 Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, depending on which part of the world you are connecting from. I'm Simone Borelli, I'm the Urban Forestry Officer at FAO headquarters and I'll be moderating this fantastic event today. Now, as you all know, the main purpose for having this gathering is basically to launch the Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Sourcebook that has been developed by FAO under the leadership of the Plant and Production and Protection Division, NSP, in partnership with Rikolto and Ruaf and with the technical support of Ryerson University. Now, this sourcebook has been developed in the framework of FAO's program of work, but also in the framework of the FAO Green Cities Initiative. It has also benefited from the contributions of many FAO divisions which are here with us today. So, without further ado, I think we can go straight into the program and I would like, first of all, to introduce Mr. Shah Njingwan, who is the Director of the Plant, Production and Protection Division at FAO and who will deliver some opening remarks to set the scene for today's discussion. So, Mr. Shah, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, facilitator, distinguished guests, dear participants, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all of you. I'm very pleased to welcome all of you for this launch event of the FAO Urban and the Peri-Urban Agriculture Sourcebook from production to food system. The FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31 is a focus on supporting the United Nations 2030 agenda through for better body production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life living low weapon hands. In this context, the mission of the FAO Plant Production and Protection Division and NSP is to ease, to enable the transition to more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable production and protection system through optimization and minimization. FAO is proud of the work with a number of stakeholders on UPA-related programs and the initiative to advance our strategic framework for benefit of a citizen around the world. Today's events will introduce this important FAO publication and present how it can support local decision-makers, policy advisor, urban planner, and other stakeholders in planning and implementing urban and prior urban agricultural system. I would like to congratulate the team led by FAO and the colleague from URF Global Partnership in Sustainable Urban, Agricultural, and Food Systems and the RECOTO, former co-author of the Sourcebook, re-answered university for providing technical editor guidance and again university for collaborating to collect analysis and systemize existing experience and case study on global urban and prior urban agricultural initiative. I also appreciate the continuous efficient, fruitful cooperation between FAO and the partner, especially the RECOTO on promoting resilient local food system through urban and the prior urban in the global context. Ladies and gentlemen colleague, urban and the prior urban agriculture plays an important role in responding to many challenges, shocks, and the stresses facing urban food system. More than 70% of the global food supply is already consumed in the city and this amount will continue for a rise with the population groups and urbanization. The overall increase in food insecurity and the malnutrition, rise of delta-related non-communicable disease such as obesity and diabetes are just some of the challenges affecting the urban population. At the same time, the current COVID-19 pandemic and the increases the climate emergency is the first in us to rethink how we produce, process, distribute, and consume the food. In this context, urban and the prior urban agricultural is increasingly being adapted by urban and the prior urban developer promoted by a local institution to face no bar formation challenge. Since 1990, FAO have been working with members and the partners to promote urban and the prior urban agricultural through various initiatives such as the city region food system CRFS program in collaboration with other organizations such as ROEFA and RECOTA. Urban and the prior urban agriculture represents one of FAO's work area to support the much needed agro-food system transformation. In this collection, I'm very pleased to inform you that FAO and the NAO and the NCP is organizing the first ever global conference on sustainable plant production. This conference will take place on two to four November of this year. We'll be headquartered, in hybrid in person and also online. You are most warmly welcome to join this historical conference. It is now the time to renew the world focused on sustainable agricultural, including urban and the prior urban agricultural, and to provide useful information of this who are interested in promoting partying, take partying in urban food production. Together, let's move towards resilient and sustainable urban food system and the greener city. I wish you all a very successful lunch event and fruitful discussion and thank you all over to your facilitator. Thank you very much Mr. Schafer, those excellent welcoming remarks. I think now we have a better understanding of what this source book will contain. Now unfortunately our next guest would not be with us today. That would be Mr. Eduardo Mansour, who's the director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and the Environment. So he will actually send us a video in which he will introduce the FAO Green Cities Initiative and the role that urban agriculture plays in this framework. So maybe he's a very good put on the video from Mr. Mansour. Dear participants, dear colleagues, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you are. It's my great pleasure to participate in the launching of the urban and prior urban agriculture source book and present the overall work of the FAO Green Cities Initiative. Our work is becoming more and more urbanized, currently about 57% of the global population lives in cities and by 2050 this figure will increase to about 68%. Most of this new urban citizens will be in low income countries, especially in Africa and in Asia. A growing population implies competition for natural resources and an increasing demand for food, land, water, energy, basic services. As of today, cities around the world already consume about 70% of the global food supply, 80% of the global energy and the urban and prior urban areas generate about 70% of the global waste. Moreover, they account for about 70% of the global greenhouse garbage. Urban sprawls are consuming lands that could be used for agriculture, forest, and these lands are now becoming part of the urban or industrial development date. The forestation, as you know, leads to the loss of biodiversity and to watershed degradation. Sometimes it's very negative effects on water quality and has the risk of increasing landslides, floods, water scarcity, industrial areas. But cities are not only generating problems, they can offer solutions. Sustainable urban development can bring solutions. Relevance stakeholders, especially local governments, can take actions to ensure sustainable and resilient urban areas, collaborating to sustainable and resilient agriculture systems. It's extremely important for local governments to provide urban and peri-urban populations with access to sustainable nutritious food and green spaces while reducing food waste to meet the increasing urban demand for resources. For this reason, Paul and partners decided to launch a green cities initiative and an action plan, and that happened during the 75th session of the UN General Assembly in 2020 in New York. The overall objective of the green cities initiative is to maximize and safeguard the provision of healthy and sustainable food and ecosystem goods and services to urban and peri-urban populations. To achieve this objective, the adoption of urban circular systems, climate resilience and nature friendly practices and technologies are very much needed. Local governments could integrate urban agriculture, forestry and food systems into their urban planning policy and action, and involve stakeholders in the development of the innovative solutions for sustainable and resilient urban planning, looking on to the three pillars of sustainability, the social, the economic and environmental aspects. The green cities initiative helps local governments enhance rural urban synergy, improve social inclusion and equity, strengthen resilience and sustainability, and promote integrated approach to agriculture systems. Our approach to support governments, local communities, local governments, responding to global challenges such as urbanization, the climate crisis, the social economic shock that occurred, for example now during the pandemic. And we do this by promoting strategies, plans and actions that support green and climate resilience, agriculture and food systems, forestry activities in an integrated manner. The green cities initiative helps facilitate local dialogue so that transforming food systems and the creation of green spaces are part of the social economic and environmental development. Considering healthcare, education, employment, rural urban linkage, land and water management, a series of benefits that come together with this approach. The green cities initiative targets small, intermediate and metropolitan cities, and our aim is to reach 160 by 2023 and 1,000 cities by 2030. The green cities initiative action program has been formulated to define a set of actions that transform agriculture and food systems and the green spaces towards sustainability. For example, improving access to healthy food through home and community gardens, reducing your carbon footprint. Through urban forestry, cities can enhance their resilience to climate shocks and stress. Local food production and supply chain, market access for small scale local farms can be promoted through sustainable public procurement for public teams, for other consumers, for development of markets that link directly to farms, facilitating the rural urban interface. Through the green cities initiative, the rural urban linkage can be enhanced so the social economic and environmental cohesion is strengthened as well. Urban and peri-urban agriculture is one of the key pillars of the green cities initiative and can greatly benefit cities in various ways. For example, climate resilience, local food production and short supply chains can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase urban resilience against multiple shocks. The protection of local agricultural resources such as land and water can reduce biodiversity laws and improve urban ecosystem. Farmers, compost, urban organic waste can be used as fertilizer and utilized in a safe and treated way, including for wastewater management so that they can reduce farming inputs and promote circularity. Dear friends, dear participants, urban and peri-urban agriculture is at the center of the green cities initiative action. The source book here presented can be of great help to help every one of us participate in implementation. Follow us already supporting many cities developing urban and peri-urban agriculture to make their environment greener and more resilient. To make their society more resilient and better off. Let me give you some examples. In Antananarivo, in Madagascar, a school garden program not only teaches students about urban agriculture but also provides them with nutritious food. In Kigali, in Rwanda, the municipality set up urban garden as the core of the green city program to establish a sustainable food system. In Asia, in Sri Lanka, in Colombo, the city of Colombo is planning to establish an urban model farm in order to demonstrate relevant technologies such as hydroponic farming and vertical farming and to train urban dwellers as urban farmers and to use this modern practice of urban agriculture. Cities in both global north and south need to implement urban and peri-urban agriculture initiatives for a greener and more sustainable and resilient framework. We look forward to collaborating with you to make our city greener, healthier places and to live now and for the generations to come a much better environment in a well-established society living in harmony with nature. Visit the the following cities initiative website to know more about our initiatives, enjoy the source book being launched and I thank you very much for your help. Thank you very much Mr Mansour for the overview of the Green Cities initiative and really for showing how important it is to have urban agriculture was one of the three pillars of this initiative. Now before moving into the source book proper and I think Mr Mansour rightly mentioned it's also important to understand what is going on in our member countries and so to do that we would like to show another video this is from Surakarta in Indonesia and it is presented by Miss Selmy Ananda who's the head of the family welfare program there and she will illustrate how the UPA program in Surakarta is actually promoting the integration of urban agriculture into the city food system program and Surakarta of course is also one of the case studies that is included in the source book so maybe it's a better if you could pass the second video. Allow me to introduce myself my name is Selmy Ananda, head of family empowerment and welfare organization of Surakarta family has become the key to uphold a country's future with a family-born generation who is able to develop country into its best family welfare must be gained one of the its method is by fulfilling families basic meat food high quality of food in both nutrition and safety should be assured along with their availability in the market we try to establish one program which is hopefully able to treat community to have their land use at its best we name the program we are working on our home yard or our surrounding environment yard by doing firm and orderly yet splendid and beautiful urban agriculture practice in a pleasant way in order to help creating and increasing family welfare under the supervision of department of food security and agriculture establish local community group woman cultivation group or woman agriculture group develop vegetables and poultry chicken and fish project harvest mainly consumed by local group family to decrease outstanding on the other end the harvest can also be sold to add income of the family group with only 1.25 percent of agriculture land kestadi surakarta city facing problem in fulfilling basic food for each citizen for this reason surakarta city depend much to other city or district like suko harjo or lali karang anyar seraghen klaten wono giri and etc for groceries and food supply surakarta also played its role as a city which serve goods and necessities to other surrounding city in order to guarantee the availability affordability and food safety of surakarta city dweller local government support the stability of food stock and price both in traditional market and modern market local government have else a routine inspection in both the market and a food service provider renown at pulinary city surakarta city provides food for 24 hours seeing from tourism and culinary point of view the predicate of pulinary city helps much to increase local people income city health department in relation with food and drug supervisor continuously supervise and manage food safety being spread out in surakarta another food system named urban very urban agriculture system has been operated smoothly to guarantee the availability of food towards surakarta citizen together between health volunteers community health center department of agriculture food security and officials we initiate to strengthen food security in the community with a system of mutual cooperation we help training for health volunteers they also provide stimulants of vegetables plants and planting media chicken and cages bones and catfish they also provide supplementary feeding for toddlers expected to strengthen the community after shock instead of additional diseases during the pandemic they calling on all families and communities to start utilizing existing land or open streets only the community will have food supplies and help others especially for families affected by covid families use more nutrition under nutrition children stunting toddlers and self-quarantine families family resilience begins by focusing on improving the quality of each family member to become a stronger people by fostering enthusiasm and credibility those they can be solution to problems faced by society together we are driving awareness and increasing the production of healthy foods by maximizing the land around existing houses through good food security at least it can help save the nation from the spread of covid very much i think that was a very interesting video it really gives an idea of how urban agriculture can contribute at the level of a city and how it can really play an important role to increase resilience particularly of the most vulnerable people okay i think we had a very good introduction on about the importance of urban agriculture in general and how it can really help change lives of people now i think it's time to get into the program proper and the presentation of the source book this will be done basically through an initial introduction by Guido Santini who is now a program coordinator of in the nsp division this will be followed by a short round table with the main contributors to the publication which are basically Maki Kotaguchi who's an agricultural officer in the same division Charlotte Fletcher from the Colto just had a day from Luwaf and Joe Nassar from Ryerson University who introduced them better afterwards and this will probably be followed by a short Q&A session so please do include your questions in the Q&A and then the session will be closed by an intervention on the investment on commercial urban farming by a colleague Jacovo Manzini from our investment center and then we'll get a final wrap up and take away messages from Kostas Stamoli, so the senior advisor on food systems in FAA so without further ado and i'm looking forward to hearing more about the UPA source book so Guido over to you. Thank you so much Simone let me start sharing my screen okay i hope you see the right page can you confirm that it's the presentation mode yes it's fine now Guido go ahead thank you so just briefly i would like to take the opportunity to to thank all the contributors of this book that are basically the people here at the webinar including the people in the background and then and i would like to also emphasize the reasons why we we decided to develop this publication FAAO has been working on urban agriculture for decades but in recent years there has been an increase in demand by especially by countries and local decision makers to promote UPA and FAAO has somehow felt that they need to provide more guidance to countries on how to scale up the UPA there is also another aspect which is important there is a lot of information available a lot of case studies examples all around the world with a lack of systematization and and this is what we we thought was necessary to do so to try to organize this information to catalog it to to draw lessons and recommendations from from those from this large amount of information and of course also to support to guide countries on opportunities and challenges related to the design and implementation of production systems but also related planning strategy and policies in urban areas so we also try to give some of the response the to respond some of the questions that we have been receiving no so first starting from defining UPA you know that there is a lot of research around and and we also try to define give our definition define also what are the benefits and the impacts of UPA to different categories of people and the reasons to invest you know what is the scope to invest on on UPA and where you know based on the context also promoting a context specific approach and understanding the options depending on the context and the purpose what are the the requirements the enabling conditions for implementation who to target and and also finally what are the key policy instruments to scale up UPA so what is UPA you know one of the first questions we try to analyze is also to define UPA and to distinguish urban agriculture from urban pre-urban agriculture and and we decided that to to focus on urban and pre-urban agriculture which also include the the great potential of agriculture in the surrounding areas of cities no which is totally different from what intra intra-urban agriculture is another aspect is to define what it is and so it's food production but not only food production it's also related processes because urban agriculture cannot be seen only as a standalone activity but it should be connected to the entire supply chain and budget and of course involves actors methods institutions economies and all these elements have been taken into consideration including the the multiple function that the UPA plays defining UPA you have to take into consideration different criteria from the location whether it's in urban or urban areas the typology of production the scope and the purpose of the production the the tenure issue the land ownership the scale the household level versus the collective the community level the degree of commercialization the the level of time dedicated to the to agriculture that could be part time hobby or could be a full-time professional subsistence and of course the level of integration with other activities mainly for example forest okay one thing I would like to clarify from the beginning that there is probably a preconception that urban agriculture can also fit the world okay forget it this is not the type of message we want to give urban agriculture is plays an important role but it complements the food coming from rural areas but in any case UPA is a reality for has been a reality for many centuries and I would say and there is an estimate which is now quite old that urban agriculture involves about 800 million people across across the globe a more recent one than in 2014 estimates that there are about 266 million urban households involved in crop production in developing countries and at the same time 40 to 50 percent of urban dwellers are somehow involved in activities food production activity in Africa and Latin America at global in terms of extent of area occupied for food production there is an estimate of the global farm area in cities is more than 60 million hectares and 60 percent of irrigated crops are developed implemented within a radius of 20 kilometers from cities so the proximity to cities is still a very important factor analyzing all the information that we have collected from the literature and from the case studies we have defined four broad categories typologies of agriculture based on the function the purpose based on the type of the practices adopted based on the typology of actors involved and so on and we we have an important category which is home based gardening may family farming mainly oriented to subsistence and self-consumption and based on low low tech options and and a little capital to invest community based farming that is based on public lands involves community mainly for self-consumption but also for commercial purposes low tech practices in general but not necessarily very common in in Europe and Latin America commercial farming that can also involve livestock and fisheries and can be from low tech small scale to high tech large scale and finally the the institutional food growing which it's a it's an apology that involves schools for example but not only schools it's a way to involve marginalized people and to integrate to create more social cohesion talking to the multiple scopes of benefits it's important to emphasize these aspects and and not looking at urban agriculture urban pre-urban agriculture is only from a production point of view and and of course these benefits are the justification for for producing in cities and surrounding areas you know and if you look at them in detail of course there is a urban agriculture boosts the supply of fresh products especially for those category of actors that don't have the the possibility to purchase nutritious food mainly fruits and vegetables from the markets it optimizes the scarce resources available in in cities and surrounding areas like random water and of course they from a nutritional point of view increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables it also promotes nutrition education when it's a it's joined with the school programs and and creates let's say improve livelihoods given the the low start startup cost especially the in a certain technology of urban agriculture and the short production cycles and and of course as mentioned foster inclusion and social cohesion and finally contributes to the urban metabolism by reducing the losses given the the food losses given the simplified and and shortened supply chains and also the reduced food miles the book is organized in different sections we have somehow analyzed 200 global examples six in-depth case studies were developed by ricolto and are part of this publication but also we have an annex publication with the six case study in at the full length we have analyzed the technologies as we we mentioned we analyzed the different practices that are from production but also from in the on land and water use on labor commercialization and so on we analyzed challenges in terms of access to land tenure water water quality and also the actions that are suggested to overcome these challenges now in terms of wastewater treatment and management then use planning trading credit and so on and so forth and finally an important section is regarding the the governance the the planning so the cross cutting issues so we really try to identify the policy instruments the governance mechanism to support the the upscaling of the urban and pre-urban agriculture so some examples and these are examples from the case studies made by ricolto the hydroponics for example in in teguji kappa have been playing an important role for commercial farmer these farmers they earn more than 80 percent of their household income from the epiae in the car for example the micro gardens have become an important reality and they have somehow multiplicated but they multiplied thanks also to the fao support basically the car also a two-part in a in a city-to-city cooperation program to support other cities in west africa in western central africa to promote micro gardens this was in praia and dualla and finally keto is an example of one of the greenhouses that is implemented in keto within the agro part program which is one of the the most relevant and long-standing programs on agriculture in in latin america so jointly with the sourcebook we are also launching the fao urban pre-urban agriculture webpage where you could find the sourcebook and the annex and the page is still under construction but i will show you the homepage and soon we will also have the database with all the examples and cases that we have collected and we are still collecting and that are organized and filtered according to criteria like geography typologies practices and use and so on so i stop here but i want to show you the the main page the upa page sorry just give me one more second and i will share my screen again okay this is the homepage soon there will be different sub pages with different aspects and here you can find the publications to be downloaded and you'll find the relevant initiatives in fao and externally so i stop here and i'll give the floor to simona thank you very much quito that was an excellent presentation and i you even mentioned the word forest ones so that was that was excellent now i think maybe one question which from the audience i assume is or should be from the audience is how can people contribute or propose case studies if they're interested is there a way to do that absolutely i think we we have set up an email address where we can receive a contribution of course we will provide a some guidance on how to prepare these case studies according to certain criteria but yes definitely we do appreciate contribution from from different people okay fantastic i think that would really enrich for the collection of case studies to get you know sometimes you not everything is published all of everything is available online so it's great if people can you know share yeah just one one clarification simona yes i think this database will also have the reference to the original information so it is also a repository to to facilitate the access of this information to other sources excellent fantastic okay great thank you guido so i think now we have a going to have a short panel discussion as i mentioned earlier we have with us four of the people that contributed to the source book and we have makiko taguchi from the same division as guido she's the agricultural office in the plant production and protection division then we have charlotte the chair of lecce and i'm never sure how to pronounce it charlotte so you'll forgive me and she's the global program director from the food smart cities in maricolto and then we have jess halleday who's the senior program officer for the ruaf global partnership and last but not least we have joe nasa who's a lecturer a member of the center for studies on food security in toronto metropolitan university reyes and university so i think the way that we're going to do this is i'm going to ask you all some questions and then we give also the audience a chance to answer ask questions too so maybe i will start with joe joe so maybe can you tell us we heard from guido there's a lot of different types of typologies of urban agriculture and how can decision makers identify these typologies within their own city or locality and what interventions are most suitable to support the development of particular types thank you and thanks for the opportunity to speak here so there are many approaches to to this this range from gis surveys of spaces where food is grown to ground surveys in different parts of the city and the surroundings to know who is involved in it and so on but first a good before you do that i mean a good understanding of the most common types of urban urban agriculture would help so things such as those that are provided in the new source book and you're in the first part of it based on this overall knowledge it can guide to what types to look for but also how such types vary these are not pure models but they are you know they vary between cities between countries and so on so not for instance not all community gardens look the same work in the same way or to use a different example start-up enterprises may vary from rooftop hydroponics to mushroom production in basements of buildings so those require entirely different understanding and basis so based on this based once you have this you know refined understanding in the city and then a closer closer analysis can clarify the challenges that are faced by different actors who are involved in each type of urban and urban agriculture in different contexts so with this better understanding the most appropriate interventions can then be designed to support the development and implementation of the right interventions for the right types of urban urban agriculture this can then ensure that interventions go to the right people for the right forms of practice and don't fail in the end. Sorry I had to unmute myself thank you very much Joe I think for me particularly for reminding us that every city is different every location is different and it's not easy to work or let's say use a black and white approach on this type of intervention I think it's really one of the distinguishing factors of urban work is that you need to adapt to different situations so maybe I can pass over to Makiko and Makiko we've heard a lot about the needs for means of production and I think it's also a matter of trade-offs in cities so how do you think that the guidebook or the book or the source book can help addition as I define the most suitable production practices and maybe you might want to focus on the issue of water because I think that's also one of the challenges is really where does your water come from are you using the main city water supply is you know how does that you know work I would say thank you Simone yes very much so and I see that some of the the participants asked that question about water and and how do you deal with with that particular issue and I think also that's another piece that taking after what Joe just mentioned is that it's very much varies depending on where you are how what kind of an environmental you know ecological area you are in and what kind of water might be available there are some up a programs where they have a sort of household level water recycling or water purifying system that they could reuse some gray water some the kitchen wastewater into production for example and there are also more community level water purification systems that can be found in places for example like Morocco so the book also really showcases or is a collection really of all of the different typologies or examples that can be found we do recognize that water is more and more precious all around the world as we also see climate change affecting and many countries and in many places facing more severe severe droughts so I think that is something that is really important to think about when you start when you want to start an urban and peri-urban agriculture project or a sort of initiative within your city or in your community the availability of land and water are the two key elements that you really need to take into consideration first and then there was another question that was posted by someone in terms of what size of garden can feed a family of four or five and this is also some somewhat a typical question we do get but again that also depends very much on your environment and as Guido really pointed out it's not really it's not going to feed everything at least we don't think it's going to be something in the urban areas partly because the land is very expensive and very precious that it's not it's not going to feed everything but it can complement mostly in the form of nutrition because horticulture crops are more I think more typically grown in urban peri-urban areas which can really help the nutritional status of a family or household so we can find cases from even small as small as 10 square meters to you know a half a hectare depending on what type of urban agriculture one is engaged in and as mentioned by Guido it can it can mean that the land is a backyard of someone's house or it could also be a community garden where a piece of land is made available through the municipality or other organizations and we also see rooftop gardens so places like DACA where land is very limited availability is limited where they can go upwards and also in even in developed countries we we are seeing now abandoned buildings turned into urban farms or also underground areas like in London is it me or is Makiko frozen I think she's frozen yeah okay well sorry about that's the risk of yeah I think we'll go back to her later I think she also covered most of the questions she wanted to answer so while we wait for Makiko to come back I think we'll jump over to Charlotte we heard about you know the sort of practical implementation of urban agriculture but what do you think the typical challenges are when we're looking at actually planning and designing these urban agricultural systems how do we overcome these let's say challenges well thank you very much Simone for for the question and before we start I also wanted to say that it's been a pleasure to work on this source book with all the colleagues here and I also quickly wanted to acknowledge my colleagues from the the regional offices who have also put a lot of work into this but to get back to your question I think one of the main challenges is that urban and para urban agriculture often competes with other sectors such as housing infrastructure and industry for news of scarce resources particularly for land for water like Makiko just just said before but also for labour and because of that I think it's important for planners and practitioners to not only consider immediate short-term returns on investment when they are exploring different options for land use but also to to map and take into considerations the many benefits of urban and para urban agriculture in relation to climate adaptation to food security to job creation to health and well-being community building and resilience I think we have to to really take into consideration you know the all these benefits benefits and look at the bigger picture another challenge often is that practitioners sometimes fail to see urban and para urban agriculture as a system and approach it only from a production perspective yet there are many factors that will actually influence the long-term sustained sustainability and adoption of upa for example among these factors we can cite the availability of affordable finance and services for farmers who will need those services to further develop their activity for instance there's also the existence of convenience and inclusive commercialization mechanisms for upa producers that actually you know are taking into account the special characteristics for example in terms of production volumes there's also this question of whether the land and the water that are available are suitable for say food production and there also sometimes social norms that have an influence also on on how upa is implemented and who can actually benefit from it we've seen in some countries for example that women are less frequently employed for upa tasks because of of of social norms and structures or that's due to inheritance norms that they actually are not inheriting lands as much as men do and so that also has an influence of course I think limited or insecure land tenure is also a good example of a common systemic challenge that takes its root outside the realm of food production per se for example when farmers are growing their crops on vacant lots without permits or land titles using for for instance just plots that are left in the city they are constantly at risk of being evicted and that of course has an influence of their motivation to invest in good agricultural practices to improve soil fertility or to prevent land erosion and it also makes them more likely to prioritize for example short cycle seasonal crops which can in turn reduce the diversity of the crops that are producing and can also have yeah an effect on on reducing the nutritional benefits of of upa so in that sense I guess what I wanted to to emphasize is that it's uh very important for planners and for practitioners to to identify and understand the impact of of the potential constraints and enablers uh that exist in other parts of the the food system and that this is also a key prerequisite for for successful upa governance so back to you Simone. Thank you very much Charlotte I think that gave Ava's an excellent overview of what the challenges are and maybe uh Jess you could tell us a little bit about what policies governments and urban planning processes can actually create enabling conditions to make these things happen and I think I refer particularly to the issue of I think land tenure or let's say the long-term security is definitely one of the key challenges in urban agriculture but also in many areas related to natural resource management so maybe Jess can you give us your views on what could be done at a higher level should we say? Sure thank you Simone and before I start I'd like to also acknowledge my colleague Rene Van Greenhuizen whose contribution to the sourcebook has been very important and so I'd like to start off by reiterating and building on some of Charlotte's comments that often upa competes for resources like land water and labour meaning that it's really important to look at the many benefits of upa in relation to climate adaptation food security nutrition health and well-being job creation and community building and resilience and I would go a step further and say that upa projects can or really ideally should be designed with this kind of horizontal integrated governance across multiple departments or services so that means bringing together key people technicians directors key civil servants within these departments around the table so that they can see how upa can contribute to their own objectives and how they might work collaboratively also multi-stakeholder participation should include non-governmental stakeholders like private sector various different forms of private sector actors community groups academics funders and so on this is really beneficial really beneficial because it allows for a better situational analysis brings together more heads and more perspectives for creative problem solving and can also help mobilize more resources financial also human capacity for example talking about the higher levels cross-level collaboration can also be really helpful and by that I mean identifying how far policies at the national regional and local levels are in line with each other or identifying any ways in which the higher level national regional policies might constrain what can be done in relation to upa what activities are possible or might frame precisely what can be done within cities so going into a bit more detail on policies we've talked a little bit about the challenge of limited or insecure land tenure so the sourcebook does contain some really good examples of ways to improve access to land for food production one good case on access in particular is the case of La Paz in Bolivia which adopted a new law in 2018 to allow citizens to use public land for urban agriculture on a temporary basis as long as they adhere to certain conditions regarding access and environmental stewardship and there are also some very good examples from around the world on how to provide more secure land tenure for certain groups who may not always have that security often women are excluded or people from lower socio-economic groups they are not able to own their own land often or there may be difficulties with inheritance law and so on in terms of things like sanitation and public health some cities like Havana, Nairobi, Kampala have revised their bylaws and regulations to replace colonial era sanitation standards which were seen as really being excessive, unenforceable or inappropriate to local conditions and often the planning system both in terms of the physical planning within the city can be integral to this but also as a means of integrating all of these different departments and ensuring that considerations are written into other policy areas so integration of the planning system is really crucial as well as planning instruments so the sourcebook contains some really good inspiration examples of some legal economic or fiscal communications instruments as well and these can often be mobilized together and so I will leave it there and hand that to Simone but there is a lot in there in the sourcebook really in terms of what can be done on governance and policy planning. Thank you very much Jess I was very enlightening should we say you're really raised this one level up now maybe I have a sort of final question for the panel and if you could do a really a one-minute answer we'll do a round so then we have a little bit of time for questions and answers from the public and please for those who are participating do put your questions in the Q&A box not in the chat because otherwise we might miss them I see at least one there but there might be more and so please you know if you want an answer make sure it's in the Q&A so my final question and really we do a very quick quick round that may be starting with Joe is what is the role of UPA to transform the city region food systems and make them more resilient and sustainable in a one-minute answer. Yeah thanks Simone I start just by adding actually to one dimension to the two mentioned and that's the equitable cities and region food systems and maybe just a couple of examples one is how to enable access of refugees and other displaced populations to spaces to grow food to enable food security including sovereignty over the culturally appropriate products or one other very different example is how to ensure the access to all producers to the rest of the supply chain and particularly the poorest producers so for instance how to gain access to small markets to strengthen their livelihoods so I'd add that equitable to the resilient and sustainable which are all of course very connected no thank you very much Joe for reminding us the importance of an equitable distribution of goods and services I think that's always something we keep in mind whenever we're looking at at cities so equity of access and accessibility okay so Makiko sorry I think you are you back I think we dropped off earlier sorry I think you had a problem with the technical thing but are you back for that Makiko I can't see all the people on the screen no she's not back yet okay so maybe Charlotte could you give us your one minute words of wisdom yes thank you well I do of course agree very much with what Joe has just said before I think if I can add anything I would like to also highlight the role that urban and peri-urban agriculture can play in adapting to climate change so actually this year in 2022 the international panel on climate change the IPCC released its new reports and the report actually stated quite clearly that urban agriculture and forestry has been shown to reduce adaptation costs and also to contribute to flood control sanitation, landslide prevention, better management of natural resources while at the same time supporting food security, nutrition, livelihoods and well-being and yeah I think I think that's really critical to mention this role of UPA for climate adaptation and maybe very quickly I also wanted to add also then talk about the potential of UPA to stimulate income generation, employment and also to boost the local economy while reducing the food costs for the households that are actually active in UPA and yeah this has actually been the case particularly for poorer households especially in Africa and in Asia and so this role really of UPA in promoting social inclusion is quite fundamental so back to you Simone. Thank you Charlotte for that quick one and once again brownie pods for mentoring the word forestry at least once, jokes aside I think you Jess maybe you want to have a final comment on this one too? Sure thank you I'm afraid I've got nothing to say about forestry I hope you'll forgive me but building I completely agree with what Joanne Charlotte have said um it's a big question actually there are lots of different dimensions to it but I would like to draw attention to how UPA can contribute to social cohesion and social capital so community gardens foster sharing of resources sharing of labor tools practices knowledge people who might not otherwise meet each other or have anything else in common can get to know each other help each other out learn from each other and these social networks can actually be really crucial when it comes to anticipating and adapting to adverse events to shocks and hazards so anticipation and adaptation are two of the key forms of resilience so in very simple terms if my tool shed is destroyed by a hurricane perhaps my neighbour will let me store equipment in their shed for a while or even lend me their tools if I can't get my crops to market because my truck was flooded out maybe I can hitch a ride with someone else or even if my crops failed for whatever reason and I can't feed my children then perhaps my my neighbour or somebody else within the community gardens can help out until I can get back on my feet so really this social cohesion social capital for me is an element a benefit that we should keep in mind thank you very much Jace in the end it's about people and people you know should support each other do support each other normally or hopefully okay thank you very much for to our panel I think it was a fantastic sorry it was very short and quick but I think we really got some excellent insights from all our panelists now we have a set of questions from the audience I think I'll kind of try and pick a few and hand them out to you guys and see if you can provide an answer I think I'll start with Guido who wanted to answer this question about the key areas for research so maybe Guido you can answer this first question from me about what you think the key areas for research on the next future now I think this is thank you Simone this is a key question and originally it was part of my last slide and they said not to show it but I actually it is an area that we it's good to to discuss about yes there are some areas that we we believe that we need to further develop one area is related more to the financial economic and financial dimension of urban agriculture and and one of the reasons that today there is our colleague Jacob Munzini is that they are also conducting such a kind of analysis and and these two publications can can complement each other somehow so this is definitely an area for further development and I hope the publication from the investment center in FAU will also answer a part of these questions and there are of course another key aspect is that this is not really a research work it's that it was more a a stop taking existing knowledge no and this to be honest is a never-ending exercise and we realize that there is a lot of knowledge that's still not well systematized and at a certain point we decided to draw a line and we could not go beyond that point because it was really a never-ending exercise so there is a section in the book where we have highlighted some areas for further development that you can go to thank you thank you Guido I see Makiko is back sorry you had some technical issues but there's one question maybe why not to follow up looking at the issue of water and there's a Khadija who asks how do we deal with the irrigating food in a secure manner so avoiding you know fecal contamination or salt or other let's say risks for irrigation thank you and sorry for the technical problem and thank you for the question I think as I was trying to mention earlier what is important whether it's land the soil you're growing your products produce in or the water source it's it's important that it they are tested before you are actually producing because of the potential contaminants that one may find in urban areas so any any program that is embarking on urban agriculture should have testing and then in terms of the water processing the water for safety I think this is also an important thing if there are heavy metal contamination it would be a bit harder to purify the water but for example like I was saying earlier like kitchen waste water can be recycled through a fairly simple sieve system and using different sands filtering system that can make remove any harmful contaminants in the water so in a community or sort of municipal level there are cities where they are purifying water of course you know tap water is expensive in many places but for production it can be more focused not to the level of drinking water perhaps but that would be more suitable for agricultural use so the other issue of course is the fertilizer and nutrition for the plants so aquaponics is another way that that can really use the nutrients in the water that the fish provide to them be used for horticultural production for example but again it is important that any disease or contaminants are removed so testing is very much recommended and yeah maybe I'll stop there thank you okay thank you Makiko I'm sorry about the technical glitch but such is life such is the virtual life now I have another question and I'm not sure maybe Charlotte or Jess would like to take this one it's Gaston asks how do we engage communities and mobilize funding for what he says for the green city initiative but for the urban agriculture in particular so what are ways in which you feel we couldn't engage communities and mobilize resources to make this happen I'm sure Jess or Charlotte you would like to Charlotte you can go ahead if you like oh yeah I was going to offer you the chance to take it first um okay so in terms I'll take finance first I think um that I think it's it can as I was saying previously um when you're looking at how UPA can contribute to various different objectives of various different government sectors or departments or other stakeholder organizations one way of unlocking finance can be to identify how they contribute to objectives and then see how these other departments and organizations might actually be able to use some of their existing budget towards UPA projects because they know it's going to contribute to what they are trying to achieve in their day-to-day work so that's one one useful way in terms of engaging the community um I think that it's often through organizations that really work on the ground or within particular social groups so existing could be existing social groups or local NGOs church groups even and really identifying what the community priorities are and how UPA can actually help contribute to those those community priorities what the local issues are um and working with the people who will be most likely to benefit I know Charlotte has something to add thank you thank you Jess no maybe what I wanted to to emphasize is um also the importance of uh yeah collective action if I can call it this way um so I think there's quite a lot of potential in working together and and I think when yeah communities of urban farmers come together in in the form of for example farm organizations or farmer groups cooperatives etc I think this also gives them extra weights extra extra leverage and it makes it easier also for them to access credits to access financial services as a collective rather than as individuals and I think in terms of accessing you know the key resources that are that are needed such as land such as tools etc I think there's a lot of community initiatives we've seen for example land databases um you know or where where people who have land but do not use it can also lend it to to to commute to to citizens who would like to engage in urban farming we also have seen tool banks seed banks etc so there are different ways that communities can organize themselves to yeah try to to provide the resources to their farmers to to start UPA so I think I'll leave it at this so back to you Simone thank you Charlotte that reminds me of cases in which I know of that people have given their land to develop urban food forests as a sort of social contribution so I think it definitely works that way I have a very large question here maybe Joe you want to look at this one the question I mean it's a little generic but I think it does you know raise an issue because can we really talk about agriculture in developing countries and countries that have say a lack of water and other natural resources it's something that is it really feasible in difficult conditions well I mean of course there are extra challenges with every every every extra challenge is a challenge for urban agriculture in general so if you don't have water then of course that's a that can be a it's a month over but I don't think it can be an opportunity there can be more opportunities so for instance for more incentives for creative solutions such as to pick up on my people's earlier point about simple gray water filtering systems are more likely to be made use of and for investments to be made into them where you have the extra challenge I've seen those for instance in Indonesia and Georgia and elsewhere and so there are many different techniques for dealing with lack of water some related to the sourcing but and others relating to the techniques themselves for instance simplified hydroponics is an approach that has been around for several decades so not used in many places but well established and so that would save a lot of water used for per production and so that's where you know the whole idea of appropriate technology so in this case appropriate technology for current context as many approaches built into it and and the solutions are there of course the sourcebook sites and examples related to the type of resources and their challenges but also the type of interventions and the support needed to make those interventions feasible in the first place I hope I have a question thank you very much Joe I think that gave a good sort of wrap up and I think it was also a good way to finalize this panel discussion we write on time I think we'll keep it at that so I thank you I think we have to give a big hand to the panel which gave us a very good overview and also answered some challenging and difficult questions so now I'd like to move on in our program and we're going to hear from Jacopo Monzini who's a senior natural resources officer in the FAO investment center and he'll tell us a little bit about investing in commercial urban farming so Jacopo the floor is yours and I hope you'll give us a good overview whether it is worth investing or not thank you Simona thank you Simona thank you colleagues for your time and thank you for having me let me start the presentation okay so let me first start saying this is a study that we are doing with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development the EBRD is a bank that works mostly on few countries these are the former Soviet Union the western countries the western Balkans and since a couple of years north Africa and the part of the middle east now what I will present is a very preliminary set of findings that's still working progress the final publication should be out around December January 2023 so let's start so our report looked at sorry I was starting looked at how urban agriculture performs from an economic and financial perspective we have looked overall at urban agriculture so we have identified through literature and experience of colleagues especially in FAO a number of options and we focused the especially the financial analysis on the more advanced and complex urban farming settings such as the rooftop the vertical the indoor the values the modalities of indoors the edible words but we have also looked at traditional urban farms and other expression of urban urban farming as Simone said our objective is to understand the investment options for commercial urban urban farming and as Simone said is it worth investing or or not now we will go very quickly through it let me first start with our sample we have interviewed and I mean identified an interview over 250 large and medium farming companies in 85 countries I'm very happy to report that these are yes mostly located between North America and Europe but we have an in very fast growing number of companies in Asia as well as in Africa Middle East the Balkans so I would say all over all over the globe and you can also see these companies and the discussions we had through a number of e-dialogues that will still continue and that are available on a YouTube page that I will share at the end of the presentation we have interviewed over 218 technology and input providers technology plays a crucial role we have identified over 222 universities and research centers that are currently providing either technical support or having courses classes certificates diplomas related to commercial I mean traditional and commercial urban urban farming and let me highlight that this is extremely important because if we do not invest in research and development especially in such a complex environment then we have less chances to have successful urban agriculture businesses we have looked at investors all kind of investors available majority it's still between ventures and private investors we have looked at retailers retailers are more and more engaged in urban farming of course the most advanced expressions of urban farming architectural students and real development and sorry in real estate developers this is very interesting because we are seeing how urban farming especially again the commercial expression but not only that one also the community gardens the orchards are also improving and positively affecting the way new constructions are designed and then we have discussed with the six largest global HR and overall recruiting companies for agriculture to understand what is the demand in an urban farming setting and what is the needs the companies requires and we have looked and discussed with over 19 lead municipalities across the globe to understand how municipalities are fostering and creating the enabling conditions for profitable commercial farms to develop overall what we see is that it's a very fast growing market only the vertical sector has produced that I mean it's worth around four or five point eight billion dollars we have a number of newcomers including public sector mostly in Europe where municipalities are funding the infrastructures and the locations for modern commercial farms in urban environments of course we have a number of spinoff from university so again it's a sort of public family what it's called business angels which is I would not say that angels but let's say deeply interest investors pension fans and you name it and basically everybody is interested including retailers and large companies like processing companies and food distribution companies and non food related like IKEA and others very interesting we have also traditional agricultural companies that are trying to I'm not trying they're starting to also open let's say peri urban branches with high tech investments so to produce very specific crops close to distributions and old sale markets now what are the main findings and I think this can also answer a number of questions that have been raised like for example in terms of land tenure the large majority seek over 65 percent of the company they do not own the land or the urban spaces where they produce they rent or lease and this is the top decision the top strategy the one that pays more said over 70 percent working controlled environment especially to avoid bringing into urban having to deal into urban environment with rural I mean like with traditional agricultural issues again over 70 percent do not use soil therefore they have very flexible production and approaches of course costs are much higher and the investments the capex needed to run these kind of companies sorry this kind of urban business urban farming business is much higher over 40 percent already adopt vertical farming technology the remaining 60 it's mostly on traditional hydroponics and other form of controlled environment agriculture very few have traditional let's say methodologies applied into I mean like deployed on rooftops or other environment I would say the number is even neglected they operate at least 100 000 square meter 30 percent are becoming certified apologies which is a very important element I mean certified in terms of sustainability carbon emissions and the number of other labels unfortunately known of this advanced technology can be at least for the time being in Europe certified as organic though to a certain extent they are sometimes even more organic than organics the target is usually notion local and national markets by far very few export outside the borders of the country very important they there are very interesting from the positive and negative sides of the kind system ability elements with the most advanced urban farming technologies we can save up to 90 and many cases even 95 percent of the water needed which makes it very relevant in context where water is you know it's a limiting factor or where the quality of water is an issue in in the modern commercial urban farm we managed to produce above 70 times more fresh product per square meter which is very important of course the number of crops that can be produced is still limited to a restricted number of crops but these are very important cash crops like leafy greens berries small fruits herbs and others a negative aspect but that is highly proving is that they are energy intensive therefore they may have and here we have to be attentive because it depends on the source of energy they may have a high carbon footprint but the the trend is decreasing enormously only in the last five years the demand the average demand the square meter of production have decreased by 30% and by and applying efficient in energy management procedures it can be further decreased now so all of these tell us two very important things that urban agriculture is a benefit okay the thing is how do we look at these benefits it's very hard to have a single urban farm from from our initial farmings that can provide for all type types of benefits that urban farming can provide we do have ecological benefits I mean I will not go through because you have in your body's presentation already explain those but in terms of commercial farms we have to be a bit attentive first because it's it's high capex so we need we need the we need money to do it it's not cheap from the analysis of the companies we have looked at we have seen that to be I mean that the most profitable so not just to be profitable but to be among the most profitable we need at least a million dollar investment we need to have around a nectar of production capacity that this goes vertically so it's not it's not with the modern urban farm you have to think more into three days rather than than two days and we need to focus on on premium and premium markets of course I would just like to stress on what also we do mentioned it really depends on the context it really depends on the purpose of the business and it really depends on the needs of the overall environment that fits urban urban farming now as I said at the beginning the final results will be available in in a few months December 22 January 2023 we are going to still have a number of actually five additional e-dialogues and we will be happy to circulate among all the invitation and I'll share in as soon as we end the presentation the link to the previous with that I will give back the floor to Simone and colleagues and I'll thank you for your attention thank you thank you very much Jacobo I think it was we went a little bit over time but it was so interesting I was reluctant to to interrupt so at this point I think we really have our last speaker and that is Kostas Stamuli so the senior advisor on food systems and the food safety division the FAO and Kostas will help us I think put a bit of order in all we have heard and really give us some final takeaway messages so Kostas the floor is yours thank you Simone and I think the organizers for giving me a chance to say a few words at the end on a topic which I was extremely skeptical for a long time so I think maybe inviting a skeptic to give the final comments is a good thing if I'm convinced then everybody should be convinced let me and I also congratulate the the authors of this exercise everybody that because I think something like that was needed as an important step towards a subject where as I said is considered a niche and for a long period of time it has dropped off the the screen actually I was reading something by John Nasser the other day which actually said that this is that that the whole topic went disappeared for a period of time and now it's coming back and I think there are reasons for which it's coming back now why was I a skeptic first of all there are two fundamental reasons and both have to do with what I've been accused of as as meat and potato economics like very simple stuff one is the whole process of economic transformation that sees the role of agriculture declining let alone the role of agriculture in the cities that says urbanization and you know other activities taking over and as a consequences of the transformation is of course the whole issue of urbanization right whether that's push or pull people and some data have been given I think in the beginning and that's that's that's correct now what is this urbanization does well it puts it would it puts pressure on urban resources like land and water etc and some of the speakers correctly refer to that and I thought that would actually be at the end of the day not the death of urban farming but the marginalization of urban farming and I didn't have in mind what Jacopo just presented which is the vertical farming etc so I would refer more to the more traditional farming that uses a lot of land etc as a matter of fact in a few weeks ago I was in Kisumu in Kenya on the on a big conference on africities and one of the actually more than one of the regional directors of Kenya regions districts he said agriculture urban agriculture is dead he says the property values are going so high that they will push out agriculture you cannot you know the agriculture cannot compete with other users of land the opportunity cost is quite high however as as some of the speakers pointed out and the spirit of the whole book is that it's not just about production agriculture and there are other benefits let's say that that urban and peri urban agriculture and the surrounding activities provide so so I think this this is while the simplistic approach or the meat and potatoes approach is correct that is eventually you know there's going to be enormous pressure on on urban natural resources land and water etc and if from urban settlements and housing and infrastructure and parks etc I think the the the simple argument can be countered by policy and that's where the role of policy is to take into consideration the other benefits which the real estate market won't take into consideration that's that's that's why you have policy right to correct these kinds of unaccounted for benefits from markets so maybe maybe Joe one of the reasons then that that urban agriculture fell out of favor was was these kinds of considerations but there are others in my view I think that I agree with Joe that that the tide has changed and it continues to change the linkages between urban settlements and food production and food systems around them are receiving renewed attention the idea that urban planning which includes transport communications waste management etc does not include food and integrate food into the planning process it's really difficult to fathom right it's true but it's it's it's not well acceptable in this day and age also because we have gone through some fundamental episodes which which promote the role of of urban and peri urban agriculture and food systems so urban and peri urban agriculture then in my view it should be an integral part on urban and city region food systems and should be part of the food system policies and the urban planning process now covet and I think that's one other reason is showed that careful planning of food supply sources is amassed and so it is the proximity of food supply sources to food consumption points in general the frequency of extreme events that can cut off supply from from from demand points I think it's it's something that militates for proximity of the two at least until we have other important means to face those kinds of things and to to fend off the breaking down of of the food value chain so upa can contribute to the food system resilience by diversifying alternative food sources in time of crisis and by shortening and simplifying supply chains now I think the change that the change of of fortunes has been manifested by the attention that food has taken in the new urban agenda but also the visibility and attention to urban and local food systems during the UN food systems summit I think it has it has gotten a lot of mileage with it within the next steps I think is to convince that national governments could shoot about only about horizontal integrated planning at the at the urban level but it's also the vertical consistency between policies at urban and local level with national policies and so I think a big task in front of us is to convince national policymakers that there is some links here to be established endorsed and some institutions to be created to link the two and within FAO the launch of the framework for the urban food agenda the the the under construction coalition and the green cities initiative of course point to this direction and our countries have taken notice I hope now I believe that the book launched in today's seminar but also the seminar itself had the potential to strengthen the basis on which urban and local administrations can make decisions on urban agriculture upa anyway as a part of a broader food system by emphasizing the multiple roles that urban agriculture can play and the multiple benefits which can derive from it and this way we can make this simple let's say real estate market argument a little more complicated right and and and work on it now and so the importance of upa it comes out clearly from today's seminar um goes beyond its share in in in agriculture GDP of course that's not the point it has to do directly with people's well-being I think that's the best way to phrase this it's not a matter of of shares but it's a matter of people's well-being how how many people it's it's an open question I will come to that in a minute um so integrating upa in land use and urban planning is key to ensure proper regulation and promotion of the urban and peri urban agriculture as well as to manage competition with other land issues housing commercial etc back to the integration now um however their positive and negative aspects of upa and the way it is practiced and they have to be carefully assessed I will make four points first of all is what do we know really about the impacts of upa in different settings it's not enough to say it increases employment when you come to making policy impact evaluations is not about sweet generous creation of employment but what alternative instruments does one have with the policy resources that one puts on the table to increase employment I'm just giving you an example right because I heard about increased employment same thing goes for the other attributes that urban agriculture can have like you know mitigation of climate change etc etc in my view one of the tasks in front of us is to collect all these impact assessments real impact assessment quantitative impact assessments no matter how small are in scale um and and create a library of this in order to be able to give strength to the credibility of the whole exercise and derive some guidance for those that want to do policy this is the kinds of things that would decide whether we want we will scale up it's not enough to say you know it has a lot of benefits with upa and so now we have to scale it up or invest in it I think jacobo made a good case of of a private sector activity that that pool that that will be um scaled up by private sector action right so but we need some some sort of um library of impact assessments the second one is the issue of data you cannot do impact assessment unless you have proper data and I'm here talking about an organized effort a systematic collection of data because some of the data that were presented even in the seminar that are quite old and they're quite um I am I'm waiting to see in the book where this data coming from but but I think that it hasn't been in my view in my in my knowledge anyway and and organized connection of data not only on upa but also on urban food systems urban food security um now there's some some efforts to do um urban poverty estimates and in a near of geolocalization where every pixel has um you know 500 meters around it I think it's it's it's shouldn't be that big of an exercise but but we have to take charge of it there are multiple objectives of um that can be achieved with urban agriculture and and limited policy instruments that's always a crisis right for every policy maker so it has to be a prioritization what is it that you want to achieve by enacting a policy framework for supporting urban urban agriculture or urban urban food systems for that matter and so part of the list that Jess and and Charlotte proposed I would add also the prioritization what is the process by which you prioritize objective and select instruments um finally um I will give you some homework before I I conclude I will give you the the results of some recent work using geolocalized data for the whole world that was done by FAO and others and published for for those that want to find it in the proceedings of the national academies of science now I'll only give you some of the facts the fact is that 94 percent of the global population lives in locations that are within one hour from an urban center of 20 000 people or more right 30 percent of population of low income countries live in peri urban areas or smaller intermediate cities intermediate and small cities provide greater catchment areas for rural populations relative to their size than larger cities right so catchment areas means areas that can influence through the access of those areas to services in the urban areas and finally less than one percent of rural population lives in rural hinterland namely more than three hours traveled distance from an urban center of 20 000 inhabitants or more what does that actually mean it puts into question what is the definition of urban peri urban and rural at least we are looking at the continuum rather than a than a sharp distinction between rural and urban and and we know that for a long time we just now that we have all this technology to geolocalize stuff we know that um and and calculating travel distances I think we know that more unfortunately we don't have data to to to over time to say you know this is what was in 1960 this is what is in 1922 but I think you agree with me that those distances are just bound to be reduced which will have implications of the food system we will have implications for urban food systems for urban and peri urban agriculture what those will be I don't know that's my task to find out and if you have any ideas please let me know because this is even even design this conceptually I think it's it's a challenge so with these happy thoughts I will leave you I thank you again for putting up with me and wish you a good weekend and congratulations for this effort thank you thank you Simone up the floor is back thank you Kostas and thank you for being the usual skeptic we know and I know you were born skeptic but it's always good to have a bit of a skeptic say healthy skepticism so I think with this we will already slightly quite a bit over time actually so I think we will close this webinar I'd like to once again thank all the speakers and panelists for an excellent discussion and some very very interesting points I encourage you all to download the source book learn more about the urban agriculture but of course to you know reach out to weed on his team for any interesting collaborating or even to provide good case studies that you might want to share with us so thanks again to all of you and have a great weekend and enjoy the summer for those who are in our hemisphere or the winter for those who are in the other all the best and hope to hear from you soon bye bye thank you so much thank you very much congratulations