 Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are. And thank you for joining this virtual special event live. And thank you to those of you who are watching this event recording. My name is Charles Wenzel, Minister Council of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries at the Danish Embassy in Washington, D.C. And I'll be hosting today's event together with my good colleague Tom Pesek from FAO. I would like to start by thanking all of today's speakers for taking the time to join us in this important conversation. And also thanking all of you that have joined us and are listening in. We would very much like to hear from you in the audience to participate in our Q&A session that will follow the panel discussion a little later. Please submit your questions in the chat box. I would further like to thank our co-organizer FAO North America. Thank you so much for once again making it possible for all of us to hone in on very important issues concerning agriculture. We have a very busy schedule before us today, but also in a greater scheme of things. So let's get started. We are facing a growing global population, and thereby an increasing demand for food, both plant-based and animal protein. At the same time, our food systems are being undermined, often at least in part because of impact of management practices and land use changes associated with food and agriculture. We are witnessing immense and in some cases, irreversible biodiversity losses in countries around the world. This alarming trend combined with advancing climate change as well as water scarcity and the loss and degradation of other vital natural resources underscores the urgent need to transition to a more sustainable agriculture practices and approaches. There's a growing consensus that greening agriculture will require new science and new technologies, as well as new and improved management policies and practices. Farmers has an enormous capacity to serve as agents of change and leading a shift towards the greener and more sustainable agriculture. For the right policies and conditions, farmers can play a lead role in transforming agriculture practices. This policy seminar will focus on farmers as agents of change in the green transition. Furthermore, today's event is part of a larger series of events happening this week around the globe, from Asia to Europe to North America, with a center in Copenhagen, Denmark. Today and tomorrow, the Danish government is hosting the annual World Food Summit, Better Food for More People, this year virtually. The summit in Copenhagen will provide an important input to the UN Food System Summit in September this year, and key takeaways from our event will be integrated into that larger global agenda. Today's first speaker is Rymdendor Schaan, director of FAO in North America. He will set the stage for us, and then we are honored by two excellent keynote speakers and leaders in this field. From Denmark, Mr. Søren Zunagor, farmer and chairman of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, and from California, Secretary Karen Ross, of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Then we will hear from three farmers and their story of transitioning into greener practices. Mr. Arnaz Nørger from Denmark, Derek Acevedo from California, and Dr. Kiesling from Kansas. Then there will be a panel conversation with Sehtuni Uddada, deputy director of the Climate and Environment Division at the FAO, Thomas Batchelor, global vice president of bio-agriculture with the NOHO Science in North America, and Martin van Nuukomf, global director for agriculture and food at the World Bank. The panel will be followed by a Q&A session and this event is rounded off by Rymdendor Schaan from FAO. But before handing the floor to the first keynote speaker, Mr. Søren Zunagor, I would like to welcome Rymdendor Schaan, director of FAO. Rymdendor, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. And let me on behalf of FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization North America, I welcome all of you to what I hope will be an extremely engaging and informative 90 minutes of discussion on opportunities and challenges in quote-unquote green transition to a more sustainable agriculture and food practice. For me, what makes the discussion more interesting today is that we get to hear not just from policymakers, we get to hear not just from technical experts, but most important of all we get to hear from the farmers. Farmers were the real agents of change and farmers who really bear the brunt of climate change and its impact. Now, since World War II, world agriculture has become considerably more efficient. We have seen production system and crop and livestock breeding programs are resulting in significant increase in food production. However, over the same period, we have also seen the climate change, as well as the need for feeding an ever-increasing global population has exacerbated the existing challenges faced by agriculture. Now, climate change is going to have a profound influence or rather has already started having a profound influence on agroecological conditions under which farmers and rural populations need to develop their livelihood strategies, manage their resources and achieve food security and meet food security and other ends. But towards this and a green transition is a must. Easier said than done, how arduous is that journey? How arduous is that transition? What are the opportunities along the way? How do the policymakers, technical experts, farmers how do they perceive it individually? Are there thought processes and thinking in sync? Now, to hear and understand all this and more around this topic, we have a fantastic collection of speakers from which you'll be hearing very soon. But I'll be amazed if I'm not extremely grateful to Chairman of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, Madam Kevin Ross, Secretary of the Department of Food and Agriculture in California, all our esteemed panelists from the Bureau of World Bank, No More Zines and a family of friends joining us from Denmark, California and Kansas for taking time out of very sure extremely busy schedules to be with us, especially those from there for whom it must be 7.30 in the morning now. Most of all, I'm also very, very grateful to the Danish Embassy in Washington and more specifically to Charles, Mr. Food Agriculture and Fisheries Embassy and his colleagues for their extraordinary effort that they have put in along with us and our team here at FAO North America to get this event going and to bring this discussion to you. I will not stand in way of some thoughtful and engrossing perspectives on the issue and let me put that hand over the proceedings back to Charles to take David forward. Charles. Thank you so much, Melinda, also for the kind words, but also for setting the stage so vividly for us and highlighting the importance of farmers in the broader context of a food system transformation and now to our first keynote speaker of the day, Mr. Søren Søndergaard Farmer and Chairman of the main Danish Agriculture Organization, the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. We are very pleased and honored that you have taken the time to address us here today. Mr. Søndergaard, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Charles. Thank you for the word. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning everyone or good afternoon like we say here in Denmark right now depending on where you are in the world. It's a great honor for me to be attending today's webinar focusing on this interesting topic, farmers as agents of chains in a greening agriculture. Recently the Danish Minister for Food and Agriculture signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Food and Agriculture in California focusing on further developing a climate smart dairy value chain. So it's a special pleasure also for me having you Secretary Karen Ross from California participating here today. We are looking forward to support and deliver on this memorandum and make the cooperation a success. This is exactly the kind of international cooperation we need for the future. I honestly believe that farmers in reality holds the key to the future climate solutions and could be the ones leading the green transition towards a more sustainable production. And in the next few minutes I will highlight why this is the case and I will give a Danish perspective to this very important topic. I am a farmer and I'm also chairman of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. Personally I run a family farm with my wife and four kids. My main production is within pig meat and arable crops. My family have had the farm for generations. I took over the farm from my father and I was involved in the everyday operations. The organization I represent Danish Agriculture and Food Council is a private organization covering the full value chain of agriculture and food production. Our members are the Danish farmers including all sectors and size of production, organic or conventional. Members also include the food industry cooperatives and limited companies and on top of that the agro-industrial sector and companies within ingredients and additives and enzymes and bioenergy are members as well. And exactly this composition in our member base gives us a unique opportunity to unite the food cluster develop strong and sustainable solutions the complete value chain and to better handle challenges and opportunities. Integrated in our organization we have a strong innovation and knowledge center called SIGIS. This is where we get involved in research and the well of projects either together with public research institutions or universities or by initiating the projects ourselves based on present or future demands or needs. Via SIGIS we are able to stay updated develop more knowledge and quickly implement it into everyday farming or processing through our local advisory services. In our organization Danish agriculture and food council we have a vision of a climate neutral agriculture and food cluster by 2050. It's ambitious but we have a clear target and we are committed in getting there. We have already come quite far in living up to the ambition. We work determined and finding progressive solutions in the fields and the stables and the feeding within transportation and manufacturing and basically in every single link of the value chain and it's important to identify where you can make a change at the farm. Where can you improve where can we invest and we are determined to get better and strengthen our development tools. We have harvested low-hanging fruits and now it's getting more complicated. We take responsibility and we can do a lot on our own but we also need cooperation we need partnerships and we need more R&D in order to get there. And I'm sure my fellow farmer from Denmark Mr. Anders Nørgård he will give you a more specific examples of what we are doing a little later in this webinar. But there is one thing I need to underline. We are dealing with biology and many people make the mistake to think we can change or stop emissions from day to day just like pushing a bottom. Naturally this is not the case. Everybody needs to understand that it takes time to change and manage a biological process. We know that time is running and we all want to speed up however modern farming is getting more and more complex and challenging. Education and knowledge sharing is fundamental for farmers to be in a position to live up to the expectations from society. In Denmark we have for centuries had a strong tradition in having a specific system for education of young farmers. All young farmers have three to four years of education before they become farmers themselves. Another proud tradition in Denmark is our knowledge sharing. We regard our neighbors as partners not competitors and that is why we have managed to build up strong farmer owned cooperatives being among the biggest companies in Denmark now and they have established strong advisory services owned and controlled by farmers so we can optimize our production in a resource effective and sustainable way by sharing the latest knowledge for example from SIGIS and share it among all farmers. We engage in international cooperation at all levels. We believe that some of the findings some of the knowledge the products and the solutions we have come across in Denmark they can also lead to a more sustainable production elsewhere in the world. Recently we have created a global climate task force among our members and now we are mapping all the many ideas and solutions that can lead the green transition internationally. It's not just about producing sufficient food for a growing population anymore we must produce and manage our farms in an even more sustainable manner by using our experience educational skills knowledge, advisory service tradition for cooperation and our strong value chain approach in a coordinated and intelligent way we can deliver. We are and always want to be part of the solution in handling the future challenges. So in conclusion what we need is first to be regarded as partners to be included and involved to get a stronger commitment. Secondly to get clear and consistent signals and directions from the politicians so we are able to plan our investments and our future development. Thirdly to have a more committed public and public private R&D approach so we can develop the knowledge the technology and the solutions we need for the future. A fourth element is to create more incentives for farmers to get engaged and spark the inspiration and motivation. A fifth point is to have a strong focus on developing the agriculture and food sector not the opposite. We need to have a specific condition of a biological production. And finally to increase international cooperation and partnerships and recognize the international impact of promoting new climate smart and sustainable solutions and projects. So it is our ambition to create and develop and even more climate smart and sustainable agriculture so under the right conditions farmers can show an even stronger leadership in the green transition. Thank you very much for your attention. So thank you very much Mr. Søndergaard, I forgot to mute. Thank you for your interesting remarks and highly relevant points especially on ambition for the future education, cooperation between farmers and other stakeholders and of course international cooperation and we know you have a very busy schedule today. We are honored that you had time to address us and I know you will be listening in but thank you so much Mr. Søndergaard. And now to our second keynote speaker, Secretary Ken Ross of CDFA. We are equally honored that you have taken the time to address us here today. Secretary Ross, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. I appreciate this opportunity to be with you today. I really appreciated the comments from the FAO director for North America so relevant and on point. And to Soran, thank you. He stole my speech. I spent a lot of my time trying to tell lawmakers in California that the challenges in farming are that we have to recognize that they are managers of a biological system and if you change one thing it's all interconnected and so I really appreciate that. Now I know that my next climate smart act trip is going to be to Denmark because I want to meet you in person. Thank you. My friend and former boss and now current secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture recently said I think agriculture is the first and best way to begin getting some early wins on climate. I think he's absolutely right. I've seen it. I've seen it in California and I've seen it around the globe. I'm really pleased that we're having farmers here today and so I'm going to be very brief in my remarks. But the very fact that the theme of this is a focus on farmers and ranchers as agents of change is exactly where we all need to focus and I think that a year after a pandemic when we all feel maybe a bit more directly connected to our dinner plate there is a renewed appreciation for the role of farmers and ranchers in our daily life and the opportunity to create new partnerships and new collaborations is the only way that we will be successful because we as government cannot do it alone. Academia can't do it alone. Farmers and ranchers can lead on change but they should not be expected to do it and bear that responsibility alone. It requires all of us working together to be able to share what works to be able to learn from one another and to innovate in the ways that I believe the next chapter of agriculture in this globe will be an exciting one because of the innovation that is being unleashed on a daily basis through ag technology and other new systems approaches. The whole commitment to building a resilient sustainable food system one that nourishes people and nourishes them better. One that is equitable and make sure that every human has the food they need to achieve their potential and be contributors to society. A resilient food system that is part of restoring our ecosystems and preserving species in biodiversity. I've seen firsthand that that is possible and yes, Soren is right it is up to government to give the appropriate policy signals not to be overly prescriptive to be able to recognize that we all operate on the place where we are that it is our farmers and ranchers and their farm workers who have been on this land for generations and every day think about how to hand it on to the next generation and the one after that land and as stewards of our natural and working lands they can be the agents of change that we all know and want them to be. So it is our role in government to first of all give the appropriate policy signals. We've recognized that throughout governments by setting our own climate goals in California as a state our goal is to be carbon neutral by 2045 and we recognize with a natural working land strategy that is going to be the key for us to be successful that it is in agriculture and in forestry the opportunity to draw down carbon and store it in our soils and in doing so and focusing on our healthy soils we can be more productive we can be more drought tolerant with a water holding capacity we can improve the efficient use of fertilizer by improving and we will be resilient over time. We have in just the last few years invested just in my department over $400 million that have been made available to us as incentive programs because we use a cap and trade system and those auction proceeds are being reinvested into transitioning our economy to carbon neutral in total over the last 10 years almost $1 billion has been invested in a variety of programs to benefit farmers and ranchers in making this transition at the department of food and agriculture one of our largest programs has been for the dairy sector to reduce methane emissions very important and in doing that the co-benefit of that is improved water quality by mitigating nitrates and also by producing renewable energy whether it's electricity low carbon fuels or renewable natural gas we've invested over $50 million in the last three years in our healthy soils program and over a 10 year period we've invested over $80 million for on farm water use efficiency which also has the co-benefit of reducing energy use reducing greenhouse gases and improving the efficiency of our nitrogen applications governments working together governments coming together and sponsoring forums like this one and the World Food Summit and the UN Food System Dialogues is an opportunity for us to share those best practices to learn which policies work and how they might be adapted for our own country and our own state I'm excited to hear from our farmers and ranchers today I am so appreciative and every day I say a prayer to the farmers and ranchers for what they do for all the rest of us so that we can live the lives of our choices and not have to worry I hope about where our food comes from and we can feel good about what farmers and ranchers are doing because of the way in which they're producing it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to store carbon in our soils to use water as efficiently as possible and that is part of the solution in preserving biodiversity and restoring our ecosystems it is possible I have seen it, I believe it and we're going to hear from farmers who will give us daily examples of how to do it, thank you Thank you so much Madam Secretary for your always inspiring and insightful remarks and to your points on that agriculture is local in nature but it has global consequences and you are called for action and cooperation internationally I would say we are looking very much forward to hosting you in Denmark sometime soon as I'm transitioning home I will be there and agree I know you have a busy day but we are very honored that you took the time and got up early to address us here and I hope you will have a chance to listen into some of the next speakers so once again thank you so much for being with us and now we turn to the farmers the steward of the lands and of the animals first off is Mr. Anders Nergo a dairy farmer from Denmark and he is also the Vice President of Holsterbrugstor Agriculture Council we are very interested in hearing your story how and when began the green transition on your farm and what has made it possible Mr. Nergo, the floor is yours Thank you very much and thank you for inviting me for this webinar as we have a slogan in Denmark Danish farmers to talk about we are part of the solution not the problem so I think it fit pretty well in here I have made a short presentation because my English is not perfect so if you can't understand what I'm saying then I hope the pictures will do the point for me but as I said I'm a dairy farmer from the western part of Denmark we have about 850 cows and about 750 hyphers we are milking primarily all the cows in 12 Lely milking robots we have about 475 hectares of land only with graze and maize for the cows beside of that we have a biogas plant and as you said told I'm a board member of the farmer's union and I'm a board member of Landbrough Föderbar cattle I've been asked to tell a bit about what we are doing sustainable today at the farm and I just made 4 slides about the first things come to my head we do a lot of small things as farmers who are sustainable but this is the 4 things that come first to my head in 2018 we were building a biogas plant our own just in the end of the stable it is today that means that we don't have trucks or similar to transporting the manure we are just pumping it directly from the stables into the biogas plant the biogas plant is producing about 5.5 million kW electricity a year it's the same as 6 times the consumption of the farm electricity or in other terms about 1200 houses it runs primarily at manure and deep litter from the farm and the neighbour and at the moment we have some waste from the industrial for example we have bread as you see in the picture that's pretty funny every day we have a truckload and we also run some potatoes who can't be sold because of the COVID-19 situation it makes also better utilization of the nitrogen especially for the deep litter but also the manure but at the deep litter we move from about 45% to about 75% so that's pretty sustainable the next thing as Søren talked about we have a long history in Denmark about working together in the whole food cluster and we are very proud to have today to have the digital feed chain where we can measure all the steps between the field and the milk tank and if we are following the pictures then in the left corner we have the chubber at the field it's connecting to the cloud and the database so with GPS and near sensors we can measure the production at the field all the time we are going into the silo the third picture is from our wheel loader where we have a tablet solution connecting in real time to the database so it makes all the registration about the food and all this is ending up in a daily feeding ration for the cows the good thing about that is the database because we have all these measurements the database is making automatically efficiency report every day that means for us as farmers that we can go closer to the limits so we have a better economy for the first point the feeding is the biggest cost at the farm but we also have bigger resource utilization of the food and third we have better health so what can be measured can be changed the next thing is about the climate check we have from our dairy company climate calculation can be very advanced and we have a big need as farmers for similar calculations so we can move at this agenda that's why we in Arla have annual report and it makes that we can see the consequence of our actions it's a very strong benchmark database with about 8500 Arla owners in five countries I think so we have a lot of benchmark data to benchmark us against and we also once a year have a visit by an advisor where we are only discussing in this case the climate issues and where we could do better than today. The next thing is about our herd we have a crossbreed herd it's not so normal in Denmark but we are crossbreed our herd between the Red and Jersey and research shows that it makes a 6% lower feed intake of the cows that's pretty easy it's just to insulate with another with another genes and research also shows that we have better health and the cows lives longer so that's one of the things that was coming to my mind at the next slide I was asked what is it that how do we get the farmers more sustainable and what are you thinking about and we always been told that gold is licensed to produce in my head it has to be higher than licensed to produce first of all we are a company we have to earn money if we don't earn money and we don't have a strong economy we can't invest in all the green technologies now and in the future we will remain of course I'm also very important for me to secure the company for the future in a sustainable way heavily most of the things we are doing improve both the economy and it's a sustainable solution so to get farming more sustainable in the future will require better economy in farming and a more stable political environment thank you for listening very much Mr. Nargo very interesting remarks very nice to see some concrete examples of sustainable practices the climate check program and your points on biogas but I think also the correlation between efficiency and making money you have a family farm that needs to run and secure for you and your family in the future I think very interesting, thank you so much please stay on and listen to the next ones we will go to Central Valley California where we will hear remarked from Derek Acevedo Executive Vice President of Bolz Farming Company Mr. Acevedo is part of a 6th generation farm where they produce cotton, vegetables, fruits and nuts among other things Mr. Acevedo how does Bolz Farming overcome the challenges as modern farming are facing and how have you made the transition in Central Valley Mr. Acevedo the floor is yours thank you yes and Bolz Farming Company is a 162 year old farming operation where the same family has stewarded that land the entire time and there is an incredible sustainability story that comes with that and during that transition the organizations have the opportunity to reinvent itself multiple times and one of the things that you can fall into is a lot of us focus on providing nutrient dense foods for our food shed and the consumers that we touch and as it relates to the green transition my mark for that really begins when our current CEO, Canon Michael really looked at the simple fact that our consumers are asking for more than they're asking more of their food than just to produce their nutritional needs and asked us as the management team to look at the farm a little bit from a broader perspective you can fall into the rut of just growing stuff but if you look at the farm as an opportunity to be a carbon sink to draw down excess carbon from the atmosphere if you look at the farm as an opportunity to grow habitat and provide habitat for the birds and terrestrial species we have on the farm that caused us to start a California native seed company where we grow 52 different species of plants that help provide habitat for the local ecosystem the farms also a place to grow our people as simple as it may sound investing in scholarship opportunities for our employees strengthens our community and helps provide resilience to our community and the customers that we serve perhaps most importantly our farm serves as a laboratory a place for research we've aggressively pursued some of the climate smart initiatives that Secretary Ross has fought so hard for and we invite multiple stakeholders multiple partnerships with NGOs and biologists and all sorts of different individuals to come to the ranch and actually advance the technologies that we have we've been on a continuous transition all of agriculture has with producing more food with fewer inputs over time and so one of the most exciting parts of this green transition is to witness some of that cross-pollinization between the technology of agriculture applied to native plants and the native plants forcing their way onto some of our agricultural fields and offering opportunities potentially for food as medicine and even participating in the textile industry and so you start to bring in some of our NGO friends you bring in some of the biologists to water plants to broaden your scope and for all of those reasons and we can get into more of the opportunities and challenges a little bit later in the discussion but for all of those reasons it's been incredibly exciting to be a part of and agriculture is one of those that when you take that more zoomed out approach to looking at the farm as more than just a place to grow stuff opportunities are endless and it's probably the most exciting business to be a part of in the world today. Alright thank you so much Derek for that I think that was very interesting points you made there on the farms and the practices and great points about consumer expectation local ecosystem R&D incorporation and a broadened scope for ag in the future. Thank you very much and now we will move to the heartlands to Kansas our next speaker is Mr. Doug Kiesling Mr. Kiesling is the fifth generation farmer who has been involved in almost all aspects of farming from crop production to supply chain services and policy. Mr. Kiesling what is your experience in growing greener and more sustainable and what are your recommendations to farmers and policy makers. Mr. Kiesling the floor is yours. Thank you so much and welcome to all of you I know that if you're a producer you had several options today to get on other zoom calls to learn about sustainability and how to grow carbon for profit and different other things so I'm glad that you're here on this one if you're a policy maker and all you know this is an opportunity that I can reach out to you and talk to you about our farm and how this works in the bigger picture first of all let me start and back up he told a little bit about my farm our farm started in 1876 I'm a fifth generation farmer and it runs in the Central United States rainfall here is 20 to 24 inches of rain so a lot less than some areas our topsoil and you think I might be crazy but we only have one inch of topsoil compared to an Iowa or an Illinois or even Central Valley, California so we take our conservation very serious here because we can't afford to lose any so some of the practices that we do are focused on them to wrap up our farm history we are right on the Santa Fe trail where I'm sitting right here is smack dab in the middle of the Santa Fe trail so there's a huge amount of history and this was homesteaded before my family by a doctor so on our farmstead are a lot of native plants not only to the Midwest but from other areas for municipal purposes that the doctor used so because of that come with this rich history of what it takes to make the full circle of the biologicals now on our farm we've been doing no till or sustainability for 30 years now keep that in mind because that's seven administrations that started in Reagan and has come all the way through seven administrations so when we talk about this it's nothing new it's been going for quite a while but on our farm we do everything conservation manure management which includes adding a lot of manure to our land instead of chemical fertilizers we do integral grazing to where we will graze different times in different fields so I don't really have pastures we use our crop land and rotate that around also but we do it with the sources of using our crops which we have seven different crops plus our livestock about 200 head of cattle we have a full system approach and with biologicals the cover crops some cover crops are used in portion of the grazing some of it is used just for organic building particularly if we took over a new piece of ground where we're helping we do custom work through our business and if we're helping someone build organic matter just to get started we start them and help them get started in a plan I want to back up and talk about some terms we all think we know what it is but even in the ag industry we struggle sometimes with the terms so we talk about carbon sequestering what does that really mean does that mean for me and what I just said that I'm leaving residue on the field or I'm planting a cover crop that will just be mowed in or planted into probably because we want to capture that carbon for later on and we want to build that one inch of top soil I talked about sustainability I think we all probably on this whole call we have 800 different opinions of sustainability so that's one goal that agriculture really has is how can we define some of these and circle them in so that when we're talking to the secretary of agriculture or our legislators how can we make a rifle point of this is the exact point that we want to talk about with sustainability how do we do that well we have to build habitat one of the other speakers talked about habitat and grasses I hunt but I do it more my habitat is for water quality because I want to make sure that the water flowing off my farm is cleaner than when it started a lot of times it'll come in from someone else it goes across me and it leaves I want to make sure that that water is clean the other thing is we farm about 3,000 hectares or do custom work on which is about 7,500 acres so with that we have gone to where when my grandfather two generations back he farmed a lot of 20 acre strips in order to do wind erosion or water erosion we now plant the whole quarter or half section so we might have 320 acre fields now whereas he had 20 or 40 acre fields in strips but by doing this new technology by doing research we found that we can do this and we can capture the water make the water cleaner and keep wind erosion down how do I want to talk about some of the partners that we haven't talked about as a farmer I view several partners key within this they might be NGOs like I serve on the board of cultivating new frontiers in Ag a large NGO in DC and we do stuff all around the world but part of that is then we do research somewhere else as I'm traveling to multiple international countries and then I bring it back to my farm and I improve my farm too and then I perfect it and then I take it back internationally to some other country in another country so that's a partner to me community organizations are a huge partner because in Kansas wheat and sorghum and some other crops are the big crops and so wheat and sorghum have done a lot of research in order to figure out which is the best way to do conservation tillage how to transition over to no till how to use these tools that we talk about and they've also done a lot in order to make sure that our environment's better to where we can take our crops to make ethanol so that's the renewable source how we can use carbon neutral crops in order to sell I even sell part of my wheat that goes to the east coast right by DC to make carbon neutral beer and so it's all part of the situation of what can we do to make it better we need the more technology one of the things I struggle with is using less fertilizer a synthetic fertilizer like nitrogen I use manure but that's one of the things that I still need help with on more research in order to get over that hurdle so I can raise more crops with less fertilizer a lot of the things we do that also helps with water retention I've already kind of talked on that some of the concerns that agriculture in the Midwest have is the cost versus the return ratio for me to implement some of these practices it might cost $40 an acre and currently my return may be half that and so as we talk about bills or legislation or just trend lines how can we incentivize farmers to do more they already want to do it and I'm already doing things that cost me money more than make me money but I'm doing it because it's the right reason to do it for my environment I drink the water here so I want to make sure that it's better than what it was when I started and then the other thing is is I travel so much the one key thing that's hard that's a challenge is weather here I'm getting 20 some inches in West Texas it might be 5 inches so they have a hard time raising a cover crop and raising a crop also so things like crop insurance things we think doesn't affect climate smart activities but they do because it affects the farmer's bottom line and how do we move forward so all of these things and this is a lot to put in seven or eight minutes here but that's kind of what we do and I hope to have questions later thank you thank you very much Mr. Keesling for those interesting perspectives and yeah please stay on I'm sure there will be some questions for you some interesting perspectives on conservation and soil manure use crop rotation and how farms are integrated in the local biology and of course also on your points on knowledge sharing and partnerships so thank you so much and now and before I hand over the floor to Tom Pasek who will be moderating the panel discussion and the Q&S session I would like to remind the audience that we would very much like to hear from you I know there's a few questions in the chat box and Mark questions there and then Tom will take them up during the Q&A session so Tom over to you excellent thank you Trills I think we've heard an excellent series of remarks very insightful remarks from Chairman Sundegard in Denmark and Secretary Ross in California and of course from our farmers hailing from Denmark and the United States in this portion of our event we'll hear more of an international or a global perspective on some of the key challenges and opportunities associated with farmers serving as agents of change in greening agriculture and we have the very good fortune of being joined for this panel discussion by three prominent thought leaders in this space and I would like to turn first to my FAO colleague Saituni Oldada is Deputy Director of the Climate and Environment Division particularly at FAO headquarters in Rome I believe today he is joining us from the UK Saituni welcome could you tell us a bit about how FAO is supporting farmers as agents of change in greening agriculture and how farmers are being engaged in the global climate agenda to help achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement and the broader 2030 agenda well thank you and greetings everyone from wherever you are this is really very interesting discussion and having listened to the colleagues who spoke already it's good to see the perspective from those parts of the world so let me start by answering your question by looking at the global agenda in FAO we are supporting farmers at two fronts the first one is on the global agenda exactly as you said because globally there are various initiatives and policies being put in place that will affect farmers will affect the future of farming so it's important that farmers are part of that dialogue part of how the future of farming is being framed is being influenced and challenged on the international climate change agenda on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Implementation of Paris Agreement we support farming communities actually to come to the negotiation to see what it's like to see what is being discussed and to give them the opportunity to have a voice actually to say what are the challenges they are facing and what are the issues that they would like to see really being addressed to achieve the sustainability that we talk about to achieve the transition and the point I want to make here with this global action is that the discussion we've been hearing and the view so far I would like to add one dimension in particular which we haven't covered and that's of the small holder farmers we spoke a lot about farmers who have capacities and knowledge etc but 98% of the world's agriculture holdings are 10 hectares or less and most of these small holder farmers are in developing countries and they support around 2 billion people so it's really critical so when we talk about the change that we and the sustainability we need to include small holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in particular we have about 80% of farmers cultivated by small holder farmers so this is really critical to include this community of farmers so the second point I want to make is with regard to support infrastructure, I talked about the global agenda and bringing farmers to where they need to voice their concerns and their priorities and their wishes but the second point is supporting actually farmers in their countries to adopt climate smart practices but also as some of the colleagues said to have access to the knowledge to the information those farmers who actually would benefit from access to technology from innovation and here again I want to highlight the point of when we talk about innovation and technology and supporting farmers we shouldn't forget about the local knowledge the traditional indigenous knowledge and that's absolutely critical because farmers do learn from each other and the knowledge just transfers from generation to generation from community to community so I hope this gives an overview Tom and give a chance to other colleagues to come in and happy to come back and add more information, thank you Thanks Sajjouni if I could just like to ask a follow up question I think in this session we've been hearing quite a lot about how if we're to address the climate challenges we faced we can't forget and you've just reminded us that in considering and addressing agriculture we can't forget about small older farmers but within that could you talk a bit about the role and the importance of youth of young farmers and especially women Yes absolutely well I think we think about the fact that if you want to achieve and I think this is the point to take away if we want to achieve this transformation in agriculture we cannot do it without involving farmers it's absolutely critical but looking into the future of farming and where actually the communities can be more active we can't exclude the youth particularly in some part of the world where the population is very young and take the example of Africa for instance and I think we have to take that into looking into the future of agriculture and the role of youth is critical but the challenge the biggest challenge there is how would you make agriculture attractive to young people you know how would you bring young people into into this profession and as you know in many areas there is a problem in rural areas where young people are fleeing the rural areas to go to live in in urban areas and that creates problems in the rural areas and also creates the lack of capacity in taking up profession in agriculture so there needs to be incentives in terms of creating investment opportunities in helping young people to have access to finance there are so many entrepreneurs who have ideas they want to create in rural environments but they need that financial support and I'm talking particularly in developing countries and women in particular I think the biggest challenge either young or otherwise is the land tenure particularly in developing countries I think colleagues have been talking here about the establishment of farms that you have with the size etc and the capacity in many developing countries unfortunately there are many small holders all the farmers in particular to whom the land is not their property and that's again a huge challenge in really contributing to food security and land protection without being the owner of the land the last point I would make Tom is really with regard to inequality that's again with regard to youth and women it's absolutely critical that the issue is addressing these settings so that the access to technology access to finance is really available to everyone and is affordable by everyone and the reason I'm saying this is because if we really want to achieve global sustainability then we have to address equality of access to knowledge to technology to the resources that are needed thank you thank you very much Zytonian and please don't go far from your laptop I'm sure we'll be turning to you momentarily during the Q&A I'd now like to introduce Martin Van Nukkup global director of agriculture and food at the World Bank Martin we've heard quite a bit about the importance of farmers and their role in catalyzing a transition to greener agriculture and I think that that inherently assumes that they're sufficiently empowered or equipped to do so and Zytonia just touched upon the question of finance and given your role at the bank at the World Bank I was wondering if you could talk to us about the bank's assessment of the relevance of current public support to agriculture and enabling farmers to serve as agents of change thanks very much Thomas I'm very pleased to be here and just for the sake of transparency originally I'm from the Netherlands and actually grew up on a family horticulture farm in the western part of the Netherlands so I'm very pleased to be here with all the farmers still very strong roots there I think Anders was talking about we need stable policies I think Söder was talking about signals from governments Derek was mentioning the importance of incentives so if you kind of look at that based on the data the best data that we have governments across the world provide about $700 billion in public support to agriculture I mean this is a big amount of resources so the question then is what is that doing for farmers a couple of reflections there one is that most of that support doesn't end up with a small hold of farmers most actually ends up with larger farmers a big chunk about $300 billion is provided for market and price support and output support this generates a lot of allocative efficiencies providing incentives to farmers who actually shouldn't grow and better they should grow something else think about farmers growing rice in the Punjab in India a lot of public support also going to input subsidies that also leads actually to overuse of fertilizers and that creates all kind of environmental problems and of course doesn't actually help the farmers bottom line electricity subsidies irrigation water I mean to please ground water tables that actually forces farmers to invest in pumps I mean that pump of water deeper and deeper and actually thereby undermining their resilience also one could argue that if you look at fertilizer subsidies to what extent are they actually relevant if you factor in the increasing risk of climate change I mean what's the value of fertilizer subsidies if a farmer doesn't have anything to sell because if crop is destroyed because of a drought I mean what's the value of a minimum price I mean for certain crop if the farmer doesn't have anything to sell because of a heat wave so our assessment is I mean that this $700 billion I mean can be used much better I mean actually to incentivize I mean farmers to invest in greener more sustainable technologies reduce greenhouse gas emissions I mean can this $700 billion be repurposed and that's a very important point that we actually are bringing up globally Thomas as part of the food system summit I mean that the UN is working on the bank is very active in the finance lever of that I mean to think of we can have a new food finance architecture for the global food systems where farmers have clear incentives I mean to invest in green technologies and sustainable practices Thomas. Thanks Martin you touched upon the question of incentives and you talked about some of the opportunities on the horizon to support and further enable farmers I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit more as you look out across the international agricultural development landscape or horizon if you will could you tell us what excites you about the opportunities before us to help empower and equip farmers to effectively serve as agents of change in greening agriculture Yeah a couple of reflections here Thomas I mean one is the discussion about just about just the rural transition there was laws after the UN climate action summit in 2019 I think that's very important you know there were some strange going on here I think there was also reflected when you listen to our farmer colleagues that farmers are kind of be singled out as being part of the problem farmers want to be part of the solution if you talk about just transition the way coal miners are being projected in the public opinion it's not as being part of the problem they've been seen as victims and we need to help them you know we need to human mankind I mean 7.5 billion people we all affected by climate change but the 500 million farmers in this world are actually in the full line of climate change I mean so how can we actually help them and incentivize to kind of make sure that they can actually help deal with the climate change because in the end the 7.5 billion people depend on what the farmers do when it comes to access to food etc so given farmers voice I think that needs to be improved I think just through the transition initiative I mean provides opportunities there I already mentioned the shift in incentives I mean particularly now with COVID-19 I think governments are forced to take a very hard look at the public support programs everywhere in all sectors including in agriculture so I see it kind of opening up at the spring meetings that we had last week and seeing actually how they can use public support to agriculture and food more smartly I mean why are we subsidizing fertilizers I mean why are we not providing incentives to farmers I mean to invest in soil health I mean why is the price of carbon the market price of carbon $10 while the shadow price the opportunity cost of carbon is estimated by the IMF at $70 I mean imagine if that would be $70 at all what kind of incentives would that provide to farmers and then finally what farmers need and I think the Secretary of Agriculture of California mentioned it as well I mean they manage these biological systems so solutions do not come as silver bullets solutions do not come as blueprints I mean they come in packages and those packages need to be adjusted I mean to local conditions investing in agriculture innovation more applied research and adapted research and better knowledge transfer systems are needed and there I'm optimistic Thomas I mean that the digital technologies and the digital revolution and digital and data driven agriculture provides new opportunities there to transform the food system back to you Thank you very much Martin and you've made my job quite easy in providing the perfect segue to our last panel speaker but certainly certainly not the least and I'd like to now introduce Thomas Bachelor who's the Vice President of Agriculture Marketing and Strategy at Novo Zimes and I'm hoping that Thomas can take us on a tour or visit to the laboratory as it were Thomas Martin just mentioned the importance of research I was hoping you could talk a bit about the role of research and science and innovation in helping to create the enabling conditions for farmers to effectively serve as agents of change in ushering in more sustainable agriculture and of course within that tell us of course the role of Novo Zimes in achieving this I'll be happy to thank you and I think it is a perfect segue from all the other speakers because Novo Zimes we are a global market leader in developing biological solutions for the broader agriculture and food value chain and our controlling shareholder is a foundation Novo Foundation that also reinvest a lot of our proceeds back into fundamental research in this area so it is very much our vision to be driving this innovation so what we are focused on is really this biological system we all talked about unlocking the potential of that nature if we look at the comment from I feel this dog about applying manure back to the field understanding that microbiome so the natural microbes that are in the soil and in the manure you take a teaspoon of soil it comprises microbes that exceed the number of people on the planet it's a incredibly complex system and the potential of just unlocking what nature already has holds tons of potential so what we are looking at is developing those microbes and enzymes which are natural compounds as well and applying them for agriculture at an industrial scale so growers can apply them and they can be adopted as a natural part of agricultural practices also for livestock farming similar the microbiome within cattle and so forth this is also one of the ways we can succeed for solutions the methane reduction that was mentioned for for dairy and cattle and that's exactly what Novosibirn is driving and investing very heavily in to succeed enabling a more sustainable agriculture of the future and if I can allow just kick starting the reflection on some of the things I hear here because I think it was perfect comment on there's incentives which I think just looking at the real value that's provided for not only our solutions but others making sure we create a real marketplace that creates profit for a farmer applying the right practices one thing but I think there's an even simpler starting point allowing a route to market for new innovation that is more expedited so we have safe and proven solutions that are spot on for some of the agendas we are talking about today but it still takes 5 to 10 years to get them there because we're going into the pre-existing chemical regulatory frameworks often that we think we can find ways of enabling a faster way to market and to the growers hands just by having more of the fast track mindset using some of the COVID experience and if we really want solutions to the market we can cut the time to get them there and I think that's part of the solution that I would argue should be seen as a way forward. Excellent thank you Thomas and if I may I'd like to ask a bit of a follow up question. Novosibirn's of course is widely recognized as a leader in providing and developing sustainable solutions for the agricultural biological industry and particularly in developing solutions that contribute to solving the global challenges related to climate and water and production as well as consumption and so within that could you just elaborate a bit more I know you've touched upon some solutions but within all of this could you elaborate a bit about your design's perspective in terms of some of the biggest challenges and opportunities you see perhaps over the next 10 years. I think the greatest opportunity is to make sure that we get innovation in the hands of farmers and get it widely adopted and that's a mix of the incentives and the path to market and then realize making both growers but also policy makers that technology actually already has solutions that can kick-start some of the changes we have but as in many cases there's a huge benefit for accelerating that adoption in various ways and we already partnering there was a mention of SEGA trying to have these partnerships where industry like ourselves partner with both growers and organizations to make sure it's not seen as a corporate push of profit but it's a solution broadly from policy makers, growers and industry as partners I think that will unlock a lot of value and if we're a little bit creative about combining incentives helping growers decipher a very complex technology so getting some validity from an unbiased side I think that adoption can be accelerated hugely to the benefit of all the targets we're talking about. Thank you Thomas and to our audience thank you for your excellent engagement and patience we're now turning to the question and answer portion of our event and I see we still have almost all of our speakers still with us. I would now based upon what's been posted in the Q&A box by our audience by way of questions I would now like to turn quickly back to our three farmers and to ask them each very briefly to talk about what they see as the big opportunities in engaging young farmers in this transition and perhaps talking a bit more about incentives. So perhaps if I could start with Derek. Thank you you know as I mentioned agriculture is one of the most exciting fields on the planet and a lot of the technology that's been introduced to agriculture over the last 100 years has provided opportunities for young farmers to have jobs and to have jobs and to have roles on the modern farm we know we've had a position on our on our management team vice president of technology for the last five years we have a biologist we have you know we have you know different food safety folks and we've pulled people from other industries into our farm to broaden our perspective but at the same time provide opportunities for folks that the data management that we go through the analysis that we go through I mean farming is a science based profession you know the modern food supply is grown by agronomist you know biologists, chemists pest control advisors all these different science based professions that provides a lot of opportunity for young people to enter the role farming and to speak briefly about incentives you know I thought about how do we simply define the you know the role of the policy makers and the opportunity that we have by showcasing the voice of the farmer and what I came up with was you know the the implementation and the success of of meaningful policy will simply be judged based on the ability to provide rewards to the private land steward who protects the public good. Thank you Derek I would now like to turn to Doug very briefly if you could respond to the same question Sure I think there's a couple different things some of the more logical ones is help through organizations like 4-H or FFA for future farmers I have two high school boys my two oldest kids are in high school and they both belong to those two organizations and have learned quite a bit there one of the things I'd like to highlight is my 16 year old son was offered some land to farm from an older farmer and he could not do it because the rules under our US F through our government say that because he's under 18 he can't have it in his name so the farmer had to turn it over to me now granted he's going to be I'm going to make sure that he's actively involved in helping but sometimes we're our own worst enemies Thank you very much Doug and I don't believe under our Danish farmer is still with us so I won't turn to him but if I could I would like if possible to pose a question from the audience to Secretary Ross which comes from Cecile McConey and the question has to do with whether it's possible to have effective partnerships between farmers in developing countries and those in developed countries such as the United States. I think it's possible there was a time in US history where we funded organizations to do exactly that kind of farmer to farmer transfer and I think Doug mentioned he's had an opportunity through his organization to travel the world and take his research to other parts of the world. I think it's absolutely vital to what we're doing I think it can happen farmer to farmer but I also think the investment that's made in the US we're very fortunate to have the cooperative extension system which is publicly funded that third party objective source of doing trials and then sponsoring demonstration days for a group of farmers to learn from one another and I think that is an important place when I look at the world bank I think that is an important incentive that is the research that is that transfer of knowledge and I know that our cooperative extension even though it's underfunded from what it once was is still the envy of the world because it's helping to do that transfer of knowledge and translating in a way that the end user from the smallest to the largest for animal and for crops and I think these are the types of things we need to think about globally and lobby our own governments to make those kinds of investments as well Thank you very much secretary I don't believe we still have a chairman with us so I won't pose the same question to him but I could I'd like to turn to our three panelists from the World Bank FAO and Novo Zimes perhaps in that order Martian Zaituni and then Thomas the question we have here comes from Ernie Shea Ernie indicates that it's often hard to understand how the voices of farmers can be elevated in institutions like the World Bank FAO and Novo Zimes as well as how their voices can be accentuated in initiatives such as the UN Food System Summit or in the broader climate agenda which was touched upon earlier so Martian beginning with you briefly if you could share your thoughts on how the voices of farmers can be further emphasized within institutions and international processes Thank you very much Thomas let me start at the global level I already mentioned that as part of the upcoming food system summit I mean active as part of you know putting in place the food finance architecture there's a finance lever there we are actively reaching out and working very closely I mean with federations of farmers organizations to make sure that their voices being heard I mean the World Farmers Organization is for instance an example of it I think that's very important for the love of the farmers but if you then talk to the farmers I mean they tell me that's often that's not the case so having the authentic voice of the farmers by reaching out I mean to membership organizations is key at the country level when we do financing for the agriculture sector and major kind of you know act policy reform programs or working with governments in public support along the lines I mentioned earlier I always tell the ministers of agriculture you know if you cannot explain what we're trying to do in the projects that we finance to a farmer and how it actually benefits her wallet I mean then it's a losing proposition so actually you know having that perspective to kind of think through and calculate through what those reforms mean for farmers wallets is key and then at the final level at the lowest level at the project level because most of the bank financing is channeled I mean to all kind of projects I mean we take public consultation I mean very seriously as very part of you know of our kind of project operation procedures and we work very closely with local farmers organizations lots of the funding actually is directed to organizations the kind of where we do the economic cost benefit analysis of projects I mean ultimately that's calculated based on the beneficiaries most of the time our farmers so both at the global country and local level I mean we are kind of you know reaching out at all those levels to make sure that farmers views actually are integrated and that's key I mean to success back to you Thomas thanks very much Martin Saitouni over to you the same question if you could discuss how the voices and perspectives of farmers can be further elevated in institutions such as FAO and in international processes Thank you Tom well first of all that question raises one issue which is who are the farmers we're talking about you know that the farming community is not homogeneous so we need to make sure that we're talking about heterogeneous community of different backgrounds, different capacities different knowledge I think Derek was saying that farming is a size-based profession yes and no it depends to whom you know there are farmers who had the opportunity to be educated and to have access to knowledge to digital technology and there are smallholder farmers obviously who are uneducated some are uneducated they don't have the same level of capacity the same level of access to knowledge and learning so when we talk about you know the access as you were saying we have to just distinguish between the fact that we're talking about different kind of people in different kind of settings and I think that's absolutely critical so we don't give the impression that we're talking about farmers in general and everything we're saying all the solution we're talking about they're going to apply to everyone they want and the second point I want to make again with your question is the fact that there are possibly two avenues the first which is again farmers who have access to be involved to be engaged and they can be invited to the table you know either at FAO or other processes no problem they can travel and have access they can read they can contribute fine and those who can't and this is the second category then you have to find out the means of doing that and the other means are to use the national representative the national policymakers the MPs the ministers and others who can bring their voices to these platforms and also the NGOs NGOs they play an important part really in connecting with the local realities with farmers and bring those needs those priorities that they have those asks to the platform and that's absolutely critical and the last point I would make particularly in the current era where we're talking about technology and innovation then we need to reach out to farmers and listen to them it's very easy to film these days so you can go to any community ask the farmers the questions you know we're talking about change how can we make any change if we don't know what the farmers want how can they be involved can they in what circumstances and how and also just to distinguish about the changes we want to make some of the changes are big and challenges and demanding and some changes for some small communities just little changes will make a huge difference to the survival to the livelihood to the income and that's absolutely critical so my point is we need to be proactive as well to go and find farmers and hear what they want to say in some context you know they don't have time to be involved in global agenda they have other worries other priorities so we need to go and say well how can we help you they're never going to think whoa whoa there is a conference on climate changing Glasgow we better go and take part in that absolutely not so we are responsible in reaching out to those people when we talk about leaving no one behind that's what it means go and find the people see what they want and take ownership and help them thank you thanks I think you raised some excellent questions and made some some very important points there as of course did Martin before turning to Thomas I would just like to flag that just after promise I would like to turn to each of our speakers and ask them very briefly in about 30 seconds to 45 seconds to share with the audience what their key takeaway message would be if the audience is to remember one thing that each of you has said what would it be so please begin giving thought to that but before turning to each of you respectively I would like to ask Thomas to respond to this question of how the voices and perspectives of farmers can be better amplified within institutions or organizations or companies and also if I may very briefly Thomas a secondary question for you which has come in from Lauren Hirsch asking about what some of the key research gaps are still in need of investment over to you Thomas and you can actually link a little bit because I think one of the things that we as kind of corporate innovation drivers lack sometimes is actually with farmers early on to really make sure that we develop solutions that fit into the reality it's simple application realities economic windows of reality because you have great lab work but it never hits the market because it's misunderstood the application reality so that's a simple you should be easy but it really isn't but we have so many as we've exemplified today farmers that are progressive and actually eager to engage and that kind of engagement is critical and then I would tagline it over to the second part of the question of also creating these partnerships and alliances it can be with co-ops or individual farmers because sometimes it's also what is the willingness to pay if there's not a market for methane reduction there's not a credit given for carbon capture or soil health which is a longer term gain than a yield one year well is it a product concept or not I would love to pay for it but they can't afford it and then you need to link it back to policy making incentives and so forth and coming as a joint representation of farmers and not as a corporate innovator that's being perceived to seek profit only creates a much better partnership for policy dialogue and so forth so I think that there's many of these which are these gaps that was asked to like soil health methane reduction and also in the most fabulous business cases because who will pay for them so that answers kind of that question there's a long list of business opportunities which should have capital value for a farmer but doesn't today and we can find a way to get that via incentives and get a fast way to market that would be a great progress. Fantastic thank you very much Thomas I hope I'm not being too far six speakers who are still with us to ask them in about 30 seconds to share their key takeaway message with our audience and if I could start with you Secretary Ross. I was afraid I was going to be first and there was so much here two things I'm going to touch on one I think Thomas mentioned that we're trying to create some biological solutions and trying to fit them into a regulatory framework for chemistry and I think that really is something every country could take a look at and two thank you Zatuni for your comments because I'm keenly aware California Ag is very diverse we have the smallest organic urban farms all the way to the larger multi-generation but the small farmer and how do we engage on a global basis if we really want to make a difference that's where we're going to have to really work together and create partnerships thank you. Thanks so much Secretary Ross back to you Thomas for your key takeaway. Yes. Yeah sorry I would keep it back to the central point about the potential and innovation is there it's a matter of unleashing it and getting it in the hands fast and in an efficient way regulatory fast tracks ways to enable farmers to adopt fast would be my key takeaway. Excellent thanks for your brevity Martin over to you. Thanks Tom. I start referring to what Derek said you know we need to reward private lends to protect I mean common public goods so my takeaway is that you know we need to kind of provide farmers the right incentives to do so I mean it comes to making farmers better agents of change in greening agriculture I think we need to provide them the right incentives so that we actually can move to a situation where it's recognized the way we redefine what it is to be a farmer in the 21st century I mean not just a producer of food but also a provider of ecosystem services and this would be revenue streams attached to that. Thank you Martin Zaytuny over to you in 30 seconds or less please. Thank you Tom what three points I would say the first one is definitely to include small hold of farmers and to listen to them the second point is to recognize the importance of indigenous and local knowledge and the third point I would make which we didn't touch on it much actually is change in models but also change in our mindsets everyone thank you Thanks Zaytuny and I think it's only right and fitting that our farmers should have the final word as it were so if I could turn to Derek and then Doug each in about 30 seconds or less thank you I think the sentiment from farmers everywhere is they feel like the villain and absent from a lot of these conversations that's simply unacceptable not only is the farmer play a critical role but we have a lot to be proud of in the food supply that we provide everybody and not only is the farmer not the villain but critical to the solution and the answers lie on the farm and so again I appreciate the opportunity to share our thoughts and you could have had hundreds of thousands of farmers from around the world participating in this discussion and you have had equally diverse and interesting perspectives from each one of them. Thank you Derek Doug over to you. Yeah on a couple of these topics you know some of the organizations are doing this we built a 40 million dollar research facility to study these type of things greenhouses the whole work sorghum they're even doing virtual reality work with international markets international grains program was developed in Kansas and at Kansas State University in connection with about seven or eight different commodities to address these issues so farmers are reaching out doing a lot of this I think a lot of these governmental entities and organizations are not reaching out to the farmers like myself and others because that work is being done and but my final take away is to include the farmers in these rules because we all got to do it and as much as possible the best way to do that is by making the carbon a free market system because if it's free market system as alluded by some of the others the price of that carbon capture could go up and it will naturally happen thank you so much for today thank you very much Doug I would now like to turn the floor back over to our moderator trolls thank you so much Tom and thank you to the audience for all your excellent questions and to our panel and speakers for a very insightful conversation and thank you Tom for moderating it and thank you for being the mastermind behind this event Tom and FAO did most of the heavy lifting behind this event so hats off to you guys and now I would like to hand off the floor to Vimlendra from FAO once again this time for some concluding remarks Vimlendra the floor is yours thank you trolls and you've been quite modest I think the embassy really took it upon themselves to make sure that we have the event as successful as we did have it today so it was an extremely engrossing discussion and I think even to expect to be able to do justice and summarize what we heard in five minutes I think it's been on my capacity but I will try and bring out the main issues which I heard today both from policy makers the technical people looking at the global issues and definitely from the farming community represented by three farmers online today I learned a lot and I realized that more productive and resilient agriculture will require transformation and management of natural resources and higher efficiency in use of these resources and inputs for production we heard to start with we heard from Sondagar that farmers hold the key and this point got reiterated again and again including till the very last in take away messages they hold the key and they will be the one who will have to lead the transition he also emphasized the need for a way effective partnership and strong R&D along with strong incentives for farmers to bring about this transition Secretary Karen Rose thank you for reminding us that agriculture will perhaps be the first and best way to begin getting some wins in climate area and your emphasis on keeping sustainability and biodiversity from center in our policy prescriptions the greening of agriculture will also present an enormous challenge of producing more food and fiber without relying on most of the technological mainstays of productivity against of the past so we need to know it and we saw how Andre Nargo has led his organization sustainable practices through biogas plants digital feed chain climate check etc and Andre we totally agree with you you're definitely not part of the problem you are the solution going forward and the demand is also being placed on agriculture and it is being asked to replace environmentally damaging products and protect biodiversity and mitigate climate change as well as address livelihoods and lifestyles and what better way to go ahead with this than to follow the initiatives shown by bulls farming company and the Kiisling farms which see farms not just as a place to grow but also to make farms sustainable biodiversity and also a place to grow human resources so they need to do all this and they have argued it very strongly is to maintain farming remains as a remunerative activity we heard the community talk again and again about how farming is no more a very remunerative activity and how the youth is turning away from it so thank you Zatuni and Martin for bringing a global perspective to it Zatuni told us about FAO's effort at integrating farmers voice of the global agenda and also in hand holding farming community at country level to take to climate smart agriculture and thank you for emphasizing once again the need to remember small farmers because many times in our debate in North America we tend to focus on what farming this part of the world but to remember the 98% of farming community is still farms and 10 hectares and less and your emphasis on being grounded in our traditional knowledge but looking forward to the future and having the capacity and the courage to embrace modern science and evidence Martin thank you so much for explaining so well the need to better apply and target public resources going into agriculture worldwide can the $700 billion be used much better can they be repurposed I think that's a extremely strong phrase how do we repurpose the $700 billion going in to ensure that they actually end up incentivizing farmers to invest in green technology and sustainable farming and that will require a lot of coordination with policy makers, policy framers across the global especially in the global south thank you for spotlighting the farmers the frontline of climate change and the need to understand that they are the victims and not the cause Thomas you so rightly highlighted the importance of biological solutions for agriculture and food value chains and the fact that they exist and the need to change the regulatory framework to ensure that the lab to land transfer happens extremely fast and the need for understanding the requirements the economic reality the implementational reality of bringing modern science to the land so if we take all this together and summarize I think I'm being too ambitious to put it in one sentence two sentences but I would say that the potential of new science innovation, knowledge technology and partnership to contribute to sustainable and green agriculture will depend on policy finding a way to manage these changes in a way that provides a balanced outcome for the society and the environment and ends up help incentivize the farmers to make the transition so it the policy has to give the right signal and with that signal and partnership and knowledge and innovation and science and finance and we need to go forward always keeping the farmer as the focus point as the focal point and ensuring that he is from center of all our policy making so as we close this discussion today I think we need to take these lessons home and we need to help promote the urgent need to transition to green and sustainable agriculture I'm sure all of you would have taken your own lessons from the various points made by our speakers and I would end by thanking all of them to have taken time out of their position use and attend this help us understand the issue with their ideas, their thoughts and their perspectives thank you so much and back to you Charles. Thank you so much from Landra as always on the point and that concludes today's special event I think it has been a very interesting conversation and a much needed one and we have less than 10 years to reach the sustainable development goals and some of the ambitious national goals for CO2 reduction the clock is ticking and even as we are still in a dire situation with COVID around the globe there is hope as we have heard today from farmers from government, global organizations private sector there is a great potential that can be unlocked and that farmers and other actors in supply chain around them can adapt and engage with agility and innovation for more sustainable future so once again thank you so much all of the speakers for your great contributions and thank you to all the audience for listening in we are sorry we couldn't take any more of your very good questions you have been a very active audience so thank you so much but I am sure the conversation continues it needs to continue so thank you so much all of you and have a nice rest of your day