 Welcome to all of you to this webinar on solutions for youth employment and developing rural areas in relation to the UN decade of family farming. Did you know that Kyrgyzstan is amongst the youngest countries in the world. It is the youngest in Europe and the Central Asia region. The median age is 26 years compared to the world youngest one Nigeria with 15 years and interestingly Monaco with 53 years. However, if we look at the ranking Kyrgyzstan is only number 83 in the world. So Europe and Central Asia are still compared to the rest of the world, relatively older countries. Did you know also that the highest unemployment rate amongst young people in the region is in North Macedonia with more than 45%. I guess you on the other hand know that one third of the population in Europe and Central Asia lives in rural areas. So what has this to do with our topic today when speaking about the youth. I think a lot. So let me welcome you once again to this webinar, which is organized by the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia in the preparation of the upcoming regional conference, which is the main governing body in the region. The conference will take place from the second to the fourth of November 2020 and it's going to be organized online. It will be hosted by the government of Uzbekistan. So this recorded video is considered to be an introduction for the agenda item number 10 of the ministerial roundtable, which is taking place on the second November at 1030 so in case you are getting an appetite having seen this video on the web. It is related also to a background document, which is sorry for this, let's say technology issue or technical issue ERC slash 20 slash three, which you can find at the regional conference website and the meetings, European regional conference. So my name is Raymond Yele and I will be your moderator for today and I'm really glad to host you for this event. The recent state of food insecurity report shows that in 2019, there are still 760 million people severely undernourished globally. So there is really danger that we have also further increase of these figures due to the COVID crisis. The estimations which we have at the moment are between 80 to 130 million until next year. So we are really very, very far from achieving the sustainable development goal on zero hunger by 2030. On the other hand, I think we would all agree, particularly the panels but also the ministerial debate at the ERC that agriculture fisheries and forestry remains an essential part of many economies of the region. And although the poverty in the European region has declined, this trend is currently slowing down. So we need really solutions for rural areas in order to give it home to engaged youth, but also to create employment opportunities and the vibrant agriculture sector, which produces healthy food in a sustainable manner. On the other hand, also the COVID crisis showed that the agriculture sector and particularly also smallholder farms are demonstrated resilience, but is this going to continue? I'm happy to discuss this key topic today with a number of renowned experts, practitioners, and in this case, let me very much welcome first Natalia Bogdanov, Professor at the Agriculture Faculty of the University of Belgrade and author of many articles and research work in agriculture and rural development. Let me quote from one of her reports, agriculture and rural development policies represent a key challenge to the integration process of the Western Balkan countries in the European region. I'm also happy to welcome Ramona Dumitjoyu, a peasant farmer from Romania, and also a member of the European coordination via Campesina, and I think a negotiator also of the voluntary guidelines for sustainable food systems, and a very passionate, let's say, representative to, in fact, also promote the UN declaration for the peasants. And let me just quote her also in one of her videos, which I've looked at, if a farmer disappears or if the farmers disappear, the question is, who is going to feed the world? And I think this is rightly a key issue. What I'm very happy to welcome is also Elin Hofstrim Kageran. She's the Secretary General of Rural Youth Europe, and it's a rural youth institution or it's an NGO who has been already established in 1957 and represents more than 500,000 young people in the rural areas. And I think a key issue what Elin would like to emphasize is that increasing youth in decision making is key in order to really allow young people to develop the rural communities in a sustainable way. Let's welcome also Basik Kodbaya, a livestock farmer from Georgia, and we are happy to have you Basik here on the panel. And particularly, I'm very much like also your statement when you said Georgia is a prospective countries for smallholders and farming. So this is something which we definitely will further analyze. Furthermore, in order to have the representations also from the young farmers, I'm happy to welcome Doris Latina, a young farmer from Slovenia, and one of the four vice presidents of the European Council of Young Farmers. I just wanted to point out that the agriculture sector already suffering from aging is under-president economic and also social pressure so it's not just aging but we have also further issues which need to be addressed. Last but not least, of course, very welcome to Kanat Tilekayev, senior researcher at the Central Asia University in Kyrgyzstan and author of many articles in rural areas. And I think he was emphasizing in one of the recent smallholder studies which he has also done for FAO that is key to provide more training to farmers, particularly also in sustainable development actions. So a warm welcome to all of you in this virtual roundtable and I'm looking forward in this next 40 to 50 minutes to have a very interesting discussion. But before starting our discussion and our debate, let's look a bit closer in the issues regarding the situation in the rural areas in the region. And let's see what Morten is going to tell us with a short video introduction. When I grew up in Denmark in the 1970s and 80s, my grandparents had a small family farm. My parents moved away from rural areas to the city and found jobs there. This is the story of many families in the region and family farming remains to be the backbone of agriculture in most countries from the EU countries to Central Asia. Almost one third of the population in Europe and Central Asia live in rural areas and farm structures are in many countries dominated by small family farms with less than five hectares. This is in particular the situation in the western Balkans, in Caucasus and in most countries in Central Asia. Recent FAO country studies in the region found that small family farms face multiple challenges. Smallholders have a in general limited access to finance. They use outdated technology. They have low input quality and low labor skills. Many of the challenges are the same or interrelated with the challenges faced by the rural youth. Also many of the solutions can be integrated. Rural poverty has been declining over the years but this trend has recently slowed down. In many countries of the region the average income of the population is lower in rural than in urban areas and poverty has a strong gender dimension. In Georgia around 17% of the urban population was in 2016 below the national poverty line while the similar figure for the rural population was 26%. Rural people, especially women, youth and other disadvantaged groups have fewer decent employment opportunities and do often not have access to adequate living and working conditions. Rural areas offer often only low skilled and insecure employment. At the same time agriculture remains an essential part of many economies in the region. In Albania this year is more than one third of the total economy. The needs and constraints of smallholders and family farms have been further deepened in the past six months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid surveys conducted by FAO in the past months showed increasing financial problems for value chain actors and therefore also for smallholders. They have in general the least capacities and resources to cope with the pandemic and it is key to increase their resilience. Small family farms are not one homogeneous group and therefore there isn't a one size fits all approach. This should be considered when we provide policy recommendations for their development. First there are those small farms that have the potential, the knowledge and also access to the resources both human and financial to develop into commercial family farms. The type of farm that is the backbone of the farm structures in most EU member countries. Second there is the part of the rural population that have the potential and resources to diversify the economy by developing a business not directly in primary agriculture production but in areas such as processing of agricultural products, rural tourism, handicrafts etc. Finally there is also a part of the rural population that will often not be able to further develop. This includes the elderly and the most vulnerable and they are in danger of being left behind. This group needs to be supported by social protection measures. This said we should also remember that many rural households have mixed livelihood strategies allowing them to combine income from agriculture with income from outside of the farm. This is part of the problem but it can certainly also be part of the solution. Not only small farms but also rural youth in the region face several challenges including high levels of youth unemployment in many countries. In 2017 youth unemployment rate in Armenia was 38% and in Bosnia and Herzegovina it was 34%. Unfortunately it is often in the best interest of young people to leave rural areas for example to access higher quality education. This reduces the human capital in rural areas. In such situation it then becomes a key issue to make farming and rural areas in general more attractive to young people as they have a major role to play in the revitalization of rural areas. Integrated and holistic policies are needed. Young people are also the future of family farming so the two topics are very much related. Furthermore young people leaving the rural areas temporary not only create problems but also opportunities when remittances are invested in agriculture or in development of other rural businesses. Young farmers are more open than older farmers to explore opportunities to generate income from different sources and not only from agriculture production. Investment in agriculture and rural development targeting the needs of small family farms and youth is a precondition for more inclusive and sustainable growth. This could include moving away from direct support to farmers towards more focus on investment support. Innovation and digital transformation is relevant to many aspects of support to both family farms and youth from effective farm advisory services to innovation and improved access to markets. The information needs of farmers are increasing as farmers must make more complex decisions. Young farmers and young people in rural areas in general have the opportunity to be the carriers of the digital transformation. Family farming given its multi-dimensional nature is essential for achieving several of the sustainable development goals and the key SDD target is 2.3 on doubling the productivity and income of small scale food producers. So what does this leave us with? The paper brings forward for discussion nine suggested action points which are to promote structural transformation of the food and agriculture sector to prepare national action plans for family farming to adopt a total and integrated community development approaches to share information, knowledge and expertise and facilitate innovations and digital transformation to increase investment support for small family farms and youth entrepreneurship to provide responsible investment in public infrastructure, digitalization, climate change, mitigation and adaptation and also in social protection. To develop policies in support of rural youth including access to land and decent employment opportunities to empower young people to be part of the decision making processes and finally to request FAO to continue to assist countries in the region in transformational rural areas and improving livelihoods with focus on family farmers and rural youth. There are no quick fixes to the challenges facing rural areas but the UN Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028 with its global action plan serves as a framework for countries to develop public policies and investments to support family farming and it provides an excellent opportunity to enhance this support. Thank you very much. So Martin was emphasizing in his introduction the importance of digitalization and innovation and he particularly emphasized and we would probably all agree that young farmers will play here an important role. In this case I think Doris I would like to turn to you coming from Slovenia with a beautiful agricultural landscape Do you think that the young farmers will be a key vehicle to bring digitalization to the rural areas and into agriculture and what needs to be done that this is going to happen? Thank you. It was already point out but still of course young farmers youth on the rural side and also family farming are the future of sustainable rural development and we must ensure rural areas are places where young people can benefit not just from equal but also fair opportunities. I mean here in personal, social educational also professional development and for this it's really important we have not just good synergies but other synergies that are today for young farmers and also for young entrepreneurs and we have a lot of different mechanisms we need. Firstly of course access to lifelong education training through different programs. We already have some but it's known that we need to create some news. Peer learning needs to be promoted through new technologies and we need to develop platforms that will allow young people from all over the world to interact with others and also with other stakeholders. Then secondly access to finance. Everything starts and ends with money. So we need targeted investment, supporting activities and we need mandatory and well funded instruments that are not just needed on the farms in rural areas but it's crucial that we fund them. For future development of family farmers, young farmers and of course young entrepreneurs in rural areas. And it's really important this transparent cooperation between all the stakeholders in the agri-food chain and here I mean including farmers. Farmers need to get a fair price for the product. Of course using access to land for young farmers and for family farmers. We have here also different mechanism. Let me just point out maybe land mobility. Sorry to interrupt you. Maybe when we're coming a bit to the policies let's bring that one in. I first would like to still a bit staying on the issue of let's say what makes it attractive for the young people to come to the areas and because we always say digitalization is an issue which makes it attractive because young people are interested also in such areas. Let me maybe ask Basik here also as a young farmer from Georgia where probably you can dream from the support which has been given in the European Union especially to young farmers. But do you see that digitalization is really something which allows farmers to become more attractive or to become that also in Georgia farming becomes more attractive and what do you think really needs to happen to support the agriculture sector? And would you actually I mean you're young and you also recommend your daughter already to engage in agriculture also in the future. Microphone. My name is Basik. I'm from Georgia. Firstly, I want to say that Georgia has very big perspective because family farming is the world that Georgia essentially do. We have 8,000 of experience of agriculture, wine making, cheese making. What we need now is more education, more knowledge, more support from our country and support from international organizations and more popularization to speak with young people that this young farmer is very important for country for war. That is what I want to do. Basik, would you recommend your daughter to engage in agriculture? Yes, of course. I would recommend it because she really has skills for it. If she decides, I will be happy. That sounds very good. Ellen, you as the secretary general of the rural youth, you're representing 500,000 young people in 20 countries. I would assume you are at the pulse of the young people in the rural area. What do you think needs to happen? Do the young farmers of your interest groups do they recommend to the next generation already to engage further in farming? Do we make sure that rural people are really staying or why do rural people live? I want to start off with saying that in 2018 we took part in a research project run by the rural youth project in Scotland. One of the findings that were there were about 50% of the young people who answered the questions said that they chose to live where they live because of their connections to their families or their partners. Well, 24% said that they're based on work and choose to live in rural areas. I think that this shows how important the social structure of it is and how important it is to really help young people to create those social networks and to enforce that kind of feeling that you have also in family farming of course, that's part of it. And I think that the things that are hindering this is definitely limited access to infrastructure be it internet, be it access to affordable housing or even local transport to be able to move around because we forget that young people before they're allowed to drive a car have a really tough time to get around in the countryside. So these are things that really affect them in their choice of moving to the... staying in the countryside, moving to the countryside and even establishing families there because they might not want to inflict the difficulties they have faced on their own families in a sense, or their children. So these are things that I think... Eileen, is it only the infrastructure? Because that's been said all over. European Union has put billions of money into infrastructure in rural areas. Is agriculture really still an attractive profession for young people? I think definitely. And I think definitely also from the aspect of the societal aspect of it. So it's a community and being part of that community and also as agricultural youth organizations or even rural youth organizations it's important to be embracing and welcoming for all kinds of people who are interested in that lifestyle because I think one of the biggest barriers is this, that you don't have the connections you don't have the... you don't know anyone who lives in a rural area and then you wouldn't... even if that would be your dream you wouldn't go there because you don't have the social connection. And this is especially important for young people I think in a certain age where you're creating your social network on your own that you need that sort of support. So I think that's definitely the basis but the big hindrance of this is the infrastructure. Maybe let's ask in this case Natalia who has analyzed many policies over the years and in different countries and particularly also the role for smallholders I don't know to what extent Natalia we were focusing also on the youth but of course in the smallholder study which you have done for FAO there were various instruments also been mentioned but what I would like to ask you is do we have a golden bullet? A golden bullet in terms of a policy recommendation in order to support the rural areas and to bring the youth closer to the rural areas. Thank you, Raimon. So as Morten already explained about our project on smallholders and family farms in Central Asia region besides contributing to better understanding of the role and the importance of smallholders and family farms project has also brought some new insights into their livelihood strategies and resulted in identifying many recommendations that were developed about three main categories. So there is no golden button as you asked our recommendations were developed about the concept supporting development of commercial farms, diversification and exit path but if you are asking me personally about which of recommended measures is my favorite then for sure it is to facilitate structural transformation of smallholders and family farms and support their productivity growth which is also very closely connected with the approach targeting those looking for diversification and it fits in what Doris and Elin also mentioned in their elaboration so my favorite measure and recommendation out of least of maybe 100 is to facilitate the access to the markets but also development of short food chains and network of different actors surrounding them in agricultural business so I mean small and micro size and medium size enterprises service providers, farmers association social service providers that should be encouraged and supported also by local communities and I hardly believe that there is a huge space for better jobs for rural youth that they can find themselves in that ambience let's say not just in farming and that with some very maybe simple measures like vouchers for providing this kind of services will help them to feel somehow important to feel better and to have let's say better perspective on their future then relying exactly and only on farming activities would you and I tell you would you think that there is there is a big gap between national and local policy processes and what do you think because I mean what you mentioned now is all very well and it's all heard but how are we going to get this at the local level so are we having a gap here and what needs to be done in order to reach this gap? What we found from the country studies that there is insufficient synergy among the policies implemented by various ministries governmental bodies and also what is happening in the field and generally the biggest problem is the lack of coherence between policies objectives, mechanisms, funding and outcomes of policies implemented by government but also the same is for the local authorities and local governments so it seems like they do not communicate well between each other they are doing their best to create sound and well policies targeting vulnerable rural groups specific farmers in specific sub-sectors but still the synergy and coherence between the policies implemented from national and sub-national level is relatively low Maybe let's in this case I want to turn to Ramona being in fact an active member of the network of Via Campesina of course also a peasant in Romania and how do you see in principle when we are talking about empowerment I guess it's a problem of empowerment which Natalia also mentioned how do you see our farmers to influence? Do you feel there is enough power in what I want in principle to ask you because you are a very strong advocate for the UN declaration on the rights of the peasants do you think it will help? So let's maybe see a bit if we are moving with this declaration also further Thank you very much for the question I would like to thank also for all the speakers who spoke before me this is a very rich conversation that I appreciate very much so there are two distinct questions how can farmers especially the small holders influence public policies in food and agriculture and how they are actually influencing it Ramona let's focus on how they can focus on the UN rights for peasants how they can do it we can take up later on again Well the small scale family farmers come with a lot of opportunities on the table with a lot of strong points we have a practical experience and we also have socially we're part of the part of the society that provides food and also experienced first hand public policies that worked or that didn't work and we have the vision and we do have proposals on how they can be improved we have a lot of practical experience of what didn't work and what's important is in the process for this experience to be valued by the entire society is that we have a transparent inclusive accountable decision making process which includes in the dialogue and in the entire process the small scale agro-ecological farmers this has not been happening until now in the processes where we are included symbolically our contributions are often ignored and we are lacking a real participation a real inclusion in the decision making process we need a real space of articulation of our voices because we are often lacking resources and we're experiencing especially now very very difficult times our priorities are in the food production and for the part of participation we need bigger effort from the governments to include us will you interrupt Ramona will you interrupt help will it help well the United Nations declaration for the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas is an instrument that actually started as an initiative from the ground from the peasant communities from all around the world it's been negotiated for 17 years in the UN system and it includes really it reflects the knowledge and the experience of the small scale of the peasant communities around the world we believe that content wise it's full of solutions and it's full of guidance for how public policies can be shaped shifting from the direction of trying to satisfy the trade the needs of trade the needs of the big multinational corporations who are looking for profit and give a more social orientation to public policies because this and I heard before more than talking about the importance of the social the social importance of public policies we feel that it's lacking and we feel that it's being constantly degrading and it's really time and COVID this COVID crisis really shows us that it's really time to bring back the human rights to enhance the human rights of the people and yeah to impact the public policies the social importance that they need to have and we need that Ramona let me in this case because I want to stay a bit also with the eunuch and maybe I want to ask Elin I want to ask the young people so I want to ask also Doris what do you think is declaration going to help is it going to make the changes is it going to influence government policies Elin what do you think what do the young people tell well I think in general what we are lacking at the moment or realize it's lacking is a lot of research and a lot of actual insight into what rule you think and I think that any kind of papers and movements the political and policymaking areas are important but they also need to be supported by the research and not only that but it also needs to be current like Ramona said that it had taken 17 years to process this paper and that's all fine but at the same time that paper probably doesn't take into consideration the corona situation at the moment so these things need to be updated and continuously worked on they need to be working papers not statements and at the same time also there needs to be a big input into the yeah basically the research because how can you base anything on if you don't know what you are who you're talking for or the group you're talking about Doris how do you see this from your side I agree with what was said but we need to come from the papers to the actions because one side is what is written and the other side only what matters only what is on the field is actions we need actions or daily life that is in my views it's a good key point which allows me in fact to turn to Dania can say Guloff is a cattle breeder in Kazakhstan and he has worked since 10 years for the agriculture business and in the agriculture sector and so I would in fact ask you Dania how do you see the empowerment of the farmers and what needs to happen if you take it particular from the perspective of a country like Kazakhstan and Doris just said having something on the paper is one thing but we need to have actions so what would you say what are key points from your side thank you very much I agree with our colleagues Kazakhstan has huge potential in agriculture development and based on that fact 10 years ago Kazakhstan started to finance agricultural projects small-scale medium-scale large-scale projects in order to develop the agriculture business in Kazakhstan so and one of this project is our company so I work for a company for several years and we have actually two farm operations first is Kalkal farm where we breed the pure red cattle and second is our large feedlot cattle feedlot operation so you know based on the resources that government allocated to support projects like we so it allows us to not just to develop large farms but also to help small farmers for instance we work very closely with small farmers we don't just purchase cattle from them but we also help them train them different services like vet services feeding services or cattle handling techniques so we cooperate with them very closely and we give them fair price for their cattle and they always have a like market for their cattle you know that's why it's like mutually beneficial cooperation between us so government is supporting not only big farms but also small farms so they can supply cattle for us and we give them the proper fair market price for their cattle you know so this is like one example how government is doing real actions not just on paper but also to help the small farmers in the regions. Is there enough investment being put in the agriculture sector is there enough public investments coming agriculture or would you say it's done more? Actually there is enough investment public investment in our country so government is supporting very good I mean it's there are not enough resources human cattle land resources so just you know and especially livestock production is becoming more popular for young people in our country because and you know based on that factors like COVID situation all around the world and the shrinkage of the job places in cities so many young people are starting to think about moving back to their home in rural areas in order to to develop the livestock production because government is supporting it gives financial resources, cheap loans, subsidies and technical assistance so that's why it's kind of like becoming attractive for small farmers. I think that's certainly an interesting point and I would like to turn now in this case to Karnat who has analyzed and who has also looked particularly as some of these investments particularly has looked also closer into what is happening to the remittances how do remittances contribute to Central Asia we know Tajikistan one third of the remittances are part of the GDP so Karnat would you say that rural people invest their remittances in agriculture or in other businesses so can we really feel there is in the COVID situation is a bit more complicated of course at the moment but can we really say there is something happening and what needs to be done more in order to facilitate that better. I found the interesting that many initiative initiated by the migrants they invest not in the individual assets remittances one of their investment they usually farmers doing they try to increase the cattle number of cattle for example so they use livestock as a certain as an asset and it's increased over the years maybe for the last 15 years it's increased 45 percent and cattle livestock sheaves increasing over time constantly but also in many areas I found that they start to replace public investment I found the cases where migrants collect money and put clean water, try to replace schools, try to improve some public facilities so it's one of the effects which we can observe in many areas in Kyrgyzstan so you are correctly right but definitely it shows the aspects which Elin in her talk noticed that we have very high under finance in agriculture in Kyrgyzstan so the huge under investment in all public facilities roads, schools, hospitals the huge and even even an internet access it's very complicated in remote rural areas so we need to provide just improve rural life to keep the people in their homeland so I think one of the options which farmers should have in place it's also opportunity for for example online distance learning and training and it's becoming very obvious and very urgent this year with the state and quarantine measures across the globe and moving away from the country becoming impossible people can go to schools and in this situation very many rural residents was a block in the home in the villages and if they have an opportunity to still get an access to education to training materials it's much better for them Let's take still a bit on the investment part because I think it's you said this is going to happen but is there also enough done from the private sector in terms of investment meaning all the banks do we have here enough engagement into let's say overall social infrastructure into SMEs or would you say more needs to be done in that sense we need to work for example to increase access for small farmers because access to credit is more profitable for the service sector but for the agriculture it's still we have very high interest rates in the country so access to long term investments still need to be maybe some special products for investments in equipment in some facilities might be very helpful for the small farmers and it also may create additional employment opportunities for the rural youth there. Let's hear in this case if EBRD is doing enough to invest in that sense and in this case I would like to listen to Nadia Petkova who is the director of the regional network on the SME and finance and development of EBRD so let's listen into her what she says, what EBRD does and to see if EBRD is in facilitating also this investment. Providing SMEs with financial solutions and know how is at the heart of the small business initiative to advise small clients across all sectors including agribusiness providing them with local and international expertise to help them build up their capacity and enhance their chances of gaining access to finance. At EBRD we have adjusted to the new realities and are delivering almost all of our advisory services digitally increasing their relevance and accessibility by small businesses during the current crisis. Our advisory teams around have delivered over 200 webinars and trainings as a crisis response reaching over 10,000 participants. We are currently running a number of platforms bringing small businesses and consultants together and are running online training through our know how academy. Small companies, especially these led by young entrepreneurs or women have been hit disproportionately during the current crisis diminishing their ability to access the supply chain. Supply chains have been badly disrupted given most businesses rely on network of suppliers the inability of suppliers to access finance have ripple effect on entire sectors and markets. At EBRD we work with bigger companies across multiple industries to strengthen their supply chains by providing advice and working capital financing to their suppliers. We are also exploring ways to provide sustainable supply chain financing opportunities to small stakeholders including in the agribusiness sector. In 2019 EBRD launched its skills in business and youth in business programs aiming at advising and financing companies through partner banks led by young entrepreneurs or larger businesses interested in investing in their young workforce by making their companies youth friendly of places. Nadia Petkova the director of the regional network on SMEs from EBRD and I think she emphasized also that EBRD is working on youth in business programs. In this case Natalia and also Kana let me come to let's say the university of the research actually Elien has said before when we talked about the declaration on the present more research also needs to be done. Over the years I think we have seen the university education has been improving in the region but what do you think taking particular these two areas into consideration young people as well as also investment as well as also opportunities what needs to be done more in terms of research to support this transformation and what can the academic sector in this case also do and I put you a third one. No I let you respond first and then I will ask you for the one. Natalia you want to go first? Yes okay so I was very happy to hear from Elien that there is a lot of resources and a lot of results from the various surveys the opinion of younger farmers and youths in rural areas for sure I will search on the internet after this meeting to find some references but I can say about the Balkan countries as well as about the countries we studied within the smoke oldest and family farm project that there is not enough evidence about the attitudes and about the expectations of the youth and generally about the rural population farmers and whatever so one of the recommendations from the small holder family farm study was that we need more insights and more applicative scientific project looking at the behavior aspects and behavior economic of rural youth and farmers generally we are always looking just about what the policy makers doing, what are their aspirations whether it fits or not into the EU policy and how and for different aspects of comparative analysis about the budgets about the measures implemented thresholds used for this or that measure and this kind of things but I am very sure and I think that I well know the papers published about our region that there is not enough evidence to support policy makers in their decisions in which way they should look and what are the opinions and expectations of the youth. The problem is that a ministry of sciences and academia generally are driven with a different agenda they are actually our because I am also the one coming from academia our work is not measured and evaluated according to applicative you know the results of our job just but according to scientific inputs but generally that is something that really missing and why it is missing just because we do not have enough money and also do not have enough capacity to conduct well designed and well how to say contextualized field and to assess the results so that is what I strongly support Eileen comment that is something policy makers needs cannot would you say it is a question of money that you do not have the money in order to do that research because of course I think the interesting part is that the young people sitting in the university, the young farmers are sitting in the university and then the research is not taking this up what they need to focus what is missing in this case? There are two things first of all I do not know situation in Europe I suppose it is different from Kyrgyzstan in rural areas people demonstrate lower education level and I talk with many farmers and they found a lot of recommendations which we academics doing let us say two sophisticated they want to be more applicable and to be presented in more simple manner so they want to be as simple as possible and they always want to know what exactly we should do so I suppose that we should bring this practical recommendation and bring not only to some ideas but maybe to some decisions they want to know for example if I suggest them to protect their land they said what we can do and then I need to say in your area you can make a zero tillage then immediately they ask me what is a zero tillage how we can know about this so they want to see so that this linkage should be provided from our side I mean we also should think not only about to prepare the knowledge but also to bring the knowledge in more simple manner to be understandable by the farmer So you were saying in principle that there is too much basic and general research and not enough applied science to directly bring it also to the extension services so that it goes into the yeah I think this is a transition which is certainly quite important let's I mean we are proceeding also in terms of the time what I would particularly take up in that case of all the problems and issues now we have also talked we have the global action plan of the UN decade on family farming and I think an objective of this action plan is in order to really put a spotlight on agricultural farming rural youth Ramona you have been contributing also to the preparation of the action plan in your capacity as representative also from La Via Campesina do you think it's going to give a push in the development of the rural area Yes we believe that instruments like the UN decade for family farming the UN declaration for the rights of peasants the UN declaration for the rights of Indigenous people are the best opportunities we have right now to switch into a better direction with the with the process of shaping public policies in the food and agriculture process the fact that we historically confronted with discrimination as small holders it really is a problem that has not been properly addressed and now the Covid crisis is only aggravating our problems and the fact that our human rights are being aggravated are being degraded and just also to maybe give more information to my fellow young farmers who are part of the discussion it's very important to use instruments who have been created based on the experience from the ground because oftentimes public policies are created by people who are disconnected from the reality so when we have such an instrument that builds on the experience of peasant communities it's very important to look at it properly and to try to use it as best as possible in our context I think it's very timely to speak about human rights in public policies because this crisis is showing the ugly face of you know how the priorities were established until now in public policies. We spoke too much about the need to satisfy trade to satisfy the needs of trade and we forgot about the people. We certainly left behind the small holders the small family farmers and it's really time to come back to them to look at them and to you were speaking just before about investments. It's very important to speak about responsible investments historically the financial players the financial institutions like banks certainly the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development participated in a very negative way in the process supporting irresponsible investments that destroyed local markets especially in Eastern Europe so it's time to prioritize the criteria that we are basing public policy processes we need to prioritize local markets we need to prioritize human rights we need to prioritize the young people to not take away anymore the opportunities from the young people in rural areas by allowing wild investments that are grabbing our land that are grabbing our resources and that are grabbing the opportunities for the future. So we are here we are part of the conversation because we have partners like institutional partners like FAO that we appreciate very much for their openness and for their understanding you know of the reality and we are ready to contribute we need our governments to be more open and to you know to make an effort towards us because we felt really that this is lacking and public policies that are addressing young the young generation of farmers only through pilot project is no longer enough it needs to change we need a systemic and systematic approach and yes and we do have all the elements to convince them Eileen and Doris I have to ask you but also basic you heard now also Ramona I mean Ramona is also a farmer so it is just of course speaks from the experience and you said before we need action now it's called a global action plan is there enough action in this action plan for the UN Decade of Family farming from your perspective Eileen you want to go first then Doris and basic I'm asking you as well I think that I mean it's a good initiative of course but it's always a question of implementation and thank you so much for Ramona for saying this because I think also what this study showed that I talked about previously is that only 13% of young people feel that they have say in the future of their community that means that young people are not brought to the discussion about their own lives they're not brought to the discussions about their own futures and they need to be part of the discussions about how their life is going to look and that goes I think not only in rural areas but in general but specifically in rural areas where the distances are far and where it's difficult to participate it needs to be facilitated so that the young people are able to participate into decision making about their realities and we have suggested with Sija and Mijark which is a Catholic agriculture youth organization we have made a manifest for the 2019 European elections and within this manifest we suggested that we'd involve the NGO sector more so get the NGOs rural youth NGOs involved on local, national and international level then to facilitate international cooperation because as Romona really pointed out I think this is a key to build the capacity of young people in rural areas and yeah to increase the studies and statistics of course to be able to show that the impact of these kind of measures as well Doris is there enough action? It's not I'm supporting everything what was said before we need to provide instrument and measures of course which need to engage and support all the youth farmers and of course family farmers in rural areas we need to make sure that no one is left behind here and we I mean we all because we are rural areas we have a power to co-create rural areas which we want to live in which we can have a decent life Bessik is the global action plan something where you would say it helps I mean you said at the beginning Georgia is a great place to do agriculture small holding because you have also great product is the global action plan something which you need or maybe you would say it's developing in any case the microphone Bessik the microphone yes my recommendation young farmers is more education more knowledge more information and work hard and smart I would say so you're saying they need to work hard and smart the declaration this is the way the declaration will be facilitating this process maybe based on what you said maybe we need a Friday for future for youth and rural development so we need to come to the point where young people from school go every Friday and demonstrate for rural areas as they do it for climate change very good thank you for this one I think looking at the time we are we are over time so lots of points have been put on the table I think we had a very rich discussion I appreciated the different inputs from all of you I think lots of thoughts for our member countries because let's remember this discussion is in fact the initiating of the debate of the members at the regional conference the members the observers some of you I think Ramona is going to participate also from the CSO's point of view so we are discussing at the regional conference also the priorities for the region and supporting small holders and family farmers is a key priority and one of the three really region initiatives FAO is going to continue to give an emphasis for that the suggestions and the contributions also from here which are very important also to further take into consideration so we are very keen on based on our debate today to hear from the policy makers at the regional conference further actions and recommendations the private sector the civil society what they will put in place and I think to be continued so thank you for all of you