, and improves the biodiversity and culture, the tradition of making food. And we heard from many speakers, this can improve the livelihood and rural development and leading to social and economic development. Again, rich in macro and micronutrients, rich in vitamins and carotenoids. And with this reason, the FAO General Assembly declared 2013, we heard from Bhutan, Kunva, International Year of the Pulsars 2016, and of course, 2021, the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables. And I had the privilege to work with FAO as the Special Ambassador, and we addressed that as a result of the FAO's initiative, the pulse production has increased in many countries, particularly in India and a number of other countries. Here I'm just listing a number of neglected and underutilized crops, so cereals, amaranth to tatari bakwit, then roots and tubers, pulses, fruits and vegetables, and nuts. So, it's not a universal thing, you have to go into each country and each region and select the best for those particular countries. Here's an example of foxtail millet, rich in macro and micronutrients, adapted to harsh conditions, drumstick, muringa, elephant footy, taro, which can tolerate transient water logging. Oceana, Pacific region, it's an important crop. I'll summarize this along with Shuan Li, a prospective article in the Nature Plans. If you want, I can send it. It's quite an interesting article where we're saying that these are the forgotten crops, we need to bring them back in order to fight chronic and hidden hunger. Another study we did, people say that how can we integrate in the farming system? So this is a study which we did in China with the 12 consecutive years and we looked at the small farmers where in the cropping, and the cropping can increase annual crop yields by 15 to 50 percentage, farm net income by 39 percentage, and environmental footprint, that's a carbon footprint by 17 percentage. So basically what's saying the issues are environmental concerns, high food demand, low arable land, scarce water, low farm income. What do we want? Increased crop yield and enhanced net income, reduced carbon footprint. And this can be achieved through relay and cool season, warm season crop, within field rotations, soil cover, straw or plastic, in the case of China, best management practices. And this is really can be achieved with the small holder farmers. The paper was published in proceedings of the National Academy of Science United States. So here's an example of field peep planted in spring, and the mace is coming on. So the core benefit of what we call strip cropping can be done. So the point I want to raise is that it's time for us to integrate this kind of crops into the mainstream crop and lead the way forward. This is another example from India where using satellite technology, GIS technology, digital technology, we can map out the fellow lands in the system, the traditional long duration rise, but improved production system, short duration, mustard, mung beans, sesame can be incorporated. And this is an example from West Bengal, where rice, rice used to be the norm. So the fallow, November, February, you can bring lentils, which is a legume, and also fallow after rice in November, June, you can bring mung bean and sesame and so on. So two more slides, Chairman, I know the time. So the food system, we need to look at the production, processing, distribution, marketing, and consumption. And we can intervene at different levels, diversified nutrition, labeling regulations, advertising, and food-based dietary guidelines. And we have good examples like quinoa, which has done the ultimate benefit is healthy diets, reduction of diet related non-communicable diseases. But it's all interrelated. We can't go and touch one aspect. So on the one hand, production to consumption, but enabling policies. I know there's many ministers and excellencies are there. It is your role to enable the policy environment. And also, many of these crops doesn't have the institutional capacity because we spend a lot of resources on wheat and rice and maize, which we should, but it's time for us to have institutional capacity development in some of this crop. Not only to develop, but also integrate in the system so that from value chain proposition can be done. So if we do all that, we can meet a number of SDG goals, number one, number two, number six, number two, 15, five, 13, and 17. Basically, improving livelihood, water and land productivity, diversification of food system, including consumption, conservation by diversity, gender equity, adaptation to climate change, and national capacity development. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Siddique. Actually, that was a very nice perspective from the production point of view and the practices that are important for this program. So to bring us the next point of view and this time from the Regional Association, which is called the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the SART, we have the director of the SART Agricultural Center in Dhaka, Dr. Mohamed Bakhtiar Hussain. Over to you, Dr. Hussain. Am I audible? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Sridhar Dharmapuri, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. His Excellencies, participating ministers, high officials from FAO and dignitaries, distinguished speaker, participants, government officials, food systems expert, representative of the development partners, professionals, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone from SART Agricultural Center from Dhaka, Bangladesh. I'm truly privileged and honored to be a part of the official launching event of the global action on green development of spatial agricultural products, one country, one priority products in the region of Asia and the Pacific. Even though human could eat more than 2,500 plant species, the mainstream agri-food systems across the world push only three major crops, that is wheat, rice, and maize. Constituting the sources of more than 50% of the calories consumed globally. Obviously, agricultural production system based on so narrow biodiversity base are seriously threatened by both the biotic and abiotic stresses. Moreover, in the context of globalization and free trade agreements, food is increasingly commodified, subswimming into the market economy, thereby forcing people to more away from traditional largely localized and highly diverse consumption practice to an industrial commodity systems of universal mass consumption. This has resulted into a drastic shift in our everyday food habits, moving away from having a context-specific diverse and nutrient-rich diet to homogenous, highly processed, micro-detained poor and calorie-dense limited food items. This has not only resulted into poor health and undernourishment, but also huge loss of agricultural biodiversity. It is noteworthy that more than 80% of the 1.5 billion hectares of arable land globally are occupied by monoculture of less than a dozen of cultivated industrial crops, resulting into growing invasion of insect-based soil degradation, deforestation, depletion of freshwater resources, and chemical contamination leading to global environmental changes. Coming to the South Asian context, the region has impressive socio-cultural, environmental, and agricultural diversities with the broad range of topographic variation from high mountains, from his valley to lowland, river basins, coastal plain, and most importantly, the Indo-Gagetic area, which is the world's largest alluvial plain of fertile soils deposited by the river waters. As with the topographic diversities, the region has wide variation in climatic conditions from humid tropics in the lowlands to cold-temperature climate in the highlands, providing numerous unique ecology niches across the region. The agri-food systems in the region has, however, greatly been influenced by green revolution, strategies for productivity grown with the promoted rapid intensification of farming of limited field crops through excessive use of irrigation, synthetic fertilizer, agrochemicals, and high-yielding varieties. The green revolution strategies have been successful in dramatic increases of yield of four major staple, particularly wheat, maize, rice, and potatoes, particularly in the favorable farming conditions in South Asia. However, over-extractive and intensive farm practices of limited field crops under green revolution strategies has resulted into loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, water logging, increased salinity, alkalinity, alkalinity, fertility loss, water pollution, groundwater depletion, and other environmental effects, particularly due to overuses of fertilizer and chemical pesticides in combination with irrigation. The South Asian agri-food systems today has been facing interwind challenges of climate change threats along with long-standing development challenges, widespread chronic poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, sources degradation, socioeconomic inequalities, and poor infrastructure. Therefore, the agri-food system in South Asia, as elsewhere, is persistently failing to adequately feed the people and to conserve and prosper the natural environment on one hand and is highly fragile and vulnerable to the unforeseen crisis such as pandemic and climate emergencies on the other. Building community resilience against climate-induced disasters and attaining the sustainable development goal by 2030 is therefore a priority agenda of the development of all South Asian countries. So there has been an urgent call for a profound transformation of the agri-food system towards this end. Against this backdrop, launching of one country, one priority product in this region is an immensely important and timely initiative of FAO, particularly in the context of depending crisis of many stream agri-food systems. The OCOP initiative aims at promoting specialized agricultural products based on unique geographical locations, farming practice, and cultural heritage. Believe this initiative is broadly a part of support of food and agricultural organizations to the member states for the transformation of agri-food systems towards more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agri-food systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life with human welfare and climate outcomes. I'm confident that the SIRC member states will take necessary steps to get benefit from this initiative. SIRC Agriculture Center will collaborate with FAO to support, operationalize this initiative in South Asian region. Finally, I thank FAO Regional Office of the HCR Pacific for providing me such an unique opportunity to share my views on this August gathering. Thank you very much. Over to Dr. Sridhar. Thank you Dr. Hossain and for giving us the SIRC, the work in the SIRC region. So we now move on to the private sector partner and as you would all be aware that FAO in recent years has significantly increased its scope of partnership with the private sector. And we have Mr. Reginald Lee, who's the head of knowledge and programs in grow Asia, which is an industry association. Over to you, Reginald. Thank you, Sridhar. Honorable Ministers, Director General and distinguished delegates, good morning. And grow Asia is honored to deliver a short intervention on promoting special agro products through innovative solutions in Asia and the Pacific. As Sridhar mentioned, grow Asia is a multi stakeholder platform for the agri-food sector, and we were established by the World Economic Forum and the ASEAN Secretariat. Our mission is to build public private partnerships to broker market driven solutions for more inclusive resilient and sustainable food systems in Southeast Asia. Goals that are very much aligned with the objectives of OCOP. So encouraging small holders and family farms to focus on specialty high value agriculture products represent an opportunity to level the playing field with larger agribusinesses operations that enjoy economies of scale. I like to think of it as not competing with industrial farming systems, but instead farming differently, choosing to do the things industrial systems can't do such as intercropping, agro ecological production, integrated test management, and so on. And these play to the strengths of family farms who are more adapted to managing natural and human resources more intensively. Rather than large scale agriculture's focus on uniformity, mechanization and mass production to minimize costs, specialty production focuses on maximizing value to the customer. Now this focus on the customer or consumer is important to be able to unlock the value we seek from producing these special agricultural products. Consumers today generally share a growing concern for food health and safety. They want to know with confidence the conditions under which their foods are grown and processed about chemicals used or sanitation standards in foreign processing facilities. And in some ways lessons from the use of geographical indications or GI some of you have mentioned that already offer some guidance. And these guys are supposed to communicate to consumers that purchasing a product bearing a GI will deliver the advantages of an increased level of consistency and quality because they are produced in a particular location. And this requires not only effective marketing and consumer education, but also investment in inspection, testing and certification to really deliver that quality assurance. And for government and policymakers, our recommendation is to focus on building that support system for the value chain selected through infrastructure, standards, monitoring and finance mechanisms. We also know that Agri SMEs in general are limited in their technical, financial and organizational capacity to assess their suppliers and production systems, as well as transform their products and processes. We also have local assistants and incentives to encourage increased public and private sector investments in green supply chains, technologies, and other innovation solutions are important. What I can share from Croatia is that we're working through four program areas that will help green agriculture value chains. We are promoting agro food innovation through in country innovation hubs that accelerate adoption of climate smart solutions and farmer centric technologies in Southeast Asia. Second is empowering women along the supply chain through gender sensitive approaches. Third is strengthening regional pathways and accelerating knowledge transfer and adaptation of climate smart practices. Third is promoting responsible agricultural investments through policies and best practices. So properly structured subsidies and fiscal incentives help firms make long term investments by overcoming that upfront funding gap that often exists when they need to make changes to become green. We welcome opportunities to work together through our network and in country partners to help implement your pilot projects under OCOP for integration, demonstration and validation of green development practices. We believe that through multi stakeholder collaboration, public private partnerships, innovations and new models, gender responsive and climate smart approaches, we can create a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient world. We look forward to working with all of you to make the vision of OCOP a reality. Thank you all. Thank you, Reginald for giving us the thoughts of the private sector and especially grow Asia. So we now move on to one of our partners in the multilateral system, the International Trade Center, and we have Mr. Robert Skidmore, who is the chief of the sector component section at the ITC. Over to you, Robert. Hello, good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, to the FAO officials present, excellencies, distinguished ministers, esteemed colleagues and delegates. It's really a pleasure to be here and I want to thank the FAO for inviting ITC to contribute to the discussion related to one country one priority product. Before I start, I want to give you a quick note on ITC where a UN organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, were closely linked to the, to UNCTAD and the WTO, where WTO provides a space to negotiate market access and UNCTAD supports policy development. ITC was created to help small companies in developing countries take advantage of markets to trade. Our role was really to make small business more competitive, help them enter markets and help them increase the value that they're retaining. Progressively, we've grown to an institution that focuses on trade to achieve development outcomes. And in our strategy period, 2022 to 2025, our executive director has positioned us to organize all the work we do on competitiveness really to combine our efforts and raise our level of ambition in four areas. Gender, youth, green transition, and digital. So, with that, I think this program combines all those elements, I'm really interested to hear more about it. It brings a full value chain approach and a focus on transformation of food systems which of course were supportive of for ITC the focus on retaining more value at origin for producers is especially important because we believe that increased value and the income generated is essential for the many of the elements of the programs, including investment in more sustainable practices. If they have more value to reach more markets, they'll have the resources in order to make many of the investments necessary. We work on developing value chains across the region in many such products. And I think we've had a lot of lessons learned which could be quite relevant. I lead a project, for instance, which is funded by the European Union called the growth for rural advancement and sustainable progress in Pakistan. And grasp we work at, we have a full value chain approach we work in a dozen products across 21 districts of Pakistan. We have a wide number of partnerships, including FAO, which is a core partner for us. And we have the benefit to be to be able to include all elements of the value chain exactly as been described here. There's many others we work on. For instance, we work on the horticulture and other special products in Bhutan, baby ginger and Fiji coffee and in many places like PNG Nepal, and Nepal and many others. So, so that I think this is this is extremely relevant, relevant program for us. So I wanted to just throw in some some lessons we've learned, which I think are very relevant. People have talked a lot about the agro ecological and other elements that are part of this program. Of course, we're focused on the commercial part, because, you know, we need to think about markets we need to think about where these producers are going to be selling and how they're going to be obtaining that value. The first thing that we that we would say is think about market. First, before diving into the program, where is it going to be sold, what are consumers expectations, and how do we need to meet them. And on grasp, for instance, we did market studies, we're particularly focused on this rising demand all over the world for more nutritious, more sustainable, higher quality products and this demand is what can help producers achieve higher outcomes and better results. The second is, you know, there needs to be an important collaborative process to determine which value chains with local actors and have it very tailored and I think the program very much sees this need for it to be tailored based on local products but also the local aspirations and objectives of those who will be who will be involved. And it's that collaboration that creates the engagement later that makes the project successful. The third which people have mentioned create alliances all up and down the value chain. This has got to be done with all actors, and in particular the private sector needs to be on board and participating actively. And I think the intervention by grow Asia and many others is extremely relevant and that's a that's a big focus of it seats for our alliances for action program, which really makes the alliances the driving force behind value chain development. In the new ITC we focus a lot on small and medium enterprise development it is really the core of our mandate. Internationalize and small and medium enterprise and it, not just because of that but we know SMEs really drive a lot of the change they will drive the sales they will drive many, many parts of a successful COP program. So I, I recommend it keep SMEs in mind, think about how they're going to be supported through the process think about how they can enter markets. If you have the SME supported and engaged, you're very likely to be to be successful. I already mentioned a couple of times but you also have to think about how these SMEs are going to be able to obtain financing for investment, and for working capital in order to support trade into the markets that they're targeting. Under grasp through our partner PPAF we've been able to assemble a group of 21 financial institutions who are working with us to think about how to better tailor products and better understand financial products and better understand risks, and how they can work to support SMEs I think it's a super important element for making these kinds of projects commercially successful. And the last point that I'll make is that the, these companies and these products can't be competitive without thinking about digital first. So it's an old story we know COVID hugely accelerated the use of digital, the importance of digital, even the promise of digital for many more much of the work we do and we're delighted this is taking place, the trust in e-commerce for instance has skyrocketed from consumers, but it's also increased the challenge that many of our small producers and small companies are facing. And again, a couple of a couple of colleagues have mentioned this digital transition requires skills it requires bandwidth it requires also working across the value chain for instance to digitize supply chains, information, marketing positioning. So, how can, what are some of the things I think we can, we can eventually contribute in such a partnership, market identification and market information. This is something we, you know, have big online global public goods that producers and exporters can use to identify markets that could be interesting. We do, we have big relationships and a lot of alliances in the region and globally, which can help bring the buyers closer to the producers and to the exporters and create these alliances that are really necessary. We do a lot of work of course on making small businesses competitive and more sustainable and and developing quality and food safety systems, which can make, give these products, help these products achieve the potential that they have. These systems are really critical. Digital readiness and e-commerce for small companies, we're doing a lot of it accelerating so this is something potentially we can also contribute. And I would say also, you know, the ITC's flagship program she trades is really focused on helping women entrepreneurs reach markets and to obtain finance to understand better things like quality and this is a network of 40,000 female entrepreneurs that can be that can link to two programs like this. So thanks again for the for the opportunity to participate. We look forward to hearing more and to to eventually being part of these pilots and communication back over to you. Thank you Robert, and some very good points made, and especially competitiveness is an important area of focus when you look at OCOP and the area of commodities. So excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the end of today's launch event. There are three more speakers, and then we will close the event. I would request them to be in to conclude their remarks in three to four minutes, because also our hardworking interpreters who have been with us since very early morning room time they also need a short break. So I will now invite. First interventions from the floor. So first of all, we have Dr. Moussama Chamsun Nair, who is the director of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute who will speak first. She will be followed by a representative from Vietnam was just joined us online. And after that, the final speaker will be Mr. Jhakan Shee, who's the special advisor on South and Triangle Cooperation to FAO. First, may I invite Dr. Nahar from Bari in Dhaka Bangladesh. Over to you, madam. Thank you. Thank you. Honorable Sridhar to give opportunity to talk something. I'd like to give my space with sharing some slide. Dr. Nahar, please go to settings on top. Sitting. Right on the, you say see display setting. Yeah, that one. And say duplicate. Is this okay? Yeah, please go ahead and please conclude in four to five minutes. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Honorable chair of webinar distinguished participant from different country. Welcome all of you to Bangladesh presentation on global action on green development of a special agricultural product on country on priority product. That is OOP from Bangladesh side. I am talking. Dr. M. Shamchun Nahar. I am working at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute and serving here director of horticulture. So, you know, Bangladesh located in South Asia and it is a small country. Bangladesh is predominantly an agricultural country and has tropical and sub tropical monsoon. So, this is some of the outline that I'd like to talk. It is my pleasure to say that Bangladesh Bangladesh having diversity in fruits and vegetable scraps, nearly 200 type of fruits and vegetable is existing here among them the jackfruit. It is a old highest fruit size considering the size and it is our national fruits. So, we are thinking that that the green development with this jackfruit jackfruit is why jackfruit. So jackfruit is being a multipurpose tree that yields food, product, timber, fuel jackfruit has played an important role in rural economy in Bangladesh. Archaeologists have estimated that it has been growing in Bengal for between 3000 to 6000 year. In each of every house we have at least three to five jackfruit tree and it is a source of energy and the fruit leaves fruits, pulp, bark would be utilizes medicine to aesthetic gratification beautification. In the history of existing utilization diversity, the fruit was declared at national fruits after independence. If we see the functional and medicinal effect of jackfruit, jackfruit is enticing protein, potassium, calcium, vitamins and the jackfruit it has the pulp is the main part of our, the feeding part and the jackfruit is good for anti-culture properties, anti-cancer properties with prevent skin disease, is prevent cardiovascular disease. So, so many things it is a beneficial use or it has the medicinal use. So considering those jackfruit could be considered as a functional food because it has valuable compound in different part of the fruits that display functional and medicinal effect. So considering all things Bangladesh proposing jackfruit on country on priority products for green development. So we know the green development, there is a core direction of green development, green crop production system, integrated animal crops production system, then green food production and industry, rural environment and ecosystem services. So let discuss jackfruit under this condition, under this condition and there is also subsystem under this, the main component. So now, first of all, green crop production system and green crop production system include biodiversity input management priority. So the biodiversity that jackfruit biodiversity across the country grow homestack, social institute, root, trunk, root and different and it has also different color. If you see it can, it can grow on trunk, it can grow on even root and the color is different, some of them is green, some of them is kind of reddish. So it has a diversity that we eat the pulp, the fresh pulp of this jackfruit and if you see the color, then the texture size of pulp is different. So there is a variation or diversity existing in texture of the pulp of jackfruit. On the basis of the texture, the pulp texture, there is three type of jackfruit, one is gala, gala is very soft and the pulp of this type jackfruit is very soft and juicy. Durasa, this is the intermediate type of pulp and it contain medium soft to soft, juicy, fairly sweet pulp when you try. And that the kaja, kaja is very hard, pulp is very firm and crispy in nature and medium sweet to sweet and that the pulp size is large. If we think about the production system, people practicing the wild production practice here and that the conservation or wild harvest and that this is our land preparation. In the spacing we use here 10 meter to 10 meter for jackfruit tree, the bed and drainage of jackfruit, it is a raised bed system. So traditionally, we are not use here any chemical fertilizer, so that is why we are calling it is a green production system. And in this green production system, we are not using any chemical fertilizer, we use only the organic, some of the organic fertilizer, it is up to three years and split application. So at the young tree during pruning and pruning in that the increasing the foliage and carbon sequestration. Dr. Naha, I have to ask you request you to please conclude. Okay. We have others waiting, thank you. Okay, okay jackfruit, actually this is sharing 25% of total production system and it is hold in second in position, considering the production. So jackfruit, it is a, as I mentioned that jackfruit is a large fruit and when you try it, the people is sharing after ripening that the cow is eating. And also it is the crow, birds, squirrel, and this is the green leaf, it is good for the for the goats. So the green food production and industry, this is, you can see the lot of product, industrial product, different type of value added product that producing from jackfruit. So there is also diversity in their seed and that the seed is contained seed mash that the seed powder is contained to lectin lemony, juggling and are to carpet the juggling is provide for proof to useful to the protein to the patient for infected with human, human immunodeficiency virus. So if you see the rural environment and ecosystem, that the jackfruit will grow this a different layer at the eggplant that the barbeque grape the jackfruit so this kind of police system can prevent or protect our environment. So this is our john pleasure, maintain at body. And this is the variety developed by the Institute Bangladesh Research Institute. So if you see that that the in daily a star and two papers is telling that the gigantic proof is now exporting to UK, Italy, France, Greece, Germany and some other European country, and also Middle East, Middle East country. So it has a lot of scope to to to come forward in our commercial production. So now the, this is, though it is a very interesting nutrition. It is still it's a neglected. So we need to attack the young people, modern food like curry juice chips, and we need to make we need to give them more attention and industrial product. So way forward for expansion of jackfruit cultivation harvesting time of jackfruit in Bangladesh is very narrow, we need to increase the time here. There is huge potential of jackfruit making it available year round by the development by developing the variety and development of appropriate processing and preservation technique for process food to make available around year round processing preservation will also lead to capturing capture raising export market. But to achieve success in processing preservation and export market. More in uniform jackfruit cultivar, especially latex free jackfruit variety is required for making chips to capture the market in Japan, Malaysia, China and also the other country need to develop non sticky and program jackfruit variety harvesting and processing of jackfruit is currently very laborious with little mechanization so we need to work here explain expansion of jackfruit farming with variety development which could grow as a lucrative business in the future need proper mechanization for processing and value addition jackfruit market is not built in the country in new way to give maximum benefit to the local farmer. This local market development is important to focus on who is ultimately can also provide countless opportunities as valuable export product. So finally my conclusion and recommendation that the innovative collaboration is prerequisite for jackfruit product based on green development for that the local regional global and global cooperation is necessary required to enhance in the inter interdisciplinary research innovation. Innovation bottleneck technology to improve the whole industry chain for toward the green development for this we need to pay attention, government need to pay attention and. move forward with the policy and law research that the innovation and development and also the dissemination or transfer these are those the industrial product or some other product among all over the country and also need feedback and industry should come forward with their product and services. So in this regard, I think the talent educated people should come forward and integrate of those things that would be our jackfruit that I think the jackfruit will help us with that the green development so thank you for. Thank you for patients here. Thank you. So that was very interesting and we actually would have liked to hear this for a longer time but I'm sure as the program gets underway in Bangladesh we will have a chance to go into much longer detail on how jackfruit can be an OCP candidate and this is very interesting to learn. Our next speaker is from Vietnam is Mr non dank we the deputy of the OCP division, the National Coordination Office of the NTP on new rural development from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Government of Vietnam. Over to you. Could you please keep your remarks to a few minutes thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me. Yes, we can hear you. Yes, we can. Please go ahead. Yes, I can share a document. I cannot share my document from the screen. Okay. You're sharing your screen. Okay, somebody there to help you the file that you want to show. Okay. Again, speaking. Thank you. Excuse me. Good morning. Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen from different country. My name is Nhan and deputy of OCP division. It's an honor for me to today to present some words about one common one products program in Vietnam. Firstly, I want to introduce Vietnam OCP program based on experience of Japan over and from the top of Thailand program. Since 2030, some province of Vietnam has been minted on common products program with positive outcome and she built into economic development to improve living standard in rural area. In 2018, the government Vietnam implemented OCP program for the period 2018 to 2020 nationwide. And the characteristics of OCP program in Vietnam focus on develop local space like products release and come new level with objective increase rural income and create small job locally for most human resource and preserve basin diversity country. The OCP program in rural economic develop program towards promoting internal resource such as rural wisdom, creative labor, raw material and local culture. Increase product value raise income rural beside and contribute to new rural development. The tactics OCP produce small and medium enterprise cooperatives and household. The purpose of OCP program in Vietnam. Firstly, in region rural production and business owner to fully utilize potential land products and comparative advantage to improve product value increase income and contribute to improve living standard in rural area. And second is reorganizing production through whole value chains and linkage with raw material products area applying advanced quality standard. Promoting start up and creatives in rural area to enhance added value and sustainable development. Thirdly is addressing employment social security reducing poverty and raising income for people in rural area as well as previous local country. The reasons of OCP program in Vietnam up to now there are more than 7000 OCP products dated from star three star or higher. First product account for 80% and hand the craft products account for 10%. And with more than 4000 OCP producers with cooperatives and small and medium enterprise account for 65%. More than 60% of OCP producers with three star or higher reported higher revenue. The OCP program has contributed to job creation spacer in and to rules of women and ethnic minority. The summer lesson learned from Vietnam from OCP program. Firstly, Vietnam OCP targets to release and come new level sparse line products for SME and co-operative to promote the development of unique and spacer products. Second, the OCP program is organized and national wide creating and sleep lower effects in community promoting spirit and responsibility and capacity produce combined with local advantage. Thirdly, the program focus on improved product quality and market accessibility in order to meet some demand. The first three is developing OCP product along with country. This simulation exploiting and in those generous value. Advantage to promote and introduce the local prisoner and national wide country. Some challenges from the OCP program in Vietnam. And how to strengthen innovation, creative capacity product development and quality improve. How to support OCP produce through such program as fair chest and something like that. And how promote Vietnam OCP to become international deconize standard and sustainable development. Finally, we have some proposal from Vietnam. Vietnam has proposed to initiative promoting the network for Asian rural product development on one release, one product model which was approved by IMAP for 42nd into 2020. Power support and work with Vietnam to connect with employment and mobilize financial and technical assistance from international partner to support network establishment and implementation. And organized national or international forum affair is a mission to promote special products for fostering chest link and value sharing experience and promoting local culture. Thank you for your attention. Thank you Mr. Ki and indeed Vietnam has a very successful program already and we look forward to learning more and sharing it with all the other countries. So, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the end, I'd like to now invite the last speaker for today, Mr. Jochen she who is the special advisor on South South and triangle cooperation to the assistant director general of the regional office in Asia and Pacific. Mr. She please. Thank you chair, Linda. I think South South and the triangular cooperation cannot be absent at this occasion. My name is Jochen, a special advisor on South South and triangle cooperation wrap. As my colleague, you should mention the earlier, will be aims to develop sustainable value chains for special agro products SAP, and support the family farmers reap the full benefits of global market South South and triangular cooperation as a very important partnership mechanism, offers a lot of potential to engage in the support the aim of OZOP first study, not just sharing many countries in our region, world leading innovators of special agro products. For instance, the Japan's OOP finance OOP and the geographic indications and the China's poverty reduction strategy, Korea's rural convergence, in the tripartist, etc. Their experience is very valuable and transferable to other countries in our region who share similar farming systems and the social economic context in the SSTC provides a suitable platform to exchange and learn from each other. Second, the capacity building SSTC can diverge the technical law hall and expertise from countries with similar experiences, context and challenges. And, for instance, we have partnered with Korea come about to provide capacity building programs on agro value chains for agricultural professionals in seats, it's ongoing now, and certainly partnerships. South South and triangular cooperation mobilizes technical and financial partnerships and investment to bridge and complement the knowledge, technical and financial gaps, as well as give up solutions. And just like Mr. Shah highlights the key principles of OZOP initiative, a multidisciplinary approach and engagement with different stakeholders, government, research, extension NGO and the PPP, etc. Firstly, resource mobilization, and in my role as a special advisor for South South and the triangular cooperation in the region, I'm actively looking for the funding opportunities from southern partners and the triangular partners to support corporate and the regional initiatives. And for instance, we are recently collaborating with China's development agencies to fund initiatives aiming to promote a green recovery in post-COVID-19 era, such as OZOP, etc. This includes mobilizing China's technical skills and financial resources to enhance the green and sustainable value chains for special agro products in LDCs and LDCs in this region. Thanks for your attention. Over to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Shah, and for pointing out the role of SSTC in OZOP. So, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we are one hour over time, but I think that signifies how much we've had to discuss and there's still much more. We probably not even touch the tip of the iceberg. So, and as you all know, OZOP is a program it will continue. There's a lot to do. And we will have more opportunities to interact both at country level and regional level. So, before I hand it over for the concluding remarks to Mr. Kim, I'd like to thank the interpreters for staying online for an extra one hour and to our CSJM Audiovisual Services for providing an excellent technical backup for this webinar. I now invite Mr. Jong Jin Kim, Assistant Director General and Regional Representative of the FU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific to conclude this session. Thank you. First, thank you very much, Excellencies, Honorable Ministers and Distinguished Partners, ladies and gentlemen, for very rich and insightful exchange of ideas, experiences on special agriculture products. I think Honorable Ministers from South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific have demonstrated the leadership and commitment to this very promising initiative. Partners from research and development organizations and private sector have also showed common interest and strong support to this initiative. I'm grateful for all those excellent presentations and the most valuable contributions. Particularly, I would like to thank you for sharing very interesting, specific and very useful experiences, lessons as well as good policies, which obviously and very clearly well aligned to the key principles of OCOP. It was really encouraging to note that many of you have already identified and started to prioritize certain crops or animals in this OCOP program. There's clearly a momentum building on the national policies and concrete programs. I noted a few key areas and needs for support from FAO, from your interventions, such as innovation, geographic indication regime, quality standards, certification, food safety, trade facilitation and so on. In particular, I note that the innovative solutions are in high demand. I heard you need innovation, technology transfer to enhance productivity, competitiveness and profitability for your special agricultural products. I also heard your desire to strengthen traceability and certification systems. You voiced very clearly the need for improved legal systems for registration and protection at palm and off-road. It was really particularly encouraging to hear from several interventions of you that the establishment of regional platform to promote knowledge sharing on production, processing, marketing, trade, and with special agricultural products among members are really, really important. And that the regional office for Asia and Pacific is working on this. I hope we can launch this platform this year with the strong support from you, the member states. Allow me to repeat that OCOP is country inclusive, product inclusive, and food system inclusive. In this respect, I welcome all countries in this region to participate in this OCOP initiative based on your comparative advantage and your needs. Let me close by thanking you again for your active participation and excellent contribution to very rich discussion today. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Kim. So, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we will now close this webinar. Once again, thank you all for staying online an extra hour. And we wish you a very good day, good morning, good afternoon, good night for some people, and we will continue to meet on OCOP and carry this program forward. Thank you very much. Bye.