 The information we are ready for recording, so hello everyone, I wanted to say this session will be recorded, it's not live streamed, so you can prepare freely and feel very comfortable, but it is recorded and we will have a look on it for a short and nice cut-it session then afterwards. So my name is Dagmar Tutschek, I'm from Austria, but with a Czech name, Tutschek, yeah formerly, I'm running the Austrian Foundation, it's called FREDA, and I'm also board member of the Green European Foundation, I'm very happy to welcome you today for this very interesting and very important session on foot again, foot security, foot crisis in this challenging time of war. So if you please come in and get a little bit crowded in the middle, because for the camera you know, they only see a few people and there are so many of you, so it would be great to have you all in front of us in the middle. Just let me have a short scenery, what will happen in the next one and a half hour or say one hour and 20 minutes as we are late. We will open with a short five or maybe only three minutes networking, you in the audience, you together, just turn around to your neighbor and ask the question or have a little exchange on what has brought you here today and what is something you're hoping to learn more about in this session. Remember we had a foot session yesterday, but the focus now will be a little bit a different one and just have in your mind, but take it with you when listening to our inputs then on the panel here. We would like to exchange afterwards in the discussion with you two big questions. That is a little bit the goal of this session. I think some of you are politicians or working in a political field and some of you are activists, private persons or work with an NGO and we would like you to ask to think about what can we ask from or do as politicians or political actors just to have this exchange then after the discussion and what can I advocate or do as an activist or NGO member. Just take it with you and we will have it then. After we had the speeches and the inputs, we will have a very short round where questions within our three speakers will be possible and then we have prepared something like a hot but still green seat. So if you have questions and if you can give an answer to the questions I just asked, we would appreciate and invite you coming here to take place with us here on one of these seats and have a short discussion with us. So it's like a fishbowl, but for the camera you know it can't follow you wherever you seat so it will be much easier having here with us. So that's it and I would love to have you now the preparation and just talk to your neighbor wherever you're sitting. Thank you so much. So slowly, slowly we want to come back. That's great. Thank you so much and I now want to introduce our speakers for you. And it's a great day today because we had a plenary in the morning which was women only and we have a session now that has women only. So I think it's a good signal as well as Gwendolyn just mentioned earlier the problems women have in Poland. So I think it's a good sign and a good signal to show such strong women here with me. I introduce to you Paulina Krama she's associate professor at the Jagiellonian University in the Institute of Iron Mental Sciences. Hello and very welcome to you. She will be our first speaker and then let me introduce to you Yelena. She's with us online and it's Yelena Borodina and she's an Ukrainian professor of agriculture and rural development. A hearty welcome to you as well. And last but not least here we are with Harriet Clayton and Harriet is advisor for the Greens in the European Parliament on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. Hearty welcome for you as well. And Paulina let us start with you and I'm very happy to hear your first input. Thank you so much. Thank you so much and I will switch to Polish now. And I would like to mention also that I am involved in and I promise to switch to Polish. So I'm a co-creative of a collective of scientists and researchers called Research for Nature. I would like to invite you to visit our websites where we publish a lot of interesting information including scientific papers on environmental protection and nature in general. And today I would like to give you a short introduction to introduce you to the reasons for famine and why shortage of food and hunger can be used as weapon and is weaponized all over the world. In fact one of the reasons for malnutrition and famine in the world is not the lack of food actually, so the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says that right now we produce food that would allow us to feed 12 billion people. So there is a huge surplus which unfortunately is consumed by the global north which is Europe, North America and Australia and China to a bigger extent. Second reason is that we waste a lot of that food and we are doing it on a gigantic scale. I'm sure that many people will be familiar with that second reason. There is also a third very painful one which is that we have an overproduction of meat because of excessive animal production. We have too many animals being held for food, I eat meat myself but I'm not going to use work such as pork or veal but meat of cows, meat of other animals because we have to realize that even if we do eat meat we have to be aware of eating a living being. So 80% of all agricultural land in the earth is used for keeping livestock. I'm talking about pastures, industrial pastures, large-scale pastures and it is also used as fields to grow a feed for animals. And then ultimately we have a lot of meat, we have a lot of milk, a lot of dairy but it is only able to satisfy 13% of our needs of energy. From the far perspective if we compared the amount of land that is spent for animal production and growing feed, if we turned it over and used 80% of available land for plant production we would be able to feed 21 billion people. So not only are we wasting food, we are also wasting land. I'm not going to talk a lot about animal production, it is done basically on an industrial scale, 90% of animal production is done on a large industrial scale, if you are interested in detail. In detail is a visit website of pro-animal movement, a significant problem in this phenomenon has something to do with lack of a line in animal production and plant production. Before the war a majority of livestock were fed on plants that we cannot eat. For example grass or hay for cows, hens or chickens, pigs are the most popular species where fed with some leftovers of human food or other substances that people don't consume. Right now this is not the case in Europe, livestock, feed that is brought from Amazon, it was grown on land, it was for Amazon forests or fish, actually fishbill, and this fish meal is produced from fish that otherwise could be consumed by people in Africa. So in a way animal production in Europe is stealing food from Africa. And this leads to all the problems to famine and malnutrition, so I think the main reason for malnutrition and famine in the world is the wrong distribution and organization of the food sector, so instead of producing food for the local citizens in South America they grow feed for livestock. In Europe the same applies to Africa, instead of allowing people to eat their fish, the fish is processed to make fish meal to feed animals. I don't have much time but if you are interested come to me I can give you more examples of such wastage. What's also very wrong about the current system, which is very industrialized, is that it produces a lot of greenhouse gases, and this is caused by the devastation of the Amazon forest which now emits more CO2 than it captures. So for industrial cow production a lot of methane is emitted through the earth. And the more the quality of food, the less grass they eat, the more protein, the more methane and also excrements and urine produced by these analysis is also an ecological problem. Also the nitrogen released from artificial fertilizers, which are used unnecessarily in many places. If you are interested come and talk to me, I will explain why it is unnecessary in many cases. What's also happening right now is that hunger and famine is being weaponized as well. For example, Putin is trying to make us scared by threatening the cause of famine. Because of supply chains are very long right now in the world, African countries are concerned because Putin is threatening that the supply of wheat from Ukraine among others will be cut. So I don't think we discussed it enough. What is also not being discussed enough and also being used by Putin is the fact that in Russia there are places where they extract raw materials for the production of fertilizers. And although it is a necessary right now, global agriculture is addicted to fertilizers based on phosphorus, for example. Also in Poland, Russian oligarchs have their shares in plants, in facilities that produce fertilizers. Oh yeah, it is true that it has been blocked and but it used to be a huge scandal in the past. We should also remember the history because famine was often weaponized. We all know about Hovo Domor, the great famine in Ukraine, which even though Ukraine was very fertile, local people living on this fertile line starved. What's also happening in Yemen, for example, famine is being used and manipulated. We tend to forget about that country and the yet tens of thousands of people, hunger and starve to death and it is being weaponized as well. Also Palestine, a place where Israel destroys the local fields, Erdogan is doing the same Erzava, which is in the North Syrian Republic right now. Also what's been happening on the Polish-Balarussian border, refugees being bereft of food because they're prevented access to food. It was also an example of weaponizing food. Without food we are not able to live, so it is therefore it is so easy to weaponize it if you prevent people from accessing it. It is also often forgotten that in 2020 the world food program received a Nobel Prize and back then they really appealed to the international community saying that even though we have an overproduction and a surplus of food in the world, tens of thousands are still starving. Thank you. Thank you very much Paulina and I think we obviously can speak about food as a weapon. Thank you for this input very much and maybe just to remember many of the fertilizers come originally from chemical weapons to speak about Agent Orange and companies like Monsanto, I think we have to write to tell it here. So before turning to Jelena I just want to provide you very shortly a few figures. Russia now occupies fifth of agricultural land in the Ukraine that about 22% of the agricultural land since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began in late February. So the bread basket of the world is at war. That comes from the head of the division from the NASA and they are monitoring the global food production by satellite. The Ukraine supplied nearly half of the world's traded sunflower oil, 9% of wheat, 17% of barley and 12% of corn before the war. And Russia currently occupies 28% of the country's winter grain fields and 18% of its summer grain or oil seed fields. There last week or two or three days ago there had been a little, little light on the horizon. Maybe Jelena, you can tell us about that something more that there were some negotiations how either Ukraine can start safely to export grain again because now we are waiting for the new harvest but there's no place anymore to store it. So there had been just the beginning of maybe positive negotiations how ships could leave with grain on board Odessa again. So Jelena, I invite you to come here to us, you're online. Thank you for your time and sorry that you had been waiting so long a time before we started. Thank you. Hello everybody. It is very pleasure to put part in the Green European Academy and I say hello from Ukrainian academician society from Kiev and I would like today make some smaller speech about how the war in Ukraine would change in the global food system. Okay, today everybody is understand it is not the sanctions against the Russia, against the Russia Federation caused to cause the dispart in global food security in the rice in food prices but the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Today's global increase in price of wheat, corn and oil seed has lied over previous price prices caused by higher demand and rising production under the COVID pandemic. It can be seen that the war halted the process of the global recovery from COVID which has been traced in 2021. Meanwhile Russia's war aggression caused two new destructive factors to food security. First the war blocked up the markets of agricultural raw resources and final agricultural products. Second the war significantly affects the markets of primary resources used in agriculture production. Such market shocks cause different reaction and market responses in development country and low income countries. The food situation put in security is becoming political process. The increase in food prices has already harmed political process in some low income countries. The factors of the current global shock in the food market and the repeat increase in prices for agricultural products are impressive but not unpredictable. They become yet another evidence that the global food system backed by industrial and monocultural agriculture needs a radical transformation as it is unstable, sensitive to unpredictable changes and unprepared for current global challenges. In pre-war period Ukrainian agriculture and Ukrainian agricultural policy was oriented towards industrial agriculture and the growth in monocultural export. The war extremely completed large scale export oriented production through splitting logistic chains, ecological disasters and industrial livestock farmers in according to energy problem blocking export markets and center. Amid the war the domestic food system had shown itself cloud being excessively oriented towards the export of agricultural raw materials given that the nutrition of the own population in the pre-war period largely depended of food imports which was accompanied by a constant increase in prices. The specific weight of food cost in the budget of Ukrainian households before the war reached 50% and for rural families 60% and more. Farmers and individuals farming household demonstrate their key role in the preservation and development of local markets and food supply chain in the so condition of military aggression. Today being able to quickly change the production structure they provide the population with fresh vegetables and foods increased supplies of milk, meat and eggs to local markets. This is a conclusion of the classic economical theory regarding the sustainability of small scale production in confirmed in practice in Ukraine. In the period of war the main foundation of their stability is not the economic advantage of small farmers over large ones but the important fact that the large farm is run as a capitalist enterprise for the shape of profit and rent and a small one to ensure the existence of the producers himself. Therefore small-scale agriculture can exist and develop with much lower income than a large-scale capitalist one. In Ukraine the war has served losses in the rural areas and also treating a food crisis inside our country. Russia set the goal to destroy the agriculture economy of Ukraine by targeting all access fields, agricultural equipment, warehouse, markets, roads, digits and forts. In according to conclusions of Ukraine society, Ukraine academician society and considering empirical evidence of the resilience of family-based economic entities in agriculture, the Ukrainian government should guarantee its people the right to the safe food and water by reaching family food self-sufficiency and internal food security during the post-war reconstruction. Today and after the war it goes to the need to facilitate the access of peasants and all people who want to work in agriculture, to land, to produce, to production resources and to financials, refusal to increase export with stimulation of short food chain and stable local food markets, preservation and increase of biodiversity, restoration of healthy soil and ecological production, joint responsibility of producers and consumption for the production and consumption of high-quality and safe Ukrainian food. Ukraine then academician society farmers and farming households to push our Ukrainian government to post-war restore Ukraine on the basis of the European environmental strategy farmed to fork biodiversity and new common agricultural policy of the European Union. This our position corresponded to the intention of Ukrainian regarding future accession to European Union as a full member. Strengthening the role of family farms, developing local food markets and shorting agri-food chain and transition to an ecological transformation with the advantage of digital technology in local food production should become the root of the transition to sustainable agri-food systems in Ukraine in the old world. The global food security can provide with small family farmers. Thank you. You mentioned many, many points that we will pick up in the discussion later on. Thank you so much for that. But now I turn to Harriet, our third speaker here. Harriet, the food crisis has been part of the multiple crisis we've had to face in the last nearly 10 years by now starting with the financial crisis and so on and so on. But now has reached a complete new dimension. And I would love to invite you to speak about your role as advisor and so more the European, the point of view of the European level and share it with us here on the... Great. Thank you so much. Good. Is this working? Yes. Great. Okay. Hi. Hi, everyone. I'm Harriet. I'm very glad to be with you and to get out of my office for a start and to have some more interaction outside of my committee. So good to see you all. Indeed, I thought I would begin with just let's say some headline reminders about EU agriculture, agricultural policy. Of course, the EU is collectively the world's biggest exporter, also the world's biggest importer in this case. We have a significant amount of the budget which is dedicated to agricultural policy itself. It's been one-third. But at the same time, and I think as our colleague Pauline already adequately highlighted, it is also implicated in a tremendous amount of damage which rebounds on the farmers themselves first and foremost, pollution to waters, degradation of soil and so on. And I think in the past couple of years, we've had to face several crises. We might think of COVID and the disruption to supply chains, first of all, which is now revealing increasing inflation, which is global, effectively. And in the most recent months as well, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has tremendous consequences firstly for Ukrainian people, also their farmers, their production. So we might think of those three recent situations. A report from several UN bodies this week highlighted that we have this world hunger goal to put an end to hunger by 2030. And it looks like we will not achieve really this goal at looking at the current trajectory. 150 million more people are predicted to be in hunger, which basically leaves us at the situation that we set, we were in 2015 when the goal was originally set. So worrying situation. I note also they had a quote that I thought I would share with you on from this same report about agricultural policies, implication in this. I said the lion's share of it is targeted to farmers individually through trade and market policies and fiscal subsidies largely tied to production or unconstrained use of variable production inputs. Not only is this much of this support market disorting, but it is not reaching many farmers, hurts the environment and does not promote the production of nutritious fruits. That's one of the basic things we should consider here today, talking about food security. So we can ask ourselves what has been the EU reaction within agricultural policy to these combined crises that we have just listed. And also what does that show about its considered place in the discussion on food security? So I think there have been clearly some reactions from the EU side to try to support and assist Ukraine. Let's note if we talk about food security, the EU commission itself was not yet saying that EU own food security was yet impacted, but naturally looking at the global level, it's a very different picture. We think of neighbors in Middle East and North Africa. I think we already mentioned Yemen, Ethiopia, Egypt, Lebanon, often places that are really reliant on imports and often particularly Ukrainian imports in this case. So this is indeed a problem. And one of the EU reactions was logistical, I would say. They implemented solidarity lanes to try to provide alternate routes for Ukrainian exports. I mean, this is, of course, to try to ensure that food security is maintained in other areas of the world at this particular point. But naturally it is necessary for Ukrainian farmers, their livelihoods, their continued possibility to farm. This is obviously another threat that they face at this particular moment. So the first reaction and the first reaction also demanded from organizations such as World Food Program was support financially and also then support logistically. There has been some positive news on exports recently. They are increasing from Ukraine, so that provides in this case some reassurance for those parts of the world that rely on it. But some logistical bottlenecks remain naturally to replace shipping at such short notice is very complicated. The volumes are not the same and so we see effects on grain staying in places like Romania, Poland, which are not necessarily meant to be its final destination, of course. So this is a complicated issue. EU has taken other reactions to try to provide flexibilities in the funds that, for instance, Poland, Romania already have to get EU funds for clothing, for food, also to refugees that have been displaced and welcomed by neighboring countries particularly. So if we consider food security, one element of this is inflation in the prices, which has a significant effect globally. And also this can be seen sometimes in low-income countries also in the EU, low-income families, particularly in member states with high levels of inequality. This is therefore a global concern. The food price index already before the invasion of the war was very high and it has seen some extra increase. I think another 30 percent rise on top of that. And it was already at a very high level compared to, say, 2007-A and 2010-11 previous crises. So this is indeed a concerning. And globally, but also in the EU in some cases, people do have to choose now, do they feed themselves? Is it for eating or is it for eating? It's the typical refrain that now becomes a concern. And we might also note, it's also the quality of the diet that's impacted. If we have inflation, which is affecting fruit and vegetables more than staples, then that's going to affect what people are eating as well, the quality of their food and their overall diet. So yeah, the reaction in light of this inflation has been again to provide some support to farmers. But we can sometimes question the fact that such support really reveals that we have a certain path dependency in EU agriculture. They have, for example, allowed flexibilities in state aid and allowed use of the second pillar of the cap, which is normally the rural development part of the cap. They have longer-term investments. It's for jobs, for rural communities. Let's say the longer-term part of the cap that it's not directly going only to farmers. And so it is quite a pity that in this situation, we then end up effectively following this reflex to give greater support to those farmers who have high input costs, who have a big use of feed, fuel, energy. And this in the context where we are trying, and I think we discussed in other panels, to reduce imports of fossil fuels, reduce use overall, of course, but in the geopolitical situation, imports in particularly is frustrating that this long-term part of the cap is now having to be used in such a way, which effectively can result sometimes in a sort of subsidy effect for precisely what we do not want to continue subsidizing. I think another element that COVID especially revealed in food security is that it's not only what we import that can make us vulnerable, but also what you export. I remember at the beginning of COVID, we had long discussions about the wine sector. And of course, if we are discussing food security, of course, wine is a beautiful cultural good. It is historic. It is very important food that we would not either want to lose, but it is not, I would say, the primordial interest when we discuss food security. So I think this is quite notable that it reminds us that once we start to use so much expenditure in this direction, we are in a way constrained and it becomes more and more difficult to get out of this and to direct money for agricultural policy towards production of more nutritious and that food which is really needed. So before I finish on the COVID point as well, food security also will necessarily rely on having healthy, safe, well-remunerated jobs in the agricultural sector. Perhaps you remember there was also stories in the US, in Europe, about problems in slaughterhouses with the people working in very difficult conditions that in COVID times very rapidly became unsanitary. So we have migrant labor, seasonal labor that should be assured good conditions and currently we see situations of practically exploitation sometimes. So this is quite a concern. So here, I mean in the three crises that we can focus on here, we see that there is indeed a link. It seems to be those sectors that rely on really long supply chains that are more concentrated. If we might borrow some banking crisis analogy, they are sort of seen as too big to fail and they are the first ones, ironically, that can suffer from the high input use in terms of fuel electricity feed. So really, we now have to question our responses and what this tells us about the real long-term shift we need in agricultural policy to remove ourselves from this reliance. And of course, in the background of all this, we have the climate change crisis and the biodiversity crisis. Climate change we see is already affecting us. Last year it's floods, this year it's heat waves. It's going to be a combination of both every year. I feel it becomes more and more evident and farmers indeed are often the ones that feel it the most viscerally in their everyday life. So here we have really now a conjunction of crises that should tell us logically. Now is the time to continue with European goals set in, for example, a farm to fork. To reduce input use, this will be both financially helpful for the farmers, reduce the amount of environmental damage and therefore maintain their business and our collective food security in the longer term. But there have been certain reactions within the present agricultural policy and the new CAP strategic plans that start next year, which have been quite worryingly counterproductive from this point of view. I wonder before I get too nerdy, does anyone know what GAIEX are? I am sorry, I don't know if, yes, I see some hands, okay, great. I don't know the Polish acronym, so good look for the interpreters to understand that. But actually what it is is good agricultural and environmental conditions. And this is what farmers, many of the best do it as a natural matter of course. But these are the conditions under which you have to work if you want to also access agricultural subsidies. And here in order to react to these crises, some of the impulses have been to try to scramble to push production at any cost. And I think as both Paulina and Alina have already mentioned, production itself is not really the problem at this stage, it's more the distribution. So, and taking into account that climate change and biodiversity are big long-term threats that we must maintain in mind, this is a worryingly counterproductive. So for example, there's a condition on on co-operation. And we might think that right now this should be the good thing that we should at least maintain as a baseline of conditions that farmers should undertake. It's good for the soil, it's an age-old practice. It's in light of high fertilizer prices and even projected next year difficulties in sourcing the fertilizer on top of that. It seems only logical that now is really the time to make sure that farmers have received the advice, received the support, have a more developed protein plan that can really help them to integrate for example leguminous crops into their rotation. That helps us to stop relying on imports, long supply chains that end up with deforestation in Brazil in many cases. It increases self-sufficiency and it will be beneficial for the soil in this sense. And also we might think of the space that we provide for nature. This has also been put into question at this point despite the fact that three-quarters of the most important crops globally rely on pollinators at least to some extent. I think the IPBS report on pollinators from 2016 said about five to eight percent is completely reliant on pollinators. So if we're talking quite nearly 10 percent of the food production, this is a long-term threat that we need to maintain in mind and to ensure that the most basic agricultural practices are not furthering this problem and kicking the can further down the road when we'll have an even worse situation. So here are some concerning adjustments that have been made for this year and some even trying to prolong this into next year which would be very counterproductive for the longer term of food security. We see here then that it's not giving our farmers really a good direction in either in previous panels on other topics. We saw the need for a just transition in other sectors and I think quite similarly we need the same thing in in agriculture. A managed transition to reduce use of inputs to really focus our public procurement, promotional policies to what is going to provide healthy food for those in the EU and the close neighborhood and also ensuring that our trade policies do not interfere with the rights of others to also do the same to produce local nutritious food. I think I will just finish at this point. I feel maybe I'm up to 10 minutes. Yes and also another thing that we should consider from the EU level which has been treated a little bit inconsistently I have to say is the problem of speculation. Naturally I mean supply and demand will affect food but here we see on top of that there have been increasing financial activity regarding agricultural commodities and this is something where really the EU can also have a stricter stance. In fact in the most recent plenary I think we had a rather contradictory situation. We had a report actually on food security. It wasn't from agriculture but I think the development committee in this case were taking the lead and there they were saying we need to have a stricter position limits to curtail speculation on what is at the end of the day a huge factor in the consumption baskets of those on very low incomes both in EU but globally that really affects their access to food. At the same time we had a concrete objection to a delegated act that might have permitted us to precisely do so and this was not followed through with. So here we see sometimes a little bit contradiction between the full awareness of actions that we should be taking also for the long term of food security that needs to see more pressure to really follow through and to be consistent in our policies I think. So thank you very much. Thank you very much Harriet and thank you for the big dedication to the topic that was great to listen to you and you mentioned so many many many important points. It's all about food of course but it's all about climate about biodiversity about economy and yeah how we can react on this point as a community as a global community but as well as a very small community in your village in your family and so on and so on. So now it should be the time for a short round in between our speakers so if you have any question and remarks on each other I would love to hear them and let us have 10 minutes for exchange here in between you who wants to start yet and maybe you. Are there some questions on your colleagues or remark on that what you're already here by now. Yes it's very interesting to look at this opinion of my colleagues and I agree with this sentence and in according to Ukraine problem we suppose is a problem with export of Ukrainian seeds it's a short term problem and it will be solved in next future few months and now Ukraine has more strategic problem the problem was the war reconstruction of Ukrainian economic and we would like to change our model of agricultural development which we have in previous time because this model based on the neoliberal approach to the agricultural development and with this model we have good results in exports and in global food security but we have a lot of problem integral in our country and we have damage of rural settlements and we have damage of rural territory and we have big problem with small scale producers in Ukraine so we would like to reconstruct our economic agricultural in way which we have in European Union and in country which care of ecological problem and well-being of rural population. Thank you. Thank you Jelena for this very important point yeah reconstruction not only of economy and basements and so on but also of agricultural area of the common the how to say it in English the common yeah if there are the soil is I mean I'm losing the word maybe someone helps with contamination yes that was it thank you so much so this will force a lot of cooperation within the European Union to help here and to carry on and come back to our more decent possibilities of production again so I will turn to Paulina now you also do a lot of work on animal welfare and we had the topic that how much do you still need animal production and how strong it is combined with the climate question but we had a short talk yesterday during the food session yesterday that we still need the animal production and I would just invite you to give some hints again today because I think that was such an important thing if we speak about fertilizers chemical fertilizers we have also to speak about animals as helpers in the agriculture so please so we need animals because yeah so nowadays still in Europe and it's kind of I can say that this common agriculture politic is not brave enough because still the biggest the biggest farmers as well with animals are the most subsidized it's I think one of the biggest problem and now we see in the Netherlands what is going on so firstly they kind of convince first farmers to culture more animals breed more animals and now they expect that suddenly they kind of stop keeping so many so many animals and the problem is of course as I said yesterday always the price yeah so if they would have better price for the the products like a meat milk and so on so they wouldn't need to keep so many animals yeah so it would be the question not to limit the number of farms as they expect now to do but the numbers of animals yes and then we can switch to more a little better way of breeding animals not like in in these industrial farms so to ensure that they have that they can realize their biological function and so on yes and at the same time if they are kept in good conditions they can be also sourced let's say I know that this sounds not very maybe not nice like a production from animals but in a way so they can be also sourced of the best kind of fertilizers then the natural fertilizers and there are many many studies showing that this kind of fertilizers are really the best for the for the soil and in fact in ecosystem and also in the agriculture ecosystem the soil is the most important part yes because the the good quality of soil I think it's well visible in Ukraine with this because in Ukraine you can find the best kind of soils and these soils were produced in the past by animals grazing on the meadows and so on and it's the same case for example was in the states and many many countries where the soil was just produced by grazing animals so it's not only very feces but also the way are going through the through the meadows so and with these natural fertilizers we can replace completely these artificial fertilizers because another point with these artificial fertilizers is that there are kind of toxic to many microorganisms including mycorrhizal fungi so which are really crucial for functioning of the soil and also are crucial for good crop yeah and again there are many studies showing that if you use kind of even called it ecological intensification what includes also the natural fertilizers you can really can have a bigger crop yeah so what is yeah so it's yeah so it's also very important that this ecological intensification it's for kind of future food security is really better than than this industrialization and chemical intensification so yes of course we have to limit the number of animals but yeah we have to cooperate with them somehow so take care about them and they will not only provide us with no let's say proteins but also with fertilizers for our our soils so thank you very much Parina for that that means cooperation not only between us as human beings between countries but also between the species with the animals with the plants it only will work like this of course so I come back to you once more Harriet because you're one of your last topics in the input has been the speculation on food and food commodities I will come back to that there we many many years as foundations work on the topic how much regional can you be in food production and how much global it has to be so there are countries that need to export they can't do it without agricultural export to survive so how to combine this and how is the perspective of the EU having a limit to this possibility of speculations and here yeah I think this is one one delicate issue perhaps I mean in terms of supply chains we see vulnerabilities in very long supply chains they are hit also in covid by disruption in freight inflation so this we see evident vulnerabilities at the same time I mean it is true if you have a local shock you need some support from the outside so I think it's really a matter of balance of course of getting stronger supply chains doesn't mean that every supply chain is is ever going to be super short and local perhaps but but the focus the concentration should be there in order to to get some more resilience when when global shocks can happen and I think this also is is interesting in terms of food security for those that import a lot but also those that export a lot and of course I mean they are linked often you're exporting a lot why in order to get the foreign currency reserve that you can then use to import what you actually need in terms of nutrition and healthy diets and so on so here we do see something that is a very complicated perhaps in locked in a pathway that that is very difficult to to get out of I think that's why it's important then that's from the EU side our policies in terms of agriculture in terms of trade and also development should be coherent in order that for example development can share best practices support local production of food and have it not be overrun later by by the results of of our subsidies gone wrong subsidies in the wrong sector which we do not ourselves need for for nutritious feed so I think this is also a complex situation that needs to needs to be addressed in a coherent manner thank you very much Harriet so the floor is open now for our audience and we have a big range of topics here I already saw you thank you Tom we have a big range of topics here and I just want to remind you on the question that we put at the beginning what can we do as individuals as people working for an NGO what can we ask politics to do and what can we do as politicians if there are some people in the audience that work on that field as well for example just a just a very little example from Austria where I am from there now is a big big trend because Austria is not a poor country but we have many people that now can not afford as you say they have to decide will it be warm in winter in my flat or have I enough to eat and to provide my children so this is really a big topic you can't imagine but it is like that and many of us now turned to have a very small but effective self supply of vegetables we do it on balconies where also can put it out of the window with some yeah help to do it and it grows on the facades of in the houses and in provided urban gardening places and also now the trend is to provide those possibilities on roofs and this is effective and it works you have maybe to learn a little bit how to do it it won't be the best result in your first try but in the second try as well it will work so we have very small possibilities and we have yeah we have the need to have a big and global cooperation on that and I will invite you to our chair and Tommy he is very brave he was the first one just come out to us thank you so much just take the microphone it will work it's around here yeah great thanks my name is Tommy Simpson from Ireland I'm with the Green Foundation Ireland which is affiliated to the Green European Foundation and with the help of the Green European Foundation we have produced two documents on this topic and one of them is called a question of scale and the other one is called food sovereignty and local resilience so they they if you want copies they're also on the website so but one of the questions when we were addressing this issue of a question of scale we were looking at how can we scale things down to the local level as much as possible and this some of this happened as a result of COVID situation but what we were trying to address to was the situation in Ireland of the whole marketing policies and exports and the increase in the cattle herd as been said sometimes there's too many cattle our dairy herd has gone up from nine from 2015 by 50 percent 50 percent because when they abolished the quota on milk quotas the farmers could produce as much milk as possible so for a small country we're producing 8.5 billion litres of milk per annum and we we have the six biggest corporations producing baby milk formula exporting all over the world we 15 percent of all baby milk formula in China is Irish baby milk formula and and 15 percent and the result of that the marketing when we ask about the marketing ethics of this the farmers and their representatives say oh we only produce we're not concerned about the ethics now the ethics are coming to play on in this example of what they what they call comparative advantage in marketing terms is about we can make it cheaper so you know so we sell we can send it halfway around the world and make it cheaper and this this this term is you know it's not a very green way they don't count the carbon footprints in this but just to give one example on baby milk formula in China it's a it's a big issue the figures I have there's something like was it mothers in China the percentage using breast milk breast fed babies has gone down from 60 percent to 30 percent a drop in China alone and the World Health Organization figures are that the 800,000 babies a year die because of the practices of baby milk formula 20,000 mothers die every year because of the practices in this marketing of baby milk formula which is supposed to be six months after but so we we question the ethics of all this and not only that the side effects of the production system means that all our rivers in Ireland are polluted with nitrogen because Ireland has a nitrogen derogation from Europe of since 1991 and so the rivers are nearly all polluted and that's only one side effect there are many many other side effects so this idea of monoculture producing the one product to export because of comparative advantage is something we as greens have to get away from and and of course we are doing it we're but but the effects of the large corporations like Wyatt the sixth giant corporations Nestle all of these companies are marketing unethically and I would even say criminally to to to this effect so we've got to get away from this and look at the local production for local needs as much as possible not it's not possible everywhere but the the the what I would just say the example of what happened in Great Britain during the war where every piece of land was taken into use even grass verges on streets for food production we need to get back and have the what happened during the COVID situation where we accept the top-down approaches from government because of the emergency we need to declare a food emergency as well thank you thank you very much Tom sharing this very important focus with us so who is going to be next first was the lady behind yeah in the second row so please come and I saw you I saw you too hi this is working right I'm path I'm from Spain I'm from a copolitica which is a publication partner with the green European Journal and well we were talking about many things many important things Spain also has a big agricultural sector and we suffer from some of the impacts that Harriet was outlining and one of the keys I would say would be diversification of the agricultural systems but then I mean both in crops and cattle but then would we would be less dependent on imports and of course that's a goal as greens but when we look at the bigger picture and especially here with Elena from Ukraine I am always thinking about what will happen in the balance between countries if we alone take on this much needed transition in our agricultural system but we cannot let or leave other countries alone to to then deal with their transformations as if it were not our responsibility anymore and then one thing I'm always concerned about is industrial or factory farming so you were talking about the need to limit the number of animals in Spain we now have more pigs than inhabitants which 70 percent kept in the industrial farms yeah yeah so and it it is destroying our rural environment it like it is moving people away from the rural areas and of course yes everyone in in urban areas should be thinking about how to be like producing food but then it is there is also this connection between the urban and the rural part of countries and we in Spain don't see what's happening in in rural areas and don't see the pollution that our agricultural system is causing and the damage it is causing and now we are talking about jobs and about the need for money and I also work at a consumer organization and another issue is the prices and the access to affordable healthy food we are seeing more and more divide in Spain and between people who can afford to eat healthy food not only like not only vegetables but healthy vegetables and the people who cannot do that and there's been like a push for reducing prices by banning all VAT and taxes on food production but then I mean we need to always think of bigger picture because then it also reduces the capacity of countries to transform the their system so yeah that's I don't have any answers I just have these questions but I like I felt it was important to be thinking about how to do this in a just way so just transition also in the agricultural aspect thank you very much I think you have been next and then you great just come up thank you I have two questions so professor already mentioned the protest in the Netherlands but if I could ask you for comments about this situation there and my other question concerns what was mentioned also by the gentleman from Ireland the huge corporations which dominate farming and technology if we are to we are starting this transition to this green technologies but I think we face this huge threat that we will have exactly the same corporations but they will use green technologies and also GMOs and gen editing and these phenomena like Nestle which was mentioned like trying to privatize water and things like this so my question is how huge to your mind is this threat if you agree with my diagnosis of this threat thank you thank you for this question as we only have 10 minutes left I would ask you to answer on this question in the last round in our wrap up just keep them in mind and I have you and then you and then we will close for our last round please come here yes so I have a couple of comments just to bring your attention maybe repeat some stuff I'm Anna I'm from Ukraine from the NGO eco action and I also work with the agriculture and environmental issues yesterday also had an honor to be a speaker in one of the panels and like since yesterday like one not a quote but the idea of like one philosopher and a political thinker that I recalled from my students years Amartya Sen I believe also a Nobel Prize winner he had a I mean as a student I was just in love with his book development as freedom and there was a one back then fascinating for me thought that never in a humankind history there was never a famine or hunger in a democratic society it's always in a totalitarian and now we now again now see see this example when a totalitarian wicked regime is posing the or threatening the whole world either with the hunger or with the shortage of the food so from this perspective I mean it's super important to remain and support young democracies because we are dependent yeah dependent or we are as strong and as resilient as our partners and neighbors are so supporting young democracies as Ukraine is is crucial actually for for the food security and that's another thought that one of the participants here yesterday mentioned when we had this range here from how positive we are about the Europe and last speaker told that yeah or my interpretation again that yes here in Europe or in the EU it's far from perfect but that's a rice place to make a change and that was like really yeah bringing hope for everyone that's one thing and others about I also want to say about fertilizers and this you know we know about the environmental consequences and we really need better nutrients management and greener alternatives highland because it was yeah it wasn't surprising for me that the this artificial fertilizers are like very much linked to the gas production and again Russia and Belarus is basically monopolist on the global market with the fertilizers so it's not only about the environment it's also again about the being dependent on the totalitarian regimes it's not only about the environment it's about the politics and our security at large and yeah about Ukraine a few last notes about the land it was mentioned that almost like one quarter or one third of the land agricultural land is now under occupation or under heavy attacks and that land most probably won't be wouldn't be used for the agricultural needs not only after the world will be ended but because of the all the mines and all the pollution it will take decades if not centuries to be able to grow the food again there so you can imagine 30 percent of the most fertile soil is basically gone for us so the consequences of this war we will still face or the region will still face for many many years to come and one last thing about like what can be done on a political level because as a Ukrainian and I know that our decision makers also look for the EU Europe for your example like we are really like we want to be part of the EU family and we also looking for your trends so just one important thing for the Europeans or EU politicians and not only politicians for the civil society and everyone to just yeah look and suggest carefully what to support in Ukraine what model of agriculture it was already now there are lots of talks and plans about the sector I mean Ukraine in general and the agriculture reconstruction or post-war recovery so really yeah just be careful and you know don't hesitate to advise and suggest what kind of production is it again industrial or agroecological models that will be supported in Ukraine with with your help yeah that's last note thank you thank you I think that was so decently our last speaker from the audience said it's okay for her if we close here now on the panel and I would love to give you the floor once more for a little wrap up the question for today was also to find some possible ways out and we know each way out has so many many obstacles we have to get over but I think we have to be somehow positive and to have a clear focus on what we can do and what we want to do and where our heart goes to do it so just take with you the questions that you have from the audience I think you have two questions to answer put it in your last wrap up and go ahead thank you I remember only one about this company so of course I agree and my favorite writer philosopher of food Karoline Steele used to say that who is ruling the food is ruling the world and it's going yeah it's happening now for example with in case of nestle and we have to remember that the price are not increased by farmers but like these companies and so on yeah and what we can do as as I used to say we have to talk with each other especially with farmers we have to discuss and yeah just to be on very side and not like in sometimes is in Poland in opposite because really otherwise we will be completely lost yeah with all these companies so please talk with with with each other and discuss and not quarrel yeah so yeah thank you may I pass over to you Jelena please your last remark for today please I'm very happy to be here and I suppose and my colleagues Anya Danilak clarifies some very important points about Ukraine and we would like to be more closely to European Union and we suppose we will together change the situation in Ukraine thank you Thank you and Harriet a short wrap up from you yes I think very important also intervention from from last colleague saying what what kind of future can we envision also for Ukrainian agriculture and of course every country is doing that on its own as well I think something that came up in the panel yesterday as well is again to recall that yes it's most of the calories coming from not global supply chains but from more locally I think it's it's a minority really that are internationally traded so I think now we have of course major focus on Ukraine in terms of export what they can provide to those those countries that are really reliant on them but of course this is not the whole picture and I think from the EU side having such a strong budget nevertheless we need to remember the the strong foundations of the EU agriculture that we that is there basically to provide nutritious food and healthy and profitable conditions for farmers to to work in to provide that I think this is really something that that is also a reassuring baseline to work with we have funds we just need to put them in in the right direction and also yeah I think our Irish colleague highlighted that often it it will be also farmers themselves that are in the end suffering from the environmental damage that they see and I'm sure that if we can work together this this is also a common goal an opportunity that we all need to to work in this shift thanks thank you Harriet and I just want to add something because you said and that was very interesting that famine never has been in democratic surrounding so maybe we if you look at the history of mankind there we have tyranny oppression but very rare efficient democratic systems in our history so war and oppression seem to be the big wound of mankind and we have to get over it speaking about just transition it's also a transition in of your mind of your thinking of your patterns that don't work anymore and have no right to be here in this century or yeah let's say like this and I want to close with Spike Lee you may remember his great film it was 1989 do the right thing and not talking about these wrong patterns just try to survive anyway it makes it even worse we have to talk together and we have to transform ourselves as well so as he says uh doing the right thing is good but don't do the wrong thing is just a good start and I hope you will take this with us and with you home and have a good focus and think a little bit positive and try to help for yeah assist to this just transition thank you so much thank you thank you very much so do the right thing or at least don't do wrong things food security in times of crisis thank you very much for this panel and intense discussion you're in a way lucky because you can stay here right now with our next 40 minute session and then you will be having lunch we will be waiting like for two more minutes that the other streams can join us the participants of the other streams and then we would start with our next session but don't run away stay here it's worth it I promise you