 Welcome to this side event of the CFS-48. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everybody from around the world. I am Etienne Asla from the CIRRAD, and I am a co-convener of the TPP with Fergus Sinclair from ICRAF. We are extremely pleased to welcome you at this side event of the CFS-48, named Addressing Knowledge and Implementation Gaps on Agroecological Transitions, a way forward for research and development through the transformative partnership platform, the TPP. So we are close to 200 participants now. And at this side event, there will be two panels to launch this TPP initiative. The first panel will be, what is the political demand for agroecology? And I introduce the panelists in a moment. And the second panel, moderated by Fergus, will be the Transdisciplinary Research Response, a new way forward with the agroecology partnership, transformative partnership platform, the TPP. These two panels will foster discussion of key knowledge and implementation needs and gaps ahead in line with the HLPE reports and outcomes of the CSS policy convergence process. And it will allow also a brief presentation of the TPP, of the initiative within it and a discussion with different stakeholders and the audience. Few technical points before starting the panel. First of all, there will be interpretation in three languages, French, English and Spanish. And you can find the button at the bottom of your screen and zoom screen interpretation, you choose the panel. All the sound will be translated, only the Q and A won't be translated. Otherwise, you can choose the channel of your own language. During the panel, during each panel, we will run two polls that will be launched at the beginning of each Q and A session. And you're welcome to participate to it. The interaction with the audience for each panel will be through Q and A window and there won't be a possibility to speak by yourself, but just write your questions these questions will animate the panel, will be forwarded to the panelists and you can vote on these questions to, if you agree with them. So the most vote you have, it will be facilitated and moderated through the panelists. And in any case, we will keep these questions for the future discussion about the TPP in the future. So in the first panel, we will have a video of his Excellency, Mr. Gotabaya Rajaprakseks, Executive President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Mr. Chris Dharmakerti will be with the panel to represent Sri Lanka as well. But I would like now to pass the floor to Mrs. Selene Jurgensen, permanent representative of Friends of the FAO. We will do the introductory remarks. So the floor is yours, Mr. Jurgensen, for five minutes. Hello everyone. Thank you very much, Mr. Selene. I would like to greet His Excellency, the President of Sri Lanka, the Ambassadors of Switzerland and Senegal, Mrs. Elouafi, the first Chief Scientist of the FAO, Mrs. Klaverie de Saint-Martin, from St. Rad, the representative of the European Union, from the CIA, from the civil society in its entirety. France promotes agroecology, in France, in Europe and in the countries of the South. Agroecology is, for us, a central lever to transform humanitarian systems. The 10 elements of agroecology adopted by the FAO in 2019 is the 13th principle of agroecology announced in the 14th report of the High Level Panel of Experts, HLPE, of the Committee on Food Security, a first-year political science interface forms a very useful framework to support countries in this transformation. For France, it is urgent to transform our current systems into sustainable and resilient food systems that allow access to all of us to quality food, healthy, safe, diversified and produced in a sustainable way. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only confirmed and made this transformation even more necessary. The top secretariat of the United Nations on food systems, which will take place in September next, with a pre-summit in Rome, end of July, must be the opportunity to progress collectively towards this goal and to promote the spread and the large-scale implementation of political recommendations of the CSA on agroecological practices and other innovative approaches. France is, indeed, convinced that the adoption of agroecological practices on a global scale and the implementation of recommendations of the CSA will bring a major contribution to the implementation of sustainable development objectives. In this title, France wishes to reaffirm its support to the Roman agencies to maintain and strengthen the programs dedicated to the promotion of agroecology and participate in the implementation of recommendations of the CSA. A change of paradigms is necessary for an agroecological approach to the green revolution of the last decades to raise the climate challenges environmental and social challenges to which we are all confronted in the North and in the South. The agroecology is, from this point of view, an approach that is based on the natural ecosystem that combines local and scientific knowledge and concentrates on the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment. The agroecological practices favor the recycling of nutrients, the storage of carbon in the soil and the conservation of biodiversity. They improve the fertility of the soil and their water retention, essential to good productivity. They also favor the diversity of cultivated species. They also give an important point, a greater autonomy to farmers by reducing their dependence on the income and therefore their exploitation charge. Resilience in the face of climate change but also economic and sanitary is a significantly improved approach. France therefore wishes to accompany developing countries, particularly countries that are less advanced in the agroecological transition. It is in this context that the accelerator of the Great Green Wall was launched last January by the French President of the French Republic, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, during the One Planet Summit, with a total financing of 12 billion euros for the period 2021-25 and with the support of the FAO, which I thank. This is important to fight against the degradation of land, the loss of biodiversity and to reinforce climate resilience but also the means of subsistence and food security in rural areas of 11 countries related to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Africa. France also wishes to promote a favorable context for the adoption of agroecological practices by family farmers from all over the world through a better access to funding and professional training. It is important to encourage the investment of the private sector, responsible socially and from an environmental point of view in agriculture and food systems. And this is, for example, concretized recently by the content of the common finance summit thanks to the French Agency for Development and FIDA last November in Paris and the creation of a public bank, of a coalition of public banks of development led by FIDA. This coalition aims to strengthen investments in food systems to ensure a better access to small exporters and food agroecological PME to funding. Finally, knowledge is, of course, a central element in terms of agroecology. This is why France has brought and financed in the framework of its partnership with the CGIR, signed early this year, the creation of the partnership platform in agroecology, TPP, Transformative Partnership Platform in Agroecology, an initiative that we are putting at honor today. It is a collaborative project set up by the CIRAD that I thank and the CGIR centers that I greet in collaboration with local actors and more particularly the national research centers of southern countries. So I am delighted today to participate in the launch of this platform. It has a global vocation in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America countries. It brings together partners that work on the transformation of food systems through the identification of lacunes in terms of knowledge, the documentation of good practices based on detailed scientific data and the promotion of dialogue between research and political decision-makers. It will be a useful and important contribution at the top of food systems. In conclusion, we need mobilization and investment of all to promote the adoption of good agroecological practices at an international level. This platform will be one of the key instruments that must allow the farmers of the world and political decision-makers to have access to information and documentation of quality for the scale of these good agroecological practices. I wish you excellent debate and I still want to congratulate me on the launch of this platform. I thank you. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to address you today at the agroecology event of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security. Climate change is one of the most serious issues humanity faces. Mitigating its impact requires urgent collective action from all countries. Individual nations must devise means to adapt to life in a changing climate. Ensuring food security through agroecological adaptation is an essential part of this. We are to preserve the health of our planet and ensure human sustainability, governments the world over must not hesitate to adopt bold policies. Such policies should support ecological conservation, help combat the loss of biodiversity and enable people to achieve their economic aspirations in more sustainable ways. In April of this year, the government of Sri Lanka banned the import of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides. Our decision took into account broader ecological issues as well as significant public health concerns. Use of artificial fertilizers and agrochemicals has been associated with the rise of non-communicable diseases amongst the general public. They have also long been identified with high incidences of chronic illness in the heartland of Sri Lanka where they have been overused for decades. Largely due to aggressive marketing by the agrochemical lobby and a lack of education amongst farmers, it is estimated that nearly 80% of the nitrogen fertilizer used in Sri Lanka is wasted. Excess fertilizer contaminates the land and seats into the ground water. It worsens soil degradation and water pollution and increases greenhouse gas emissions. My government's decision to ban imports of artificial fertilizer and agrochemicals will therefore enable a long needed national transition to a healthier and more ecologically sound system of organic agriculture. We are aware that there will be teething problems during this transition. These include constraints in domestic production and supply of organic alternatives as well as adverse public perceptions arising from the bank. However, as leaders, it is our responsibility to take decisive action despite the challenges we will face. If we hesitate to make decisions, essential initiatives such as this will always remain confined to the realm of discussion. The government of Sri Lanka is ready to support our farmers and agriculture-based industries as our agroecological transition takes place. Support mechanisms include subsidies to farmers as well as the purchase of paddy by the government at a guaranteed price if wheels are reduced temporarily. We would greatly appreciate the support of the international community including multilateral organizations, individual governments, climate funds, technical experts and bodies as well as businesses and investors to strengthen our domestic capacity in organic farming. Increasing production of bio-fertilizer, promoting adoption of organic soil enhancement technologies and management techniques, knowledge sharing on improved agricultural practices and strengthening of research and development into organic agriculture are some of the ways in which this support could be structured. I am confident that Sri Lanka's decision to ban imports of artificial fertilizers and agrochemicals will pave the way for a green economy and a healthier society while supporting our aspiration in terms of food security in the long term. I further hope that Sri Lanka's initiative will inspire other governments to take similarly bold action for the betterment of their nations, their citizens, the health of our planet and for our future generations. Thank you. Thank you both to France and Sri Lanka for this very motivating address and with that I would like to open the panel and to introduce the two panelists, Mr. Pio Benopst, ambassador, permanent mission of Switzerland to the UN in Rome and Mr. Magantal, advisor to the similar ambassador in Rome, Mr. Papsek, who was not able to join us today. So I would like to ask them to take the floor for five minutes and then we will be joined by Mr. Chris Darmakirti, who will present Sri Lanka in this panel. Please, the floor is yours, Mr. Pio Benopst. Please, could you close down your screen, your camera and we'll open the camera for the panel. Just Mr. Pio will keep your camera on, thank you. Thank you, thank you chair. May I start? Yes. Go ahead, go ahead. Thank you. So, agriculture, it's amazing. Good afternoon, by the way. Good morning, good evening, it depends where you are connected from. It's amazing too that we realize after so many years that the term agriculture is still provoking a lot of emotions and recently we've been going through this as if we were talking about something almost mysterious, almost esoteric. And then, strange enough, the Swiss we are known for being quite pragmatic, a concrete and actually being working and using agricultural principles in our agricultural systems and in our food systems for many, many years now. So many years that in order to prepare ourselves for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 21, the committee that is advising the federal government on food issues and prepared papers, Pathways to Advise Agriculture, Overcoming Challenges and Contributing to Sustainable Food Systems Transformation. This was prepared based on evidence coming out from several years of work. And there are a lot of institutions also including Swiss-based research institutions that are working on this. And it's not just for a reason, that it's not just an esoteric issue. It's an issue that why we Swiss are being working on and we keep on working and we believe in agricultural ecological patterns because our society, it's very urbanized. If you take away the mountains era where we don't live, basically, but our country is densely populated. And so production and consumption of food is very highly intertwined. There is consumers and producers are in discussion daily, basically, how to advance and how to proceed further in order to make sustainable, more ecologically sound and also for the determinants of health, production and food system that are sustainable. Now the point is this, that while in Switzerland, I would say we are pretty much rapidly moving, whether we, whether based on beliefs or whether based on a concrete experience, just to name, for instance, 30 years ago, agricultural products, organic products, were having hardly access to the market. Now 20% of the food consumption in Switzerland is organic based production. So say that what we definitely realize is that all the research, all the knowledge we are, we developed in Switzerland cannot be simply transferred in the way we might use to do in the past with positive intentions, but we need another connectivity, another way to discuss and to connect with the world, basically, on these issues. And therefore, what we think is that the models for research for development need to be rethought. We need to find the new kinds of types and spaces of structures to exchange among interested and among practitioners in the world. And we need to work and be focused on long-term perspectives. Therefore, we think that is this initiative, the transformative partnership platform, it's a very, very valuable initiative because exactly this is what we need at this moment. Knowledge and evidence-based knowledge is there. Now it's a point to how we make this accessible to everyone and how this can be adapted in a way that is not prescriptive from one country to another or in a classic North-South relations or anything like this, but how different protection can be based on their own reality can make of use and adapt this kind of knowledge that is coming out in order to have a real transformational movement into the future of the food systems. And this is where actually some of our actors, the institutions in this specific case, the Swiss Agency for Development Corporation, the Global Program of Food Systems is actually supporting this and other initiatives that are bring with the idea of mainstreaming agricultural principle within the food systems. And with this, I thank you and I close here my intervention in case you would need some, me for some Q and A later on. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Pio. I would like to give the floor now to Mr. Magianto for his address. The floor is yours, Mr. Magianto. Yes. Hello. Hello, yes, for my time. Yes, you can go. You have this, my dear. Thank you, Mr. President Sri Lanka. Thank you to all of you. First of all, I would like to tell you that our presence here shows the interest that Senegal has in the organisation of this important parallel agreement of the 48th CSA session and then to present to everyone the excuses of its excellence the ambassador of Senegal in Italy to the Kirenal, Dr. Papap D'Raisek, who had always wanted to be part of the party, but unfortunately, today, he has already made a appointment for a very long time. I therefore invite you to read his message. In short, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the organisers of this event and the happiness of having had this wonderful initiative to gather different panelists to exchange on agroecology, and particularly on how to solve lacunes, a matter of knowledge, and to implement on agroecology transitions. That said, I would like to focus on my experience to convey some strong convictions. First conviction, for us, the fundamental equation is to nourish Africa without destroying it. And to nourish Africa without destroying it means, on the one hand, creating socio-economic issues, environmental issues, and public health issues. And on the other hand, it also means accepting that tomorrow's agriculture has to exist and it must certainly be better than today's. This must be translated by an intergenerational solidarity that should allow us to have a quality environmental heritage. The second conviction is that to nourish Africa, we must certainly increase agricultural production, but this increase in African agricultural production is not, from our point of view, a sufficient and necessary condition to solve consumption problems. The exercise is much more complex because it is about building with clarity, efficiency and efficiency, a stable agricultural offer that is at the best, sufficient in quantity and satisfying in quality. This agricultural offer must also be a reminder for the producers and also supported by the most poor consumers' budget. So, a simple dropage of African agricultural production is absolutely not enough to nourish Africa. So, it must be more to ensure the durability and capacity of the productive basis of our ecosystems and a biological balance of the environment. The third and last conviction is that we must strengthen knowledge and African-Androgen knowledge through a scientific research of quality because agro-ecology is not allergic to any form of technological innovation. For example, Senegal has launched projects based on agro-ecology. These are projects that are under the appeal of integrated management of production and predators. With these projects, we realized that the yields have increased by at least 40% and have reduced significantly the use of pesticides. So, we can make agro-ecology and have a good productivity. In short, it is not about being able to say everything that exists. It is more about considering the principle of the director of agro-ecology in the context of sustainable and resilient food systems. That is why the summit on food systems should allow for a better reposition of agro-ecology so that the world can feed itself without being destroyed, while effectively preserving its productive basis. So, Senegal encourages all participants because it is not easy to promote new technologies, but with the help of sensibility of each other, we will all be aware of the need to deepen such an approach. Beyond all, it is important to make sure that the world's agriculture will develop thanks to a diversity of approaches. Therefore, the agro-ecological approach deserves respect and consideration. I thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Tal. Thank you very much to all the panelists. We are over 300 now. And for this panel of the political demand, I would like you to first ask you a question in the Q&A session. There will be a poll launched about the importance of the knowledge gap compared to the implementation gap. And I would like just to stop the panelist with a round of questions about the role of science in this demand. So maybe I would like to ask first, Mr. Pio Venubst, about what is the new way of doing research to attend your expectation from science? Is there a real knowledge gap? You mentioned that we know the urgency. We know the agroecology is working. So how we do expect the science role to evolve to attend this expectation from political demand? Thank you. Thank you for the question. So in the past, we used to do research related to a product. Or to a production pattern. Or on the other hand, looking at the health-related issues of something specific. But they were not necessarily related one to each other. Now, the point is that you don't do research just through researchers anymore. Research, you involve consumers. You involve a lot of different actors, including powers, local powers, municipalities, and so on. So research is becoming much more complex, but also, I would say, a very interesting way of bringing in evidence. Evidence that is also related to, for instance, policymaking or related to some other issues than the specific productivity-related matter. When we are talking about true costs, getting to the true costs of food, this implies all sorts of different ways of doing research. And I would say that, tendentially, those institutions that have been working on agroecology and agroecological issues, they're being already working in a systemic manner. So there they have an edge. Independently, whether then you find all the results that you are looking for, because more complex, of course, then there will be more possible solution. And by the way, just to answer rapidly to the question of Q&A that it was addressed to me about the referendum, this Sunday, the Swiss population, because of our direct democracy system, is going to vote on initiatives that include, in those one, that wants to ban pesticides used for agriculture. Whether this is going to go on through or not, whether the population is going to accept it or not, the mere fact that we are, at this moment, not only discussing but voting every citizen, including the one that is urbanized, not working, not being in the food chain, if you want, apart from being the consumer, that has to say whether they want this or not. This implies that there is already a change that is a systemic change that is happening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Irwin. So I would like to pass to Mr. Chris Darmakirti, who is the chair of the UN Sustainable Development Goal Council. What just Mr. Winvers said echoes to what your presence said about the banning of imports of pesticide and fertilizer. What would be your expectation in Sri Lanka about research, about the real knowledge gap to implement and to facilitate this transition? Thank you very much. I think, as the President said in his address, we have had experience with a lot of externalities with respect to the health impact because the farmers of Sri Lanka in the last decade have been getting afflicted with chronic kidney disease, which has been a substantial impact on the farmers' lives because their life expectancy gets reduced to five years unless they have a kidney donor. And in effect, the farmers in Sri Lanka are affected and other sort of substances that have been coming down the irrigation channels. And when we did certain research that from the geographic areas that these borders were flowing, there was no naturally occurring cadmium in the highlands. So clearly it was getting introduced either in the form of the fertilizers that were obviously substandard in terms of the quality. And clearly the toxin coming from the pesticides have been creating a lot of non-communicable diseases in the drink water rivers that the urban cities have been drawing their water from. So there's a massive health impact that we have suffered in the last few years. Now, the research side, unfortunately, if you look at the impact of the even we have a fertilizer secretariat and a standards institute, it's random samples of fertilizer that's being tested. So there is no real proper governance in the way that one can find out the quality of the imported inputs that come into agriculture. And also we've been having difficulties in the type of testing laboratory equipment and the level of soil testing capacity across the country because it's a substantial investment and also there's variability in the type of laboratories that are conducting these tests. So in terms of the input that countries like Sri Lanka requires is perhaps gene sequencing and much better higher quality testing and faster throughput of multiple samples, not just one or two, but you need to sample all the agroecological zones in the country. And to do that, that's a substantial effort. So we need to upscale the throughput of the laboratory facilities. Thank you, Chris, that's very clear. So it's a kind of a new way of doing research and it's feeding the scaling of the discovery and the knowledge. Yeah, because we have been looking at doing a complete baseline dashboard, which is the initiative that the president wants us to do so that we have an evidence-based approach to know the quality of the soil, the contamination level of the soil, the quality of the water, irrigated water, the contamination level of the irrigation water. And because we have had a irrigation system under the Mahavelli system, the farmers get their water from a separate input and the output of the water going out from that farmland goes off on a separate canal. So we can test the input and the output of the quality of the water and then incentivize the farmers and also penalize the farmers if indeed they're adding any contaminants. So that's a very good example of policy, public policy to cover the transition. So I would like to say to the audience, we are almost 300 now. Please put your question in the Q&A session. We will keep them in memory. We might not be able to answer that now because of the lack of time, but there were several questions about how to join this effort, how to join this platform. We will treat that in the second panel. Now I would like to turn to Ms. Selen Jurgensen and ask there about the political demand in the FLO context with the club of countries, friend to agroecology. So we heard Sri Lanka, France, Senegal and Switzerland, but there are other countries, there are many countries expressing political demand for the agroecological transition. Could you comment on that, Ms. Jurgensen and how do you see the international cooperation around this transition can operate? Thank you very much for this question. You have highlighted it. Several states are involved in favor of agroecology. There are still questions, however, the Swiss ambassador has mentioned them. And so it is particularly important to continue our efforts. We do it naturally at the FLO. We do it within the group of friends of agroecology, which is presided over by my friend, the ambassador of Senegal. We do it within all the young people and it's the reason for which also, the top of the United Nations on food systems seems to us an interesting moment to strengthen cooperation with other countries, with other actors, because it is important to listen to the countries, but also the local actors, the farmers, the civil society, the research to strengthen this cooperation at an international level and mobilize to not lose the dynamics that we have started to launch. So the efforts continue. Naturally, we call all our colleagues, the different countries, to continue to work with us. We also do it with European partners, of course, Europe has adopted a new Green Deal. And so it is also important to remember this strong European dimension and we wish to continue and amplify this dynamic during the peak of food systems. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask a last question to Mr. Tal before the panel stops. View from Senegal, the political demand for knowledge, for science. Could you show us how the international cooperation can play a role in these knowledge gaps and how do you see scientific cooperation around this agroecological transition, Mr. Tal? Mr. Tal, would you like to repeat the question in French? The question was, Mr. Tal, how can you see the scientific cooperation from Senegal, from a southern country, in this demand for agroecological transition? I think Mr. Tal is no longer connected. So I'm going to ask the question again. I'm going to direct the question to Pio Van Birst. How do you see this international cooperation in terms of science? Before we pass to the second panel with the answer of the TPP, how do you see this international cooperation and the role that Switzerland can play in it? It's to support the initiatives that are local. I would say in a very bold sentence is that we've got a lot of knowledge, of course, but why not make sure that, for instance, the Swiss agency with the World Corporation and others actually support the initiatives that are taken up by for instance the Sri Lankan government that is a bold and this implies very complex, the complexity of the research related to this will be very, very big. So why not following a political intention which is a very strong one with all the support we can give through our knowledge-based platform, including this one. And just as a compliment for the one of the Q&A question, we would not like to mix agroecology with a trade. It's not by banning products moving, but it's by giving the real true cost and true values to product that this will address also the trading issues. When Chris was talking about the health-related issues, this is the true values that still has to be completely unfolded into the, and analyzed into the foods. And this will be the answer for the future. You can import in the future your avocado, but then you will have to pay the cost for it, the full cost for it. Including the, thank you very much. So with this, I would like to close this first panel and pass the floor to Fergus, my colleague Fergus, co-convener of the TPP. Thank you Fergus for taking the second panel. Okay, thank you Etienne for such a clear articulation of a really strong political demand for agroecology. In this second panel, what we're gonna do is to start addressing, or look at what we can do to address that. I'm going to introduce the Transformative Partnership platform, and then Elizabeth is going to continue and show a couple of the initiatives that are currently underway. And then we have the civil society mechanism of CFS who are going to give their perspective. And then a young entrepreneur from Kenya trying to set up agroecological businesses is gonna give us a sort of fresh young idea from the perspective of somebody trying to get things done. So let me start by introducing the Transformative Partnership platform on agroecology. Next slide. Now this grew out of the HLPE and the Global Commission on Adaptation Reports and Dialogues. For example, at FAO and around Biovision's Money Flows Report and between the French Research Institutes and the CGAR. A coalition was formed, including FAO, UNET, Biovision, Switzerland, France, the CGAR. It's now been joined by TMG, IFAD and AFA together with many national partners to address knowledge and implementation gaps that are constraining agroecological transformation. Now the TPP is demand led. I should have the next slide but I don't see it, thank you. The TPP is demand led driven by the needs of the farmers organization, civil society and national and local governments in the places where the work is done. So you read this diagram from the inside out. It convenes global partners around this agenda bringing greater coherence to their agroecology efforts and has a fast developing science policy interface and capacity development facility to ensure that its work is transformative. It's governed by a steering committee comprising representatives of donors, providers and civil society and farmer organizations in the global south. Next slide. Now the TPP uses the 13 HLPE agroecological principles to guide its work. Seven of these principles, the lower ones in the circle are mainly concerned with agroecosystem management to encourage farming that is in harmony with nature and confers resilience. The other six in the upper part of the circle concern whole food systems and the fundamental for capitalizing and sustaining transformative change in relation to governance, social and economic realities. The need for these principles to be applied simultaneously has led to agroecology manifesting as a science, as a set of practices and as a series of social movements and widespread transformative changes only likely to occur where we can bring these three manifestations to work together. Next slide. As the president of Sri Lanka indicated in his address getting to a transformed food system is going to require big changes and there are many agroecological transition pathways from where we start to where we want to get to operating in different contexts. Now Gleesman's famous transition levels assume a starting point of industrial agriculture or green revolution agriculture and a need to redesign farming away from the use of environmentally disruptive chemicals on monocultures towards farming more in harmony with nature. This pertains in much of Asia, Latin America and Europe but in much of Sub-Saharan Africa where the green revolution has not had traction farmers may be using very few inputs and have low yields accompanied by land degradation and want agroecological intensification using biodiversity and natural processes such as biological nitrogen fixation to increase productivity without negative environment and social externalities generating decent rural employment and empowering women. Next slide. While we see here intensification, the one before while we see here intensification gradients the previous slide, yeah while we see here intensification gradients of biodiversity dependence on natural processes knowledge, labor and capital at the agroecosystem level food production is driven by demand for consumers and food system transformation requires changes in consumption patterns and act as throughout food value change to have agency in articulating their preference for sustainably and ethically produced food that is both nutritious and culturally appropriate. Next slide. So far the TPP has eight working domains that have been identified and work proceeds by developing a common protocol and then using this across cases in contrasting context and the next presentation will show this in respect of socioeconomic viability of agroecological practices across Africa. Next slide. The metrics domain is a good example of how things work within the TPP. This is funded by the European Union International Partnerships and it implements recommendation two of the CFS policy convergence process around agroecology to establish and apply comprehensive performance measurement and monitoring frameworks. And following the HLP report developing holistic metrics at four scales that of the field, the farmer livelihood the landscape community or territory in the francophone context and the food system scale. Now for practices, there needs to be a focus on looking at performance of options across context. For livelihoods, we need to focus on the total factor of productivity of those livelihoods and their resilience. For landscapes, we need to be able to look at trade offs and synergies amongst different ecosystem services. And then for food systems, we need a modified form of ecological footprint connecting consumption and production that takes into account the regenerative or decorative nature of production. Next slide. The TPP has a principle of building on what has gone before and the ongoing work of partners rather than repeating or completing. So FAO, SDC, Biovision, the University of Coventry and IFAD have all developed and used agroecology assessment frameworks, perhaps the best known being FAO's tape which assesses how agroecological different systems are on the 10 dimensions defined by the FAO elements. Biovision's facts is similar but it uses the 13 HLP principles. What the TPP metrics project will do is bring all this together to develop from these and other resources. For example, the adaptation metrics platform, holistic metrics for agricultural performance at the four scales that if internationally deployed will allow agroecological approaches to be evaluated on a level playing field with others. Next slide. As it goes forward, the TPP will contribute, sorry, as it goes forward, the TPP will create a level playing field for agroecodule approaches to be taken up. It has aligned projects as well as projects developed in the program itself. So for example, connected to metrics, we have a project led by CCAFs in the CDR on inclusive digital tools and another from WLE looking at private sector engagement. We have a big GCF project in Sri Lanka looking at ecosystem based adaptation and we have a co-impact design grant for system change around natural farming in Andhra Pradesh. Next slide. As it goes forward, the TPP will contribute to creating a level playing field for agroecological approaches to be taken up, embrace the complexity needed to transition to co-created locally relevant agriculture and food systems. And enable the horizontal integration across sectors and the vertical integration across scales that's required to translate national and international commitments under UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD and FR100 into meaningful action on the ground. Following the patternoster principle where you work bottom up and top down at the same time to achieve widespread transformation. And now let me introduce Elizabeth Claverie de Sémartin, Director General for Research and Strategy at CIRAD who will further elaborate on two key projects within the TPP. Thank you very much, Fergus. I will try to be brief because you've already pointed out the main points I will develop in the project. So as Fergus has just said, the TPP is an original initiative to address these double challenge. First, knowledge gap, then implementation gap. And the TPP has already developed a significant portfolio of projects and I want just to illustrate why touching on two projects. The first one you have on the screen which is the project viability and then tax. So the viability project is one of the first research priority addressed by the TPP. It started in 2020 and hopefully would hand in 2022 and it's building a very large partnership between six city center institution. He will have them in another slide so I don't detail them. Two French institutions, CIRAD and UNIVERSITY and BIOVISION. So it aims to better understand the socio-economic viability of agricultural practices and their lively root system impacts across various environment and demographic in Africa. This is an African project. The key question indeed is whether we have tools to address the environmental outcome of agriculture but it's not so easy to have a generic method to assess those socio-economical aspects when it comes to income, creation of jobs, social impacts and this is what we aim to work on and this is applied to a large diversity of production system, political and socio-economic context. So the research focus on the fields to form in household scales. It first analyze and this is the part you have on the slide which is on your right. It first, so it first analyze the drivers and locks in to the adoption of agricultural practices by farmer. It then consider the workload and the nature of the work required by these agricultural practices which is the second point you can read and of course we put the two in balance on one way, the productivity, the yields, the margin of field scale and the labor organization which is required. Then it also looks at food security and nutrition outcomes and on this point, it's also assessed by gender age differentiated approach and finally, the socio-economic values of ecosystem services and the services associated to agricultural practices will also be assessed. So next slide. So for this project during more than one year, a group of international specialists from agronomists, economists, socialists have developed a common method that mixes qualitative and quantitative description and assessment of the farming system in a diversity of situation. And at the end, we came with 11 steps, rigorous description and assessment of farming system in a diversity of situation. This is what you can read in this slide. This method has been designed and will help the production of generic and specific lessons across SAC. So this is a question of evidence. Next slide. We've been working in detail with a series of 12 case studies in 10 different countries representing very diverse production system and ecosystem. And each time, it's with a local scientist that the studies were made. So it's completely country-owned process. The result of this project will complete the toolbooks of metrics and indicators and we'll allow just what Fergus just underlined very importantly, comparing the performances of different forms of production, of different kinds of intensification and so therefore putting a great quality and conventional agriculture on the leveled field of comparison, which is lacking today. So it's a unique opportunity to produce evidences on the potential of a great quality to transform African agriculture. This project intends to fill this information gap. Next slide. Filling this information gap is very useful for a second question I'm going to develop with this project, which is called TAFs. It's the question of the policies and public policies. So TAFs, this project, aims at developing policies framework to support ecological transition towards sustainable food system. This project I want to underline is not fully founded, so it's not the same level of development as the last one. We know that public policies are essential drivers in supporting transition to a great ecological food system. However, little is known about how these policies should be built to be efficient. And most research today focuses on the practices at farm level, but there is no generic framework to analyze how public policies might facilitate or hamper the agroecological transition. So this is what the TAFs wants to address. The main objective of the TAFs project is to provide policy makers and stakeholders with convincing arguments, new evidences and ongoing experiences about adapted ways of promoting the necessary transformation through public policies. And these are different levels. The difficulty is that we know that each country is unique. And the question they have to address is very different. For instance, it might be the need to reduce agrochemicals. It might be the need to strengthen ecological intensification of traditional production, which is the case in Africa, but it also may be to scale up the scattered agroecological experience, just like I mean it's the case in Brazil. Next slide. So the first step has been to design a common rigorous method to assess public policies in connection to agroecological transition in different contexts. This method is designed a six steps method, not an 11-1, is concluded by what we call a policy dialogue. And this policy dialogue will help to formulate public policies and form specific policy design and drafting principle fostering agroecological transition. Next slide. Has a viability. Including now, Elizabeth. Okay, I just conclude. Just I wanted to underline that in this project, just like in the viability, it's a very large consortia with very large variety of partnership. And it's continental with different continents involved. So I would just like to conclude this is an ongoing project and we are still looking for our findings that these two projects, these two examples illustrate the TPP approach to tackle knowledge gap. And this is a three points. This is my conclusion. First, to gather the best scientist around an unsolved issue. Second, to define a common methodology. And third, to apply to a wide diversity of situation and context. And lastly, the goal is to generate useful knowledge both specific, context-specific and generic. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. And let me move quickly on to civil society mechanism representative, Perla Alvarez-Brutes from Anamori, the National Rural and Indigenous Women Organization from Paraguay, which is part of La Via Campesina and she's coordinator of the Civil Society Mechanism Working Group on Agroecology, which has been really involved in the CFS deliberations. Please, Perla. Good morning. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk. I hope this was the spirit with which we were in this long, that is, in this brief time of negotiations in the Food Security Council with the rulers of the world and where the spirit has not been, indeed, what we are talking about here. To start, I would say that. And on the other hand, I would say that I am from Konamuri, an indigenous women's campesina organization from Paraguay. And it has been quite official to have this opportunity to talk. I will try to be concise, saying that agroecology is one of the proposals that we have been proposing from the indigenous and indigenous campesina movements of the world in Paraguay as well. We are not ashamed of this from Konamuri and the campesina. We propose agroecology as an answer to the different problems, not only social, economic, but also environmental. Among them, we believe that agroecology is the one that will solve the hunger problems, the malnutrition, and these climatic problems that come precisely because of the rural development model, the development model in the field, that not only harm production, productivity, but also the environment, and therefore also our human well-being. So, in that sense, I would say that agroecology recovers our ancestral knowledge, incorporates academic knowledge, and together, the prehistoric history with the present and the future is better for all of us. For us as human beings, also for our environment, because if our environment is affected, it will also affect life in the city. And above all, in the city it is affected because what we produce in the field is eaten in the city. If the city does not understand that its food is in the field, then it is a matter that we need to work to establish this solidarity, this relationship that exists between the food that is produced in the field and what is consumed in the city. I wanted to talk about the topic of knowledge, of the gaps of knowledge that we are talking about here. From the peasant movements linked to the peasant life, we have been talking for a while about agroecology schools. And in Latin America, in particular, we have initiatives such as the IALAS, which are the Institute of Latin American Agroecology, with several collective experiences developed in Venezuela, in Brazil, in Paraguay, in Argentina and in several, practically all countries on the continent, we are having agroecology schools in which youth has a technical training, recovering these ancestral knowledge, incorporating academic knowledge that are the result of the systematization of the peasant experiences. We take advantage of the peasant-to-peasant methodology, because the people who are linked, who are studying in this school, our educators, are linked to the territories where they are produced, and not only do we produce food for ourselves, we talk about the production of food also for the animals, which later become part of our food base, or we also feed the earth, because we are developing natural fertilizers that allow the regeneration of the soil, which has been quite destroyed by the intensive and agrotoxic intensive employment of transgenic seeds, of point technology, with a lot of weight on the earth, the deterioration of the environment that this generates, is affecting above all environmental health and human health, and the animal diversity is also decreasing because of that. Agriculture is doing that. There is a gap of knowledge that needs to be strengthened, we need to recover our dialogue with nature through the studies that allow us this very close relationship with nature. We say to ourselves that in ancestral knowledge, traditional knowledge of agriculture, the knowledge of agricultural practice, but not only agricultural practice, but also the knowledge of the mountain, the knowledge of the water, of the fishing, because we as peasants are diverse, so in that sense, we believe that this knowledge must be addressed in the academy, and the academy has this responsibility not only to recognize, but also to contribute to its value, to its validation and to the validity of these popular knowledge, to give an example very briefly. For a long time, we have been talking that the model of agricultural development is affecting the climate and there is a warming that we perceive in daily life, there is an increase in temperatures and also different periods of rain. That's what we've been announcing for a long time. Just when the academy says that it has changed, that it has changed, Yes, I'm going to talk about it. Just there is when it is said that knowledge has validity. So our experience would seem that it has no value when the academy does not certify it. So we need that alliance to be able to enhance these knowledge that are in the peasant world. So to say that this platform that is launched today I think it can be a powerful tool to be able to contribute in that sense that it can enhance knowledge, to bring this knowledge to the academic world and spread it. We believe that public policies can be an important tool to enhance that agroecological transition but above all, to restrict, for example, the use of agrotoxic in communities. I'll leave it here and open the dialogue. Thank you very much. Thank you for reminding us that knowledge is power and that the power relationships around knowledge are critical in terms of agroecological transition. Let us move now to Beverly. Who is Beverly Maguri Chichiri who is the founder of Maguri Agri Ventures in Kenya and is a young woman who's gonna talk to us about entrepreneurship in agroecology from her perspective. Over to you Beverly. Good morning, good evening everyone. My name is Beverly from Kenya. I am a farmer in Kajedo County where we work with marginalized community. We teach women on agroecological practices here in Kajedo County. Now, one of the things that I want to talk about is that we know that agroecological is a viable agricultural business and we have been able to start projects for women. For example, we help the women to learn how to harvest water even though it's a semi-arid place. So we don't have so much water. We also train the women how to intercrop different types of crops with animals like having poultry, farming and growing vegetables and also using renewable energy. Now, the biggest, I want to talk about the biggest challenges that you're finding in agroecological and my research is based on the ground, the things that we've been able to experience. And one of the things that has become a big challenge is the knowledge gap or lack of training on families. So for example, where I work, many, many women did not understand all these agroecological practices. For example, like trying to solve soil erosion issues, growing trees or taking care of those trees. So that was a big challenge. People not being able to understand exactly what agroecology is. The other challenge that I want to talk about is introducing regenerative organic models to the farmers. For example, like I find it's becoming, it's expensive for example in the rural setting to have all these equipment. Let's say for example, like hydroponics and aquaponics, we require water, we require different mechanical systems. And I think, and what I've seen is that as much as we want to do it and help the people, it's becoming, it's a bit expensive, but it's also manageable. The other thing that I wanted to talk about is the quality management of agroecological practices, especially in Kenya and in the Saharan region. And this kind, what I'm talking about is the organizational strength in communities. Then I feel like they need to be a political will to allow communities to come together and understand things like growing of trees or the certification. Many communities, they cut trees for firewood here. And so they need, we do a lot of campaign to make them understand that they have to protect these trees so that they can control, the trees assist in so many ways in growing cover crops and controlling also the climate effects. The other thing that I've seen is behavioral society change. So for example, we are really trying our best to change the mindset of the people here to understand agroecology and to understand safe agricultural practices here in Kajado County. And that takes a long time to make sure that the community understand exactly what you are doing. For example, we are assisting families, every family to have a small chicken, a poultry farm, at least with 20 chicken and not more than that. And then assist them to start harvesting water, assist them to learn on cover cropping and soil tileage. And that has taken a long time for people to really understand and see the fruits of agro-friendly practices here in Kajado County. The other thing, I mean, we can talk about so many problems, but also I see agroecology as a big opportunity for business here. For example, we are encouraging youths here to start doing aquaponics where they can also grow strawberries and they can also keep fish here. So we can say that yes, there are challenges, but also there are very many advantages of practicing agroecological practices here. So I want to talk also about another challenge that we are facing here is technology and the production of biological control practices here. For example, like fertilizers, you find that not so many people could be able to afford to work or to practice, to have the biological control. For example, we use garlic here to spray our crops to keep pests away so that we don't use fertilizer. And sometimes those kinds of crops are expensive and sometimes many people cannot be able to afford. So if those things are a bit cheaper, so many communities could be able to practice agroecology. Also mechanization and if you can be able to get a cheaper way of mechanizing tools for these people, it's going to solve a lot of problems because we also have to ensure that we are not stealing the soil so hard, we have to be soft on the soil so that we continue to preserve the soil fertility. Yeah, so those are the few things that I wanted to bring about in case there's any question, I'll be able to answer. Thank you so much, Beverly, for that very on the ground experience in Kenya. Now, we are very tight on time. We're going to have a summing up by the chief scientist from FAO. But before that, let's get some audience involvement. I think, Fabio, that we've got a couple of questions which we can put to the audience, for the audience to be able to try to express their view. Fabio, could you put the first one up? Yeah, exactly. So let me launch the poll. So here you've got a question. Where do you think there is most demand for agroecology from governments, from farmers, from civil society, from consumers? Now, all of you can vote. And you should see that on your screen. You tick the box that you think which one is the most important. And Fabio, where do we get to see the results? As soon as we close the voting, we can see the results. So I'm going to give it another maybe 20 seconds, 20. And by the way, if you're a panelist, you can't vote. So sorry, folks, you've had a chance to speak. You don't have a chance to vote. This is for the audience. So please make sure you've made your vote. And do we have the results, Fabio? People are still voting at this time. So I'm going to give it another five seconds. Five, four, three, two, one. So I'm going to close this poll and here we go. Okay, so here are the results. I hope you can see them. Wow. So civil society is by far the most frequently selected and then farmers, governments and consumers lost. So one of the agroecological principles of connecting consumers and producers really needs a little boost if this is an accurate reflection. Can we go to question two, Fabio? Yes, let me trigger this, okay. All right, here we go. So question two, very simple. You've only got two options. So it shouldn't take long to vote. What do you think is the most limiting factor for transformational change? Knowledge gaps or implementation gaps? I'm going to be really interested in the result on this one. I'm really frustrated, I can't vote myself. So please vote quickly. And don't tell Fergus what you think should be done. No, I'm keeping mum on my view. How's the voting going? Yeah, they're still voting. Okay, I'm going to give it another five seconds. So pick up your choice. Five, four, three, two, and one. Okay, I'm closing it. All right, let's see the results. There you go. Wow. So again, quite a clear result with two thirds of people thinking that implementation gaps are the bigger problem. And I guess it must be the researchers there who think it's knowledge gaps. I guess these interact quite strongly together and that some of the reasons that there's a problem in implementing some things is because we don't know how to do it as well as other things. So the binary element is a little bit simplified. Okay, thank you very much Fabio. We have very short space now because I want to give five minutes for the wrap-up. So we've literally got three minutes or two minutes. In fact, probably not enough time to do any sort of justification to the huge number of questions that's coming in on the chat. We will make sure that all these questions are answered. Those that we haven't been able to answer either in writing or through the discussion, we will answer in writing and post in the future. You can join the TPP web platform and somebody will put in the chat, the information on how to do that. And that's a way that you can keep connected to the TPP and how it develops. I'd like now to ask the FAO chief scientist Ismahane Eloafi to sum up in five minutes. Ismahane, the floor is yours. Nice, easy job for you. Very easy job. Thank you so much for me. It's a really very, it's a pleasure for me to be with you today. So good afternoon, good morning. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I'm really honored to be here with you to conclude this important event on a very topical subject that is really making the news over the last few years. I especially want to acknowledge my fellow contributor for their excellent speeches, presentation and insight. We have heard and discussed collectively the need for a transformation of our agri-food system to become more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable. The contribution of agroecological approaches to achieving the 2030 agenda by applying a locally adapted solution for agri-food system that are environmentally sustainable, economically fair and socially accountable is increasingly recognized. That is why the FAO conference requested the further integration of sustainable agriculture approaches, including agroecology in FAO work. I think acknowledging agroecology as a dynamic concept that has gained prominence in science, in policy and in agricultural governance recent year, FAO developed the 10 element of agri-ecologies that Fergus has mentioned and many of you pointed to as an analytical framework to support agri-food system transformation. This is facilitated through the scale up of agri-ecology initiative where FAO brings together government, private sector, academia, research and civil society organization to rethink and redesign agri-food systems around sustainable principle and institutional innovations. Agroecological practices at the plot, farm and landscape levels can lead to increased farmers income, improved food security and nutrition, more efficient use of water, more efficient use of soils conserved by diversity. It can reduce past viabilogical control, restore landscapes, provide ecosystem services and integrate crop tree livestock system for better nutrient recycling toward creating a circular and solidarity bioeconomy. But the results are fragmented. Owing to heterogeneous methods and data, context and deferring spatial and temporal scales, a tool for agri-ecology performance evaluation called TAPE has been developed by FAO to assess the multidimensional performance of agri-ecology and is currently being tested in 29 countries globally. So as Ambassador Pew said, we need more data, we need more evidence, we need more research, particularly in different ecosystem. I couldn't agree more with him that we cannot copy paste when we talk about agri-ecology because there is so many variables and we need that data at the ecosystem where the research is done or when the scaling up is done. FAO commands the recent negotiation held in the fora of the committee on word food security as an example of inclusive and constructive policy dialogue among members that will shape an important path forward towards sustainability. In this regard, the resulting policy recommendation on agri-ecology and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food system that enhance food security and nutrition will be vital to. Ladies and gentlemen, the potential of inclusive collaboration to accelerate and catalyze the work of agri-ecology partner at international, national, local and also territorial level is now well articulated. After today rich discussion, we recognize the need for further research and collaboration, co-creation and sharing of knowledge if we are to bridge the knowledge and implementation gap on agri-ecological transition. And Fergus, I was really also a bit frustrated that I couldn't vote because I had my own views on it, but I was happy to see that we all recognize that we have both knowledge gap and an inter-implementation gap, even if the percentages are a bit off. To promote and scale up agri-ecology globally, international and local organization from academia, civil society and private sector must support countries and the relevant stakeholders in promoting or agri-ecology-based products and services. And I think the mention of the price and the true price that we need to pay maybe for certain commodities and certain food, it's a very relevant discussion that we need to have. Through the newly established transformative partnership platform that you presented on agri-ecology, FAO will actively engage in inclusive collaboration with different stakeholders to transform agri-food system for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life leaving no one behind. Thank you very much for your attention and I'm looking forward to meeting you all in the next forum on promoting agri-ecological approaches and sincere thanks to all the speakers and the panelists for their passion for the subjects and the information they shared with us. Thank you very much. Thank you Ismahani and it just leaves me, we're right on time. So let me thank the Forestry's and Agroforestry consortium research program of the CGAR for doing all of the background and the organisation of this event at Seafoort Craft where it is based. It's been a huge effort in the background and the people in the background never get seen but they won't make things happen. So thank you to all of the people involved and to all of the participants and to all of you in the audience who voted, there's a really rich chat. The recording of this event will be made available for you you can join the GFLX platform and we really look forward to a productive and exciting development of the TPP with all of you over the next few months and years. Thank you very much everybody and goodbye for now.