 which is affiliated to the European Coordination via Campesina. And I will be moderating the session this afternoon. This event is kind of historical for us, because it's the first time, actually, in which the civil society organizations get the chance to organize a side event in the frame of the regional conference. And we are very thankful for that. The event is called the United Nations Decade of Family Farming and Pesantrites in Time of Crisis. And our aim with this event is to highlight the solutions that the United Nations Decade of Family Farming can bring those to food security in times of crisis, nowhere in which you are facing today, and also the necessity of elevating human rights in rural areas and across the food and farming sector. The event is organized, as I said, by the civil society, more specifically by the Nileini Food Sovereign Network in Europe and Central Asia, which brings together civil society and indigenous peoples organizations from different sectors, no small scale food producers, pastoralist indigenous peoples, also consumers, also academicians, and some other constituencies. Here in our region, as also globally, we are facing multiple crises, and the impacts of it for rural areas is extremely big, and affect the livelihoods of small scale family farmers, and impacts, of course, also our biodiversity and our soil. The COVID-19 pandemic has even aggravated the existing inequalities globally, but also here in our region, and the current war going on in Ukraine brings us also a new layer in all these crises, aggravating even or leading us even to a stronger food crisis. So we want, or we aim with this event to demonstrate the importance of strengthening local food production and reducing the dependence on food imports, and how small scale food production can be or is resilient in times of crisis. For that, we'll have four speakers with us today. Three of them are here, and one is online with us. And we'll have two rounds, and the first round, the speakers will address some of the key elements that we have identified for this conversation. Then we intend to have a small round of questions, and then a second round where the speakers can also come again. So I will introduce the speakers one by one just before they speak. And the first one we would like to give the floor is Ramona Domini Tiu from Eco Rurales in Romania. Ramona is herself a peasant coming from a long tradition of family farming in Transylvania. She's a member of the board of Eco Rurales, which is the Small Holder Farmers Association in Romania, and which is also associated to the European Coordination via Campesina. Ramona has been very active in agriculture policy processes at national, regional, and also global level for at least the last 10 years. And she has been very vocal, for example, in the process towards the adoption of the United Nations declarations on the rights of peasants and other people who work in rural areas, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly 2018. And she's currently also very involved in its implementation, especially within the frame of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming. Ramona, we would like to hear from you about the importance of the Decade of Family Farming and the undrop, how we shortly called this declaration, now in time of crisis and also beyond, now the importance of strengthening local food systems and productions, and maybe some other elements that you could bring regarding the role that small scale food producers play in terms of resilience in times of crisis. Thank you. Many thanks, Paola, and thank you to all participants, all the countries who remained with us. Many thanks to FAO for allowing us and supporting us, actually, in the process of organizing for the first time a side event in the regional conference. It's a real pleasure and privilege to speak about this incredible instrument that was adopted by the General Assembly in 2018. It is for peasants and people who are living in rural areas, a defining moment in time, in a time of multiple crisis. It's a moment where we need more than ever to work with our countries, to work with the ministries of agriculture in particular, to elevate human rights. Elevating human rights for us is a direction for solving the multiple crisis we're facing. Peasants and other people who live in rural areas are among the most instrumental for feeding the people and in the same time, they are, on their own, very vulnerable. And this is a situation we're facing in our region, but also around the world. There's a tremendous drama with regards to world hunger between 720 to 811 million in the world faced hunger in 2020, according to the last report that speaks about the world hunger. Unfortunately, the situation got much worse in the past two years. We still don't have comprehensive data reports from the hunger inflicted by the COVID-19 crisis and also the current military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. But all the data and the information coming from the ground shows that in the last two years, more million people suffered from aggressive forms of hunger and malnutrition. It is very important also for us to point that the impact of neoliberal policies have aggravated the problems that peasants and people in rural areas have been facing by depriving states of their capacity to adopt active measures that would promote and protect vulnerable groups against the neglect of the fundamental human rights of peasants and the people in rural areas that include social, economic, civil, and political rights. Peasants have been using on their own mechanisms to defend themselves, including social mobilizations, many of them being discredited and criminalized in different ways in different parts of the world, including in many countries from our region. So in this context, the adoption of the UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants is an instrument that is of great importance and it's a way for us to fight against injustice and the abuse of power. There's a lot of things to say about this instrument. It defines who peasants are. It is a declaration that we've been promoting not only as an instrument for the Global South, but it is also something extremely representative and important for our region, for Europe. We believe that national or regional policies that seek to address the issue of inequality, poverty, in isolation, they have been insufficient so far, so we need to make concerted efforts at all levels. The Declaration of the Rights of Peasants calls upon the promotion of public policies at the local, national, regional, and international level. It recognizes the rights of peasants to determine their food and agricultural systems, something that has been defined as by states, around the world as food sovereignty. In clarifying the content of this right, the Declaration emphasizes the participation of peasants in decision-making processes, in processes of defining agricultural policies that would allow their right to produce food ecologically, through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. We as peasants and small farmers organizations are ready to work with our countries to develop mechanisms to build the process of implementation of the UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants and to effect real positive change in the life of rural people. So I'm looking forward for the next part of the event and we have much more concrete information to show, to offer to you about how these rights in the Peasant Rights Declaration are defined and how can they more precisely affect change and how it can be implemented at the national level together through a collective process. Thank you. Thank you very much Ramona. This gives already a good initial understanding or overview about the importance of this instrument. Now I'd like to give the floor to Olena Borodina who is a Ukrainian professor of agriculture and rural development, well-knowledgeable about issues related to food security and nutrition policies and programs. Olena is the head of department of economy and policy of agrarian transformations of the Institute for Economics and Forecasting National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. For about 20 years she has been active in civil society processes, having a leadership role in dialogues between civil society and authorities in Ukraine, regionally and globally. She's currently the Eastern European representative of the coordination committee of the civil society and indigenous peoples mechanism for the committee on world food security. Olena, please, could you give us concrete examples about the importance of small scale food producers, family farmers, especially in the context of crisis in which Ukraine is facing currently but also maybe their role already before the war. Dear delegates, distinguished colleagues, representing the academic circles, I would start with theory but I promise to be very concise. I will demonstrate how theory is reflected in practice. At the beginning of the 20th century we developed the theory of agricultural development based on that food systems used to function in the territory of the European Economic Union, First Economic Union now. This theory was added and expanded at the beginning of the 21st century, scientists from the Netherlands, the University of Andorluk worked actively on developing this theory. What is the essence of this theory? In any country, the growth system contains three important areas that are interlinked and at each other. The first component, capitalist enterprises, that mean that large scale production processes take place at the level of such enterprises and they are mostly targeted at food experts. The second track is entrepreneurship activity, medium-sized enterprises that take into account the market demands and work with the markets. The third track is agricultural households that live on agriculture, that depend on agriculture. If you consider all these three systems, three elements rather, they permanently evolve this living body and resources tend to flow from one segment to another. If the government does not manage the evolution of such segments, then one sector absorbs another. What follows from the agrarian theory? The family's small farms are the most important and most sustainable because this is their modus vibensi. They cannot live otherwise and found very nicely described principles of agraricology. They're very important for this segment which is very sustainable and resilient in emerging situations. In the Ukrainian experience over the entire period of independence, what we saw, we saw precisely the further development of this system. The government used to support industry and the agrarian small households sector was not developed enough. So what followed, some people losing in a competition had to set up their family enterprises. How did these sectors function during the military actions? Military puts such systems under the risk, not the sanctions, I do not agree with that. Precisely during military operations, large scale public enterprises revealed their vulnerability. They were not able to function efficiently. Logistics chains were disrupted. Possibilities to have access to markets vanished. The production processes were violated that turned into a problem. You may have heard about the situation when in the south of Ukraine due to the destruction of power supplying networks, a very large poultry farm was completely destroyed that brought about an environmental crisis. Whereas small producers, small family farms, they were able to prove their special resilience towards these complicated conditions. They changed the structure of output. Our small food producers produced mostly market-oriented products. What they also did, they reduced the areas to be planted with maize, sugar, beet. They started planting more spring vegetables and fruits and they do that to reduce food prices in Ukraine. Prices for food, apple, items went up considerably. Thus, acting in this way, or rather our experience precisely demonstrated that it is small food producers are particularly resilient under the conditions and for the entire system to be more stable, it should connect large, medium, and small enterprises together and harmonize the activities on the basis of the role of the government. Thank you very much. Thank you, Olena, for these insights. Now I would give... Blah, blah, blah. Hart-Wixon with a broad experience, land tenure specialist with more than 28 years of working experience. Morton has designed and conducted trainings and capacity building in relation to land consolidation, land management, and rural development. From August to 2015, Morton is land tenure officer and regional initiative delivery manager with FAO Rio in Budapest. And so Morton, we would like to hear from your FAO regional office perspective in how do you see the essentiality of to strengthen the capacities of small scale farmers in their organizations and to elevate our human rights in the food and agriculture sector and particularly using UNDROP for that and also considering the framing of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming. You have the floor, Morton. Thank you very much, Paola. And many thanks for the invitation to participate in the discussion this afternoon, organized by the Civil Society Facilitation Committee. It is indeed very timely to discuss solutions that the UN Decade of Family Farming brings for strengthening food security. In many ways, the different crisis that we are currently facing are all reinforcing the pressure on food security in the region and globally. The need to strengthen local food production is evident in many countries and this also creates opportunities that we must seize. We should use the opportunity not only to recover from the crisis through business as usual but to rethink our approaches to development and really build back better with focus on all three dimensions of sustainability on achieving the SDGs, on transforming local food systems and in particular also on leaving no one behind. The Decade of Family Farming with the collective efforts of the international community, national governments, the private sector and civil society provides excellent opportunities for further enhanced support to the development of family farms and rural women and youth and to assist in achieving the SDGs. This is in particular important in the countries where small family farms are dominating the farm structures as it is the case in most of the FAO program countries in the region. The work related to the Decade and also the work related to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Patents in the FAO Region Program, work program is embedded in the region initiative on supporting smallholders, family farms and youths. This includes several technical areas of work that I will quickly mention. It includes developing the capacities of smallholders in relation to sustainable and culture production, improving farm structures, providing access to land of small farms and young farmers, addressing land abandonment in particularly important when we are talking about strengths in local food production. And it also includes the introduction of land conservation and land banking instruments. It includes supporting smallholder resilience to climate change, supporting accessible extension and farm advisory services, tailored for the needs of the small farms, promoting the access of smallholders to family farms and family farms to markets, radio chains and finance, facilitating access to innovative approaches and digital tools. It also includes enhancing the principles of agroecology and organic farming, supporting inclusive rural development policies, including the promotion of investment and grant schemes, facilitating at the local level territorial approaches and community development, promoting diversification of the rural economy and strengthening short value chains. And also the empowerment of and employment of rural women and youth with focus on decent rural employment on opportunities, on opportunities and also on entrepreneurship. And also finally to promote and expand social protection measures programs for the population, including all vulnerable groups. Many of these thematic components or technical areas of work are very much interrelated and we do our best to address them in an integrated and programmatic way. Now finally, let me also mention a new FAO initiative, the Regional Technical Platform of Green Agriculture where we will have the global launch event also as a site event to the regional conference and it is tomorrow at 1.30. This new platform will facilitate sharing of good practices and experiences related to the many aspects of green agriculture both inside the region, for example, between your member countries and the rest of the region, but also between partners in other regions as it is relevant. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Morton for these contributions. And finally we come to Raymond Jelle from FAO country office, a representative in Republic of Moldova. Raymond has a farmer background and held several positions and roles in academia and also in European institutions. Since joining FAO 1999, he has served in various positions at FAO headquarters in Rome and as of 2007 in the regional office for Europe and Central Asia. And as I said today, he's speaking here to us from a FAO country office perspective as representative in the Republic of Moldova. Raymond, could you please share with us maybe from a country perspective, know what have you been doing in that sense? Thank you very much Paula. It's a pleasure to be here with you and in particular in this case also to represent a country perspective from FAO following particularly the, let's say, outline from Morton at the regional level and in principle showing a bit also how we are in this case also using these instruments in a coherent and also consistent manner in order to support the countries. And in this case, what I would like to stress is that of course the UN decade on family farming is I would say a strong political instrument to enforce the commitment to family farming to small holder support at the national level. It's a solid basis and gives a very good guidance and this is particularly when we're looking at what has been also achieved and what has been done in this context in the last couple of years in Moldova it gives good guidance to conduct adequate policies and providing this case also the consistent support. It gives a framework if we're looking at also the different pillars when we talk about youth, when we're talking about gender, when we're talking about also farmers organization. So we are really able with the decade of family farming to bring this into one approach and to support in this case the small holder farms and to ensure that they are providing their contribution in this case also to the economic growth. If we're looking at a latest study which we had done in Moldova, the small holder and the family farms generate over 62% of the total volume of agriculture products of the country and therefore like in many other countries also of the region contributing fundamentally to the overall food production and the food security in the Republic of Moldova and this is particularly again also in areas of livestock development in the area also of dairy plays an important role. FEO is collaborating with the government and important in this case is also we're collaborating with also the parliament in order to bring policy frameworks which are under let's say consideration in the parliament also together with the ministry and with the government in a consistent manner promoting in this case the interests of the peasants including also their rights to receive financial and also advisory support. What we as FEO have also recently done we implemented a project which provides support to also the restructuring of the subsidy system and in that context also the policy change to increase in this case the access of finances for family and small holders and the UN decade family farming again as an advocacy instrument. The UNDROP as regulation is something which is quite important and if we're looking at the moment at the crisis also in Moldova the major impacts of on the national food let's say systems are still the limited access to agriculture input such as fertilizers and seeds and this is of course a key constraint again for the small hold the disruption of the export markets of for certain agri food products. The minister was recently telling me it's very difficult also to export in this case also apples the sharp increase of the food prices the small holders are affected in the first instance. We are monitoring constantly the dynamics of these main indicators and recently we have also launched particularly for supporting the small holders a project in order to support feed and also the input. So overall the situation is further deteriorating and in this case we need to pay further attention. However, what I think is here also important to mention that agroecology was already set by also by Morten and by the other panel members. It can have a positive impact in order to improve better production, better environment, better nutrition and better life and therefore of course also the resilience of the farming activities in this difficult times for the small holders. Thank you very much, Imon. So this was the initial round of the conversation and now we would like to open actually the floor for questions from the participants here in the room but also if there are participants online who would like to raise their hands. I hope the technical team can support me because I don't see it but yeah it's time for questions or comments from your side. Okay, so I think it's Spain. It's Gabriel I think. Hello Gabriel. Okay, so Spain please. Thank you very much Madam Moderator. Thank you very much Madam Moderator. Firstly I would like to thank and congratulate Civil Society for organizing this event on the UN Decade of Family Farming. First of all I'll be speaking as the ambassador of Spain rather than the chairperson of the CFS which I'll do later on. In my capacity as representative of Spain I'd like to reiterate that we are fully committed as you know to supporting this decade of family farming but above all to supporting family farming itself and small scale producers and cooperatives which contribute to family farming no doubt. Spain firmly believes that family farming links rural territories which is the very foundation of a prosperous, vibrant rural society providing opportunities for young people because when rights are respected on land tenure as well as human rights it's much more likely as per evidence provided through a great deal of research and this is something we were debating yesterday in the conference of the parties on desertification. It's much more likely that family farmers and small holders will be the real guardians of natural resources in terms of forests and other territories so that they can provide not only healthy food but also many other environmental benefits for soil, water and CO2 capture systems. That is why we believe that family farming is a key element of sustainable development. Family farms naturally bring together all the SDGs through social, environmental, human and economic factors to do with sustainable development and if this is so and the decade describes this as well then the achievement of almost all the SDGs will be much easier. It will bring us closer to achieving the SDGs and if we cannot link rural societies through family farming it will be much more difficult. I would really like to thank the representative of Ukraine for her words. Family farming is more resilient indeed and has a great ability to provide high quality local food in a more shock resilient fashion and if we are highlighting a global food crisis unfortunately and the right to food as a consequence of the war in Ukraine and the crises we have lived through and continue to live through due to COVID then we must also shed light on smallholder and family farming as they provide 80% of global food. Family farming itself provides one third of global food. Therefore if we are to face current challenges then the response must stem from family farming and smallholder farming. Often the production of food doesn't have as great an impact on food security nutrition as that of family farming. I would like to stress three elements now. The first is placing family farming at the core of our agenda. There's a positive approach here, a territorial approach breaking down the traditional link that has been drawn between family farming and poverty and the panelists from Ukraine also mentioned this. The decade of family farming is doing impressive work in raising awareness on this. Spain along with the government of Costa Rica and some other countries present here are seeking to launch in the context of the UN Food Systems Summit a specific coalition to support the decade of family farming. Second, as per the decade we should prioritize family farming in our public policies and this has not happened in the last 40 years. Therefore prioritizing innovation, science and technology and insurance, national and territorial policies and other policies including linking family farming to markets as well as public procurement and social protection mechanisms which have truly borne fruit across the world when this type of approach has been taken in terms of reducing hunger and increasing farming income. Third, capitalizing on the many public goods produced by family farming through targeted incentives. This also entails progressing transparency in terms of food production. This was much debated in the Food Systems Summit. When we truly reflect the value of food and therefore transparently reflect the social, environmental and health benefits of all foods then it will be obvious how family farming combined with agroecological and innovative approaches for sustainable farming will lead to far more accessible, affordable prices for our citizens. Lastly, as the CFS chair and apologies for taking up a lot of your time in my capacity of the chair as the chair of the CFS which as you know places a great deal of importance on family farming given that we wish to make the right to adequate food a right which is respected worldwide. I'd like to say that you can count on the CFS as your home, as a platform where you can share your progress. As of November I joined the advisory committee for the decade and I hope that the decade and the coalition in support of the decade will be able to join the CFS's next session later this year. Thank you very much Madam Chair. I'm describing the commitment of Spain now within the decade of family farming I think it's a very good example for us it's very important that also other European and Central Asian member states now also engage there. So far we have been lacking I would say commitment from member states here from our region so it would be great to see more. And also thanks for the openness as CFS chair also for us to also be engaging with you also in that frame also bringing our strengthening the decade of family farming and the possibilities now for public policies that strengthen family farms not only in Europe and Central Asia but also all around. I saw one other hand there, yeah please. Thank you very much. I'm not speaking as Belgium but speaking of personal capacity as this is been a chair and thank you very much for organizing this size event and I do apologize that you have so not enough people in the room and next time I think we should change the order of the agenda will start with the size event and then we'll do the rest of the business because I think it's very important what you are addressing but at the same time I've had the chance to launch a couple of months to speak with many farmers in different regions. And I think what we are very capable of doing in UN meetings is finding way forward with words. And of course nobody is against everything what is said about family farming and supporting family farming. But in many of the meetings there is a huge gap between what is said at these meetings and the farmers themselves. Because if you go to the European region and of course it's already very divided but if you go to the European region a family farm in many of the different European countries are different but compared to Africa compared to Latin America family farming has a different meaning and has a different emphasis. The question is then we promise so much in the wording of all those meetings CFS, FEO, even New York. But what do we really deliver? And when I speak with farmers the farmers know best what to do with their farms. You don't have to explain to them that it's necessary to look to the environment, to look to productivity, to look to climate change and to resilience but also making a profit. They know best for that they don't need it. If I ask them and I've asked them what do you need? I'm going to ask you that question as well. I'll change it around. What they say, don't explain us what sustainability is because we know that only if we take care of our lands we can produce not only for our family but also for our villages later on hopefully for the markets. Don't explain us what the shocks are because of climate change. We know what climate smart agriculture means. But what we really need is access to funding and access to affordable and implementable innovations and technologies which are out there. But based on our choices, not what we must do but what we want to do. And then they ask me the question how are you going to deliver that at the global or regional level? And I've discussed it also with others and then often we don't have an answer. Of course we promote, they should get access to funding but of course what we will say and we have done it here in the Rome-based agencies only via the governments. We've discussed it a couple of years ago and I'm still discussed with an FEO but also with EFAT. How can we give them direct access to funding not via the government but the direct loan or grant from EFAT? Because that's what they need. When it comes to technologies it should not depend on government decisions because they know which technology they are out there but how can we help them to get it? So my question to you would be, sorry for the introduction but sometimes I'm getting frustrated because we don't do enough in practice. What would you change if you would be either, I would say the boss of the European Commission or the Director General, which two measures would you take to support but in a concrete manner, to support farmers on the ground, family farmers on the ground which one or two measures would you delete which are an obstacle for farmers. We speak here in the European region but perhaps even globally or the other different regions but would you delete as measures because I think we should be much more forceful to each other and have the real discussion what to do in practice. Otherwise we keep on going around the circles having nice reports, we all support adopted by consensus but what will it change? I think that's why I like and support so much your site event that we can do that more often and are a little bit more direct to each other perhaps small things can change but I'm looking forward to your answers. Thank you. Yeah, thanks very much for highlighting the importance actually of the involvement of the ones who are in the center of food production also in innovations, in developing innovations, in shaping public policies because this is the knowledge that comes really from the ground and is best know the needs also in the practice. So I would like to give this question directly to Ramona who can maybe try to give some answers to this question in terms of what are maybe the most concrete measures to be taken. Yeah, in my initial statement I spoke more about the UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants as the instrument that we're following that is guiding us very much in the dialogue with governments. It's the instrument that we're pursuing the implementation and we are of course in the initial phase where we're promoting it. We're also working on trainings and dialogue with governments, with ministries of agriculture more precisely. I'm gonna say more concrete things about that. I appreciate your intervention Mr. Hans and you spoke about the fact that we have a region that is quite diverse. I think we have not been enough aware of the diversity from our region. It expands from Portugal to the far east of Siberia and in between there's so many worlds and not to mention the region of far Europe and Central Asia which adds much more layers and much more diversity. We have farmers who live in very developed countries and we have farmers who are working manned farmlands and who are fighting for their lives. Meanwhile working agriculture land producing food, feeding the people, having this multiple role. Farmers, especially small scale farmers and peasants who have been in a crisis mode all of their lives generation after generation. It's the moment to put a light on them and not just with nice speeches or well crafted frameworks on paper but in these words and these intentions to transform into reality. And we are really hoping that this time this moment of crisis is going to represent a click. It's going to represent a reset in all of the public policies that we have been working for, being involved in, promoting and so on. There is a very, very big difference between having access to something, resources, means of production and having the rights, having this level field for everyone where everybody can, especially the vulnerable people, be prioritized, everybody can have real rights, real access that doesn't depend on financial resources. You asked the question about what would we do to improve the situation. Well I have to mention that subsidized industrial agriculture has become a trap for many developing countries, for many farmers who live in developed countries. It's been reducing their competitiveness, it's been increasing their vulnerabilities, particularly not only for small-scale but also medium-scale farmers. It created the vulnerability to the shocks of international commodity prices. The rise of prices that we've been talking about all day long has led to many, many negative reactions. It increased also food aid in many countries, dependency on food aid, reducing local farmers' possibilities to make a decent living from their work, very, very hard work. In terms of immediate response, we would say that we need on one hand to limit the support that was given to the very large-scale industrial farming. The CAP, for example, subsidies in the European Union, this is something we've been supporting for a long time. We need to distribute the public funds more equitably. This has not been happening. We've been creating a super-rich layer of farmers in the European Union who have been exploiting migrant labor, who have been actually generating double standards in the labor legislation and who has created a lot of unfair, an unfair system and inequality and poverty and so on. So on one hand, we need to limit these privileges that were given to the industrial super-large-scale farming and we need to support the small-scale farmers. We need to also take them into account. We thank you so much for pointing out the time. At national levels, the state will need to define their strategies, their priorities for the implementation of the UN Decade for Family Farming. There are also other frameworks that have been talked about. We would like that this instrument, the Declaration for the Rights of Peasants, to be considered with priority. Elaborating such strategies will require also a coordination, interministerial coordination within governments. There is domestic policies that could facilitate a holistic implementation of the declaration. This should also involve dialogue between institutions, institutions that are in charge of human rights, agriculture, rural development, trade, health, education, all the sectors that are relevant for food security, for food and agriculture. And the participation of small-scale farmers' organizations, of peasants' organizations will have to be essential. I want to mention a project, I'm sorry for going over time, but it's really important. We're at the moment implementing a project in the region, particularly for countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for enhancing policy-making on rural development and small-holder support through the UN Decade for Family Farming with the objective to build capacity for ministries of agriculture staff and other relevant agencies at the national level on the implementation of the UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants in national legislations, in using, of course, the framework of the UN Decade for Family Farming. And for that, we are going to conduct three trainings for groups of countries in the last part of the year, in the period between September to November 2022. One, it's going to be organized for Western Balkan countries. A second one will be organized for Caucasian program countries. And the third one is going to be organized for Central Asian program countries. And we're looking forward to continue dialogue with these countries to work together with FAO, who will facilitate the organization of these trainings and will support this work. And yeah, it's really important to reaffirm that peasants are a pillar of strength in our society. And realizing their rights will build further democracies that we need so much. And yeah, we can hardly wait to start working together or continue working together. Thank you. Thank you, Ramona. I'd like to now go back to Morton. I think it fits quite well to some of the next steps, know that Ramona just described. Morton, we would like to know how can human rights and the rights of peasants be more efficiently used in the regional initiative number one, which is dedicated to the empowering of smallholders, family farms, and youth. Maybe you could give us some ideas how this can be efficiently used. Also, maybe bringing some references to the Maipo and also to the work on land that you have been involved. And if you could go no longer than three or four minutes, that would be great. And finally, if you have also some opportunities that you can identify in the opportunities within the decade of family farming in the calendar of 2022 and 2023 that you could share with us, this would also be great. Thank you very much, Paulette. And I will use this also as an opportunity to say a few words about what we are doing in practice and if we agree what was mentioned about the importance of having impact on what we are doing also with the farmers in practice. But a human rights and people-centric approach is among the basic pillars of development work and sustainable development. So here, let me mention the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure. It is tomorrow exactly 10 years since the VDT was endorsed by CFS. And the tenure guidelines are today fully mainstreamed in our work related to land tenure. And without secure formalized rights to a cultural land but also to other natural resources for both individual farmers and for communities, we will not reach the development potential. We need to facilitate private investments in the development of family farms on top of the public investments in infrastructure and in an enabling environment. Let me mention as an example of this, the work that we are supporting in several countries on land concerns based on land packing, which is part of the mainstreaming of the VDT. Through the public investments in such instruments, we reduce land fragmentation, we facilitate voluntary enlargements of farms, structural development, which again gives the basis for the farmers to invest privately in planting, for example, new orchards or in using new technology, drip irrigation, irrigation justice examples. So we see the very good experiences and examples on this in countries like Turkey and North Macedonia. And a very good, I think, in my area of work, example of work that comes from the tenure guidelines and directly into the benefits of the farms that participate in the processes. Now on the calendar of the decade, we have, there are many events planned for the decade of family farming in 2022 and 23. And I would mention the global forum of the decade of family farming that will be organized as an online event in September this year. And in preparation of the global event, we plan to organize a regional dialogue on family farming integrated with our regional workshop on community development in June this year in Budapest. Let me also mention the regional land network workshop in Skopje in two weeks time where the technical network of land professionals will come together again after the COVID to discuss land market development, land abandonment, access to land and also land consolidation. And in the second half of the year, we plan two regional youth consultations that will be organized on the taxation as well as on strengthening radio chains. There will also be a global youth flagship event organized by the informal global youth network of the World Food Forum, which will take place in October this year. And next year again, we plan to organize regional workshop on community development where we will have focus on investments and on grant schemes tailored for small hovers and family farms. Thank you very much. Thanks very much Martin for sharing all these different elements for your commitment. Also in this work within the decade and also for the constant and regular work together with the civil society organizations here in the region. There is Laura, I think from the World Rural Forum in the Zoom room who would like to take the floor. Laura, if you can limit your contribution to two minutes because we are running out of time. Gracias, muchas gracias. Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. I would like to laud the organizers for this well-organized side event and highlight the following. The fact that the UN decade of family farming calls on and urges countries to set up platforms for our policy dialogue so as to adopt the very measures highlighted by Ambassador Hans' concrete measures at the country level. It calls upon countries to develop specific plans for the decade of family farming in each country. What I can say is that Spain's process for this is underway and I'd like to thank Ambassador Gabrielle for referring to Spain's support Kyrgyzstan and Portugal are also developing their own plans for the decade. It's essential that there be targeted measures and coordinated measures. And I'd like to mention something else which hasn't been discussed at length today. The need for these plans to factor in the transparency that's needed across value chains which has an impact on the prices of food. This is affecting farmers, young farmers, women farmers given the impact on inputs and fertilizers. These are all matters which need to be contemplated when developing plans to do with the decade of family farming and we at the world rural former, world rural former as well as other organizations are trying to address these issues. Thank you. Thank you for the discussion. As you know, I mean I don't know if everybody knows but La Via Campesina, the international La Via Campesina took over the vice presidency of the United Nations decade of family farming after the World Rural Forum and here in name of La Via Campesina as well I'd like to reaffirm the importance that is that we work together also from the family farmers international family farmers organizations to achieve the most out of the decade. So thanks very much Laura for the contributions. Now, we are almost coming to the end. I would like to give one more final contribution to the floor to Raimond. There's still a hand there. I cannot see. Ah, Netherlands, ah, okay. Okay, so I give to Netherlands, please short because we have interpretation only until six. So we have to finalize. Okay, please Netherlands. Thank you chair and I will be brief because Hans Hogeveen has asked a question that I also had in mind. I just want to compliment you for being here and making your time available to actually come in this room without daylight where nothing else grows and you as farmers must do pain to your eyes to be in a room like this. But I would like to thank you for engaging with this regional conference and to see the relevance of what we are discussing here. For us, it's very good to not only talk about farmers but also talk with farmers. And I thank you for your elaborate answer to the question that was just asked. So I won't follow up with an extra question also being mindful of the time. But once again, thank you to you. Thanks very much. Okay, so Raymond, maybe just like to try to finalize like from a country perspective, maybe you could share some last elements with us in terms of concrete existing projects in Fau Moldova. Also, if there are any reference to projects on agriculture, on consultations of food systems and so on, just that it gets a bit more concrete. Okay, thank you taking into consideration that I'm not given a lot of time. Towards the end, let me try to pick up some elements. Maybe the first thing what I want to mention and of course, this is from a Moldovan perspective, important, but I think it's again also important for all the countries we are at the moment of working. We have to make sure that we are bringing the different, let's say instruments in this case also further together and we are trying to do that. I think the CFS chair has already mentioned this. We should make sure that we're not separating you and drop. We should not separate in you and decade and family farming and at the same time then also the national dialogues on food systems transformation. I think this is really a key element that we are bringing them in one discussion together and bringing the small holders on the table also of the national dialogues and I think also in Moldova with the national dialogues we have been quite successfully supporting this. The second one is when we are talking certainly about also concrete. I think the concrete part is we need to, and we do in this case also integrate the small holders in the extension framework. The extension framework which is created, extension targeted to the small holders is an important one and in this case it has to do again also with the way house strategies and how we are supporting in this case also the government to develop a strategy in Moldova and the same and this is something which probably still more is required is when we're talking about association and cooperation. The issue of concretely bringing association and cooperation closer together is something which requires more attention. We have tried in Moldova and actually we have not just tried, we've managed to integrate the small holders and family farms with a project as a clear target group into the national strategy 22 to 27 as well as also of course also in the UN SDCF in order to ensure that we are going to have also a multi-dimensional and a multi-sectoral approach when we're talking about the small holders in Moldova as in many other countries, they are of course engaged in different sectors and in different areas and so we need to bring the actors further together. A very, I think good example in this case is also the collaboration in 21 with the association Gradina Moldova who is a member of Eco Ruralis and two main outputs in this case was on one hand the promotion of agroecology and the 10 main principles in the organization again of what I mentioned already before the national dialogue on the food systems. I think a result of this cooperation is that we have also achieved the mapping of the legal and the policy frameworks in agroecology in Moldova as well as in this case also clear steps how this can be further developed and how this can be further supported in also the areas of cooperation as well as also the extension and advisory service and the action plan on family farming will be also an important achievement in the implementation in Moldova and the current government has developed a new strategy for agriculture and rural development and there is a strong focus also on the smallholders. Besides this, I think we can also emphasize that FAO using the UNDROP again also as an advocacy tool for enhancing the collaboration with the national stakeholders in Moldova in order to really respond also to the current crisis and to support in this case the right also of the farmers to benefit from the adequate support. Thank you. Thank you, Raimond. So and finally I give Olena the floor for final contribution and here I think it would be great to hear from you Olena and following the recommendation to hear what we need, no? It would be very important I think to hear from you what are the most burning human rights for the small scale food producers, family farmers in Ukraine, no? That needs to be addressed right now and maybe some concrete proposals of enhancing them. Thank you very much. Hello, starters. I have just heard that somebody was saying that in each country when it comes to small family farming they have different approaches and the conditions are also different. Let's take Ukraine as a case in point. For now, the most important thing is not to reinvent the wheel. We just need to take the experience say under the auspices of FAO during the decade of family farming we've heard good recommendations. So there is a big experience. 10 states have already come up with their specific action plans. 14 states are developing, are drafting their action plans. So the above mentioned countries have already come up with around 200 regulations that regulate small family farming, its support, et cetera. So what would I like to see for Ukraine in specific terms? I would really like to see the agrarian policy to be more friendly oriented towards small family farming. How can it be done? In our review to this end it is necessary to use the UNDROP not just as a document but as a real instrument to protect the rights of peasants and to review the entire agrarian legislation through this prism so that we could really establish the rights of the peasants the way they are prescribed in the declaration. And then this human rights oriented approach could be implemented the way it should be done for small family farming. And to be more specific regarding the rights of peasants and human rights in Ukraine. In our view the most important, the most pressing need is to guarantee the right to land. Why the right to land is so important? Because it's a portal to implement all other human rights related to peasants. So this opens the door to implement the right to water, to land, to life, to income. Where you live. And it's really important. If you look in the history of this issue and I'll be brief here. Last summer Ukraine opened its land market. In the history of humanity there has never been such a liberal approach towards the regulation of the land market the way it was proposed in Ukraine. And in this context the rights of peasants and small family farms have not been protected by the right to land. And if in this context the legislation is to be reviewed so that people could be guaranteed not just the right to obtain the land and nothing else, no. Each right to land should be underpinned by the right to information, the right to access to resources, the right to beneficial markets and only in these conditions the right to land could be fully implemented and also human rights could be also implemented in rural areas. Thank you. Thank you, Olena. Yeah, so with this we come to the end of our first side event in the context of the FAO Regional Conference in Europe. We would like to really thank all of you who remain here in the room, who discuss with us. Thanks also for the ones who took the floor highlighting and acknowledging the importance to talk directly with us, no, and not about us, no. This is for us definitely extremely important to be involved, to be centered in policy discussions, in innovations, in research projects, in developing financial projects as well. No, so hearing what are the needs. So thanks very much for being with us here. We will take the proposal that next time this is the first point of the agenda and not the last one. We'll not forget that. And finally also thanks to FAO Regional Office in Budapest for the commitment and the partnership, no, that we have been developing and strengthening over the past years and which we are very thankful about. So from our side also the doors are open for you also to come to us and that not us, that we are always the ones coming to you, no? So thanks again and hopefully we are going to see each other also during the cultural event. I hope we can still join it. Thank you.