 We welcome that very much now we're all aware of the double maybe even triple threats to improving agriculture. The current pandemic with severe consequences for agricultural markets and a change in the approach to agro food systems, how we produce, process, distribute, trade and consume our food is more acute than ever. And then there are the longer lasting threats of climate change, including a loss of biodiversity and so degradation only to mention a couple. So if we want to be able to actually feed 10 billion people on this flow by 2050, if we actually want to achieve the UN sustainable goal of having zero hunger by 2030, then this year is decisive and our reactions to the COVID-19 crisis as well. And that in a year when we have the fifth year running of increasing hunger in the world. So we need innovation. That is something that we do need even in an old and traditional area like agriculture. And one of that is of course the pathway to digitization. We're going to explore some of the solutions that are already out there in the field today and that have come to the fore during the last year. But then of course, ladies and gentlemen, there is the second issue, which has come very close to everybody's attention. Zoonosis have become almost a household word, especially amongst the experts here. Of course, the one health approach might be the answer to that challenge. So these are a couple of the points that we're going to be discussing with our fantastic panel in a moment. But just to get us started, we're very happy to have a video message by Julia Klöpner, Klöpner, the German Minister of Food and Agriculture. And of course, she is the host at the GFFA. Hello, I greet you very warmly welcome to you. This will not only be a video message, this will be a live welcome message there for Director General Chu colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to you to the GFFA. Today's exchange is important to draw the lessons from the current pandemic, but also to prevent future pandemics. And therefore a warmest thanks go to the organizers of this high level panel. And a warm thanks also goes to the FAO. Ladies and gentlemen, in recent years, 70% of new diseases have been of animal origin, Ebola, Zika virus, HIV, influenza, or also the novel coronavirus are the best known examples of this. And this shows that the diseases of animal origin pose the greatest that is so nosy, so noses of epidemic proportions will continue to increase unless we act now. Therefore, we must close ranks to curb the transmission of infections in and between humans and animals. And we, as agriculture ministers, dear colleagues, we play a critical role in this respect. Animal health is in our responsibility. And in my opinion, two measures are there for vital. First of all, we should consistently implement and comply with the one health approach in all regions and countries around the world, and also at global level. One health means to not take a separate view of human and animal medicine, but to take an all encompassing view of them, because our achievements in minimizing antibiotic resistance show how important this approach is. And secondly, we should establish an independent expert panel operating at international level, because we rely on scientific expertise, but we also rely on jointly coordinated action, and Germany wants to do its bit in this. Together with France, we have launched a joint initiative in this respect to promote international cooperation with all stakeholders, with all international organizations such as the FAO, OIE and WHO. But also with another important partner, the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP. And I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas of innovations which can help make our food systems more resilient. Food security is a major goal also for peacekeeping and how to prevent pandemics in the future. That's our great challenge, our task, and we want to be committed and fight for this together. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you for the good moderation through the day by the panel, and I'm looking forward to meeting you live and in reality again soon. But let's not rest until then, but let's stay connected and discuss with each other. I hope we will have lots of good ideas, and I'm keen on listening to you and on learning new things. Thank you for taking the time of actually being here live in our discussion. Absolute pleasure to see you. And good luck for the minister conference at the end of the week. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the time at which I would love to introduce the panel to you, and we have actually prepared a video portraying each and everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you. Jamshid Abdochakimovich Hajayev has been the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan since January 2019. At the end of 2017 Hajayev was appointed as the Minister for the Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Throughout his career in the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, Mr Hajayev went through a professional path from the leading specialist of the Department for Control over Foreign Exchange Operations and External Relations to the Director of the Department for International Reserves Management. Christian Hoffa has been the Director of the Federal Office for Agriculture of the Swiss Confederation since 2019. Previously he served as an Assistant Director responsible for the Direct Payments and Rural Development Directorate. Mr Hoffa held positions in the private sector and academia. He grew up on a farm in Banwell, in the Bernese Oberograut region. Eric Feerwald joined the Syngenta Group in June 2016 as Chief Executive Officer. He held managerial positions in other companies like DuPont, Naoko Company, Equal App and others. He is also Chairman of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. Angela Tokazili-Didesa has been the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development of South Africa since 2019. She was the first woman Deputy Minister of Agriculture during the late President Nelson Mandela's tenure. She has recently been elected as the Chairperson of the African Union Ministerial Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment. Angela Tokazili-Didesa has been the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development. Angela Tokazili-Didesa has been the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development. Angela Tokazili-Didesa has been the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development, Land Reform and Rural Development. Mr Donju, we have been hearing about the innovation that has come about with the response to the pandemic. So where do you actually see innovation happening? You yourself have tweeted last couple of days that 2021 is the year of continued reform, efficiency and enhanced effectiveness. So how do we need innovation? How can we apply it? And what do we need for the post-pandemic recovery? Okay. Can you hear me? Absolutely. Okay, great. Thank you for the host of G-Farfar, my dear Minister Jurgen. And also I'm so glad to see my colleagues from Uzbekistan and South Africa. When you talk about innovation at large, we have three categories of innovation. Innovation on policy, innovation on technology, innovation on the business model. During the pandemic, I think you can see the people and also business and the civil community to a response to the COVID-19 pandemic for food security and for food supply. And innovation is not a theoretical topic. It's a reality of efficiency and effectiveness. So as a first, we needed innovation to produce more and better to improve the productivity of agricultural food or the commodities. Of course, we used to depend on more long-distance trade, but still we did depend on the international trade function cross-continent for the major commodities, especially stamp food, sugar for long-distance traveling and trade. Second, we have to improve our own production locally, especially for perishable products. And of course, it's challenging. A lot of countries, they depound on the import of some vegetables and fruit. That's really beating in fact on the supply chain and with the high increase of the price. That's also happening even in Europe and in the city of Africa, Asia and Central Asia. My friends from Uzbekistan and South Africa. You can wisdom that. And third, as an innovation, we should have the farmers to build the resilience to use the more innovative products of agricultural input. You name it, seeds, fertilizer, chemicals, and others, and even machinery, which also have to improve the efficiency and the productivity. And then come to the policy. I think the minister from South Africa, we worked together during the past year, pandemic. We worked together with the Africa Union and also individual members. We really to help them to build the innovative way how to address the new policy to encourage all their sectors to keep players to play the more agile role. You know, you needed a policy to help them. And that's really if the country and the member have a more agile reaction response. And then farmers and the food sector are really benefit. And the third is a business model. That's why the innovation, not only technology innovation, and also you need the new business model based on the digital food and agriculture. That's really happens for the even citizens to have access to the food. It was not the question before, but now they're doing the lockdown and the pandemic. The people more dependent on the digital business model. That's from the farmers field to the consumers play. So I think, in short, innovation should have from production to the process to the supply to the whole seller market and the whole value. And also to speed up the efficiency of the supply and also speed up the efficiency of production as a whole. So I think that the information sharing that's why the FL we with the members of support that we had the established the during past years established agricultural market information systems. That's now is really playing the key role for marketing transparency and also to keep the international trade function is very important. And talk about the trip partner cooperation for one health also we need innovation. We need innovation on the how to minimize the risk of the residuals of the input like hormones or animal hormones and the growth regulators and so on. So I think I hope through this chief offer we have a debate and get some consensus on how to speed up the innovation. And that's really happens for the back better and the building back greener and also more production. That's essential for the development. Okay, great. Lovely. Thank you so much for sort of giving an eagle's view and sort of also mirroring how international cooperation was actually part and parcel of solutions during the pandemic. Now let's deep dive and have a look at country level. And for that I'd like to address to go divisa madam. We have an imbalance in South Africa. Observers say that there was an absolute export boom as far as citrus fruits are concerned. In fact 10 percent more than in the year before in 2019. On the other hand you did have a slight problem in so far as producers of meat poultry milk potato for example. And now it's the face with stockpiles. So how do you from a ministerial point of view deal with these imbalances in the market. You are mute. Yes. And that's probably one of the most quoted words of 2020. You're mute. But now I'm muted. I would like to recognize you program director and thank you for this time to be able to make an intervention. I also would like to recognize her excellency Miss Julia Klochner the chairman federal minister of food and agriculture was just to welcome us and actually gave pointed intervention on what this forum needs to address. I also want to recognize my brother FAO director general Dr. Chiu Chiu as well as the other panelist the minister of Uzupistan. I must say that this is indeed an important area that we need to reflect on how as a country may be sharing our experience we manage through this pandemic as you have indicated imbalances that indeed were experienced amongst the sectors. First and foremost one of the things we did in the beginning was as part of the country's intervention we'd look at two strategies. On how on one hand we balance livelihoods and on the other hand we actually ensure that we save lives. So that was the broad strategy of government and in doing so we located agriculture at the center one in terms of essential food production to be able to feed the nation and open the borders to be able to continue trade on essential foods in particular with the region and our trading partners. We were also able to be innovative in engaging our partners particularly with whom we export and from those from whom we import to ensure that we can actually use electronic systems to be able to validate whatever information in terms of the goods that we're trading. And I think that helped but it is also important to appreciate that within that mix as an African continent we had to look at how we appreciate what were the constraints and how we could unlock them both from the policy point of view as well as in terms of trade. So on the 16th of April we worked with the FAO and the Ministers of Agriculture in the continent to identify where there were bottlenecks. As you know some of the member countries in the continent are actually dependent on imports for their food security. So it was necessary for us to look at how at a regional level but also engaging other partners externally we open up opportunities for trade so that those who are reliant on imports may be able to still get their goods on time. I must say that going forward one of the things that we have observed from the trade point of view is that some of the countries in dealing with the pandemic the measures they put in place actually created what you call backlogs or actually subclasses in other sectors where now we've got a large consignment of products that we need to deal with in the domestic market. But importantly we were also able as a continent to make sure that in the midst of that pandemic we continue to emphasize on the implementation of the Africa continental free trade area so that we actually do not lose time lag in being able to implement. I think those issues and working with the industry at every given point and show that our stakeholders in the agribusiness in the farm sector were patterned parcels of the decisions that government took. Thank you very much. I know three minutes is not enough to say more. We need to get everybody on board and then also have a slight discussion and I see that business is there as well. So we're quite happy that everybody is on board now. And with that let's change continents. But let's stay on the policy level. Let's stay on on what government can do. Let's look at Uzbekistan and Uzbekistan is actually a country in chance. Formerly Uzbekistan was a net food importer. Now it is trying to intensify homegrown production with a certain view of course to smallholder development extending agricultural base and building up an innovative system. So Minister Kordaev how did you actually respond to C 19 and what kind of new thinking were you able to implement and will take you into 2021. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Pleasure to meet my friend Mr. to go new F.A.O. director general and my colleague. Mrs. Flotner of course the colleague from South Africa. Mrs. Debeza. So when thinking about this question I found myself reflecting on what innovation actually means. It can mean the introduction of a new product or technology but it can also be about a new way of doing something or even a new way of thinking. So indeed the destruction of life foods and food supply chains in Uzbekistan due to the pandemic has inevitably had an impact on access to certain agricultural food products for many Uzbek farmers and consumers. And we have tried to respond to this challenge in several I would say innovative ways and this actually included the introducing a range of a new social safety net programs. This is one of the groups with an access to the essential food purchases and expansion of the existing social support programs to partially offset the loss of the incomes. And targeted measures to stabilize the consumer food prices primarily through the enhanced use of the national strategic food reserves. Upgrading of some of the existing green corridors at the borders with our neighbors and streamlining a certain administrative procedures for agri-food traders reduction of the sum of agri-food import rates. And introduction of the payment holidays for some of our farmers on the credit repayments and the pandemic has highlighted the interconnectivity of agri-food trade and markets and the mutual interdependence of Uzbekistan as a double landlocked country and the need to work more closely with our neighbors to ensure the regional food security particularly in times of the crisis. The pandemic has also highlighted the need to enhance the national food security monitoring and surveillance systems and to revisit the role and the future needs and requirements of our strategic food reserve systems as well. These systems require investment in a new digital systems that ensure more rapid data transfer and dissemination as my friend FIO Director General has just indicated. Now we are from net exporting of many of our agriculture products. Now we are rethinking in 2021 how we are going to decrease the export in terms of placing the other needed agricultural products for instance potatoes. Because we had like we were net import of potatoes around 400,000 tons but now we are thinking in decreasing some of our other products and helping the farmers with the new programs in having more area to plant the potatoes. And of course another important area is that the government Uzbekistan has now committed a significant resources to support the gradual update of our agriculture research system. Enhance the agriculture education and training services and establish an effective farm advisory service network to help the farmers and agribusiness to develop and grow their businesses. We are planning this in an integrated way, guided by the best international practices in the development of the agriculture knowledge and innovation systems, otherwise known as the AKIS system. And we believe that this system approach will be the most sustainable way to promote the gradual modernization and innovation required in the Uzbek agribusiness sector. And only through improving the knowledge of our farmers we can ensure the safety and hygiene of our agriculture products. And we are also investing in the upgrading of regional, yes it's just, I'm just going very fast. So we are upgrading our agri-logistic network system and of course we are using now the FAO platform to communicate with our neighbors. Thank you. Thank you so much and I'm sorry but I see that we only have half an hour left and so much more to say and we're already getting great questions in the moment. So let me continue and go one step further now just sort of concentrating on really innovative and new approaches and let's look at Switzerland. And we have a very interesting system there. It's called an animal tracing database and of course it does what it says on the tin. It is tracing animals in order to ensure both food security and also at the same time prevent zoonosis. So we have here Christian Hoffa, the director of the Federal Office of Agriculture of the Swiss Confederation. So how do you actually do it and what kind of double treble, maybe even fourfold service do you expect from this tracing system? Yeah, thank you for the question and first I would like to thank to the FAO for the invitation and the opportunity to offer to Switzerland to contribute to this panel. Indeed, you mentioned our animal tracing database and it was set up to ensure the traceability of all farm animals to ensure food safety and prevent the spreading of animal diseases. It is an important step stone in our national one health system approach to respond to global challenge such as the COVID pandemic. Individual cattle sheep goats and horses are identified by their unique ear tag or cheap number. Animal keepers are obliged to report the birth all movements, including important import and export as well as death or slaughtering of their animal online. A notable recent development is the increasing popularity of using this information in the animal tracing database in third party systems. In order to facilitate this exchange of information with the database, the federal administration develops and offers a licensible interface. This enables animal keepers to share information with other information systems and thus not having to record the same data multiple times in different systems. A good example of improved data management and reduced administrative burden on farmers brought by innovation and digitalization. Providing well targeted financial support to innovative project is one component of our national approach to improve agriculture and food innovation ecosystems. According to our federal constitution, sustainable development of the agriculture and food sector is the top priority of domestic agriculture policy. Positive transformation of agriculture and food system towards more sustainability is indeed essential for achieving long term food security, ensuring livelihoods of farmers and food producers, but also to increase resilience to shocks such as climate change and of course global pandemics like COVID-19. Innovation in all its forms is critical for food system transformation. Strong innovation friendly ecosystems are key to generating solutions which meet practical challenges and have a scalable impact. Very quickly, the system that you put into place, is that transferable to other countries in a nutshell? It depends a little bit how these countries are really built up. So it's really that it must be at the animal holders and the farmers, they must really be confident that with this database is not given to any person, so they really must rely on the security of their data. And if you have such a base in a country, it could be possible that you can imagine to copy it to other countries. Yes, we also showed it to one or two countries because they had the same questions and I don't know what they did at the end, but it could be an initiative. I would mention is the global agenda of sustainable livestock hosted by the FRO, that's a multi-stakeholder partnership with a few of enhanced the contribution of livestock systems to sustainable development in one health and there could be also a possibility to inform it in this way. Wonderful. Thank you so much also for giving us sort of the greater view. Now we've concentrated on national, on governmental solutions and of course everybody is also looking at business, the agro business side, what can they contribute? And I know it's early for you, Eric, five all chief executive officer of the Syngenta Group. It's probably four o'clock in the U.S. where you are right at the moment. So on your website, on Syngenta website, it actually says that you're looking at five areas that will take us into the future that are really innovative. And funnily enough, you have bees and drones in one, artificial intelligence, blockchain, you have urban agriculture and farming and of course genetic editing. But where do you see the role of business, of their contribution to what we need in order to fulfill all our dreams of feeding the world and having a balanced ecosystem? Great. Well, thank you, dear ministers. It's a real honor for the Syngenta Group to be represented here at an event that has become such an important part of the global discussion. And first, let me thank the FAO and DGQ for the invitation to take part in the panel today. I think this sends an important signal about the need for public and private sector to work together to address many of the challenges we face, not the least of tackling COVID and food security together. And the security of our food system clearly is vital. And as climate change and COVID have both demonstrated, our food supply is fragile. One of the most important things for us has been the recognition of our industry as critical, one by governments around the world, because this allowed us to get workers to our sites. And by the way, we hired and trained many additional workers and are still doing that to assure that we can always operate our facilities. And some of our workers have been fearful for their lives. But I'll tell you, they go to work out of the responsibility and the purpose to help make sure the world has enough food. And I just want to give you a couple of quick examples that I think illustrate the extent people go to to try to be helpful. In Montez, Switzerland, where we have our largest production site in the world, our team there responded to an urgent appeal by the Swiss authorities, and we produced 50 tons of hand sanitizers for hospitals that couldn't get them. In Pune, India, we have a cauliflower seed breeding site that needed to harvest and prepare for the next season. But due to COVID, the only staff allowed on the site was a security guard. Well, through Zoom technology, he got instructions from a breeder by videoconference on how to do the harvesting. He was able to complete it, and today he's part of our Syngenta breeding team. One other example, in Nigeria, the Syngenta Foundation, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and others, arranged sorghum and cowpea seeds delivery to 700 particularly vulnerable smallholder, so that they could get enough to plant food and have it for them in their communities. So it's not a choice whether we deal with food security. COVID and climate change at the same time are forcing us to do that. In fact, you've seen in the last year that commodity prices, corn, soybeans, wheat, have gone up substantially 50% higher than they were a year ago. We have to keep improving our production capability in the face of climate change. And that's why we've dedicated $2 billion over the next five years to drive a step change in sustainable agriculture that works despite climate change-driven weather extremes. Two quick examples. One is seeds that can grow in drought conditions, and the other is a project to bring a million hectares of degraded pasture land in Brazil back to production. And with that, I need to interrupt you because we want to hear your second time round. Thank you very much for giving these specific examples, which are both very colorful and also very exemplatory. Now, it would have been a good sort of connection to Mr. Hofer and the solution that is in place in Switzerland because there's one word we all have learned throughout the pandemic, and that's zoonosis. Now, attention was being, for the first time, by a general public and not just by the experts, how infectious diseases originated in animals that they have then spread to humans. And we had the minister explaining the different steps and how the ministers are going to actually sort of take care of that under the One Health approach that they're going to put also into this end of the week's paper. But let's turn to South Africa. Of course, we all know why do tourists go to South Africa because of your wonderful wildlife. And it's not astonishing that there is a special need to have a special look at the situation on the ground and about potential risk that are run. So again, the question to South Africa, how do you live the One Health approach and maybe whatever you've learned, how can it be transferred to other countries? Minister? Thank you very much. Thank you very much, our program director and to our panelists. Indeed, I must say, maybe before starting in South Africa level, I must just say, at a continental level, looking at how we must respond going forward, there are certain things that we've identified in terms of one, in relation to One Health. One is that there is a significant lack of attention and support to wildlife issues. The lack of a functional One Health platform at the continental, regional and member states level. And thirdly, that there's a need to enhance advocacy capacity by building in our successes of achieving important targets such as animal disease prevention, control and eradication, as well as educating citizens about the importance of animal health as well as the link to human health. South Africa for itself has established a surveillance program that routinely samples or circulating viruses in wildlife species of interest, particularly bats. In our case, the Kruger National Park, which is indeed one of the tourist areas, presents a very good interface area as the majority of wildlife is found in the bigger wildlife park. My department has stationed veterinary staff at the park to specifically monitor animal disease and movements inside the park and be able to detect any possible interaction with other animals, including livestock, if that happens. The interactions of animals within the park is significant to monitor transmission of diseases between animals, including the interspecies transmission. Some diseases like anthrax and tuberculosis, which are bacterial and not viral, are of significant importance, and these are well known genosis. Data collection and management are extremely critical for epidemiologically assessments and surveillance of different ecosystems and interface of wildlife and domestic animals. The veterinarians have played special microchips on some selected animals to monitor their behaviour and interactions with other animals, humans and possible livestock. The data of these interactions is transmitted by satellite to a database for capturing. As a result, an established surveillance system which is used to detect any possible spillover from the interactions and appropriate actions are then taken should it be necessary. Accompanied by this is our very good laboratory support and also the latest technologies that we have actually put in place to make sure that we can deal with issues of sequencing and improve our capacity to determine genetic makeup of these viruses and any other differences that may show with what we have on record. We have also enjoyed the beauty of our staff. Thank you very much. Minister, is that transferable to other countries? Can some other countries come to you and say how did you solve it and can we transfer it? It is transferable and we have a lot of actually exchange in terms of developments of various programmes within the continent but also externally in terms of our agricultural research as well as our animal research. Lovely. Thank you very much. And, ladies and gentlemen, of course the One Health approach is not a new concept. It's actually been around since the beginning of the 2000s, I mean almost 20 years. And there are three big corporation partners. That's of course the WHO, the World Organization of Animal Health and FAU. So I'd like to invite you to quickly come in and talk about that. But please, could you also take into account a question that we've had from the audience as a second aspect. How can FAU and allied partners innovatively support developing countries to push for localisation of agriculture production? That would be very nice and all of that of course briefly because otherwise we will get over our time. I will use one minute. First, I think FAU we are ready to already support the One Health approach. It's a timely and highly important now during the pandemic after the pandemic and that's why I've participated in the One Planning Summit together with President Macron and also Chancellor Macron. Second, we support the One Health Head of Expertise Council and we have to look at all the issues related to interconnected context in a holistic way. Third, we support the members to build up their capacity, especially by the information. We've built up already a handy-handed geospatial platform and we will use the also international platform for digital food and cultural to look at all the big data surrounding the animals, environment and agro-food systems. That's a way to address each specific problem with each specific member and then we can share the information. Thank you. Lovely, thank you very much and now let's really concentrate on digitisation and for that let me return to Uzbekistan and to Minister Kodyaev. Can you share with us what you actually did and how you are proceeding in the next year also to strengthen the national sanitary and phytosanitary systems with digitisation, please. Thank you for your question. Actually, in Uzbekistan we are at quite a early stage in the development of the digital solution to help to improve our food system and enhance the national food security. Well, one of the most immediate priorities which we are focused upon is improving our agro-food information, study statistics and data management system and we can improve the flow of data on the sector and more effectively monitor any change. We can use this information to better identify problems and guide the design of better policies and programs to address them. Therefore in 2021 we are planning to launch a range of initiatives to gradually upgrade our agro-food data collection system and improve the quality of the sector statistics and information and also in parallel to develop a range of new public information services for why the farmers with the information that they need to manage their businesses and ensure the quality and the safety of their production. So as a public-private partnership we are in a very distant area. It's really tough to connect to the broadband of the internet and use the technology so we are trying to set our ministry's offices there where the farmers can come over and they can use the internet and they can get all the information. That would be part of our access-related services. Of course we are developing the agro-food e-market place where we recognize that many of our small-scale farmers lack market information and lack access to the market or any sanitary information and through the creation of this electronic agriculture marketplace or platform we will be able to provide more accessible, transparent information and a trading space to bring producers and the purchases of agri-culture goods and services together. So it won't be only the marketplace but it will be the place where the farmers can get all the services and they can get all the information they need. So we are working on this platform with the help of the EU experts and the World Bank support and it will be an online resources to be used by the individual farmers and the group of the farmers to identify and purchase, of course, the essential farm inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and the other products for sale for food from their production. So I think this would be as the beginning of our digitalization and helping to improve on the food security. We are now working for... Mr Kutayev, that's absolutely fantastic. We really are running out of time so please forgive me if I sort of turn over to Switzerland. You've just said sort of there are the basics and what you have said is that you actually need international cooperation and then of course a national system. Now Switzerland has actually gotten the networking on a different level. You've actually brought together researchers, education, people, extension, farmers, private sector, you name it. You've actually brought them together on a charter of digitization of Swiss food and agriculture. A, how did you get all of them under one roof more or less? It's almost probably like herding cats. And on the other hand, is such a system something, again, that's transferable? Mr Ruffa? Yeah, thank you very much for that question. Yes, to follow and guide the increasing application of digitalization in agriculture and food production and to increase networking, the Swiss government took this initiative you mentioned to launch AgriDigital. That's a multi-stakeholder platform with interested actors from the food chain. And the first step was to develop a charter with the following objectives to create and share understanding of the principles governing the handling of digital data and applications, to jointly address the opportunities and challenges of digitalization along the value chain, to support and inclusive, transparent and sustainable shift towards digital processes, to ensure fair and equitable access to the digital world to bring actors together. And it was the federal councillor in charge of agriculture launched the charter on the digitalization of Swiss agriculture and food production in June 2018. The charter sets out 12 guidelines from focus on benefits to technological development, including access to data and data ownership. So far, more than 120 public and private actors have signed the charter. The signatories commit to comply with these guidelines to actively contribute to implementation of the charter through specific initiatives and to communicate such efforts to take the principles of the charter into account in their strategic decision making and to pursue joint solutions in the digitalization of Swiss agriculture and food production. One example was the program FLOPP, an optimization of plant protection through precision farming, a joint initiative between a research and three council states involving more than 50 farmers. On this issue, I welcome the establishment also under the leadership of FAO of the International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture as follow of the GFFA in 2019, which pursues the same objectives of the global levels. Switzerland is looking forward to actively contributing to this platform. And I think it's really, you asked if you can really transfer that to other countries. I think this charter we did. It was really a very important point of communication because digitalization was to that moment something that was very abstract. And the discussion to make this charter and to really talk about these rules, how to lead digitalization, how to use the data. This was the thing that was very, very important. And I think you can also transfer that to other countries. It must be people there that want to make a dialogue and to discuss that and at the end to sign some guidelines and that helps them to everybody. And I think in this second day, yeah. Sorry, you were just finishing your sentence. Yeah, there's maybe one thing that is interested that the second edition. We also have this International Award for Innovation in Sustainable Agriculture and Food System co-sponsored by FAO in Switzerland. And this second edition will be awarded during 2021 FAO conference and the call candidates will be issued next week. Wonderful. That's a good thing for anybody who's out there who's actually doing good work in that direction. Watch the home page about all means. Now, we should not give the impression that agriculture is all about digitalization but that is the issue that we're discussing right at the moment. Of course, there still need to be people to actually grow something, farmers and even with the help of digitalization, security people in India who suddenly sort of become really innovative and become standing farmers but of course that's not the norm and with that we're with Syngenta again. Now, Mr Frywald, of course, Syngenta is helping real farmers on the ground with products with help with training but they are also and let's return again to the digitalization aspect. There are many things that can help farmers do things easier for example, if you have protocols. For example, if you want to shift your food, if you want to sell your food if you want to call, communicate with somebody who is buying the food from you. So what do you have on that side? How do you engage with farmers? Well, we have increasing, really exciting digital projects going on all over around the world with farmers and then all the way to consumers but I think one of the most exciting that I want to describe here today is in China we've created something called map centers for modern agriculture platform centers and today we have 327 map centers across China after three years we plan to get to a thousand map centers within the next three years. These map centers are full solution centers for the farmers. They teach the farmers what to plant. They get the modern seeds, modern crop protection pesticides, modern fertilizers and teach them through digital tools when to plant and how much to plant. What amazing, these farms have come out with far less use of pesticides, far less use of fertilizers and yet much higher yields and higher quality. What's really exciting is using these protocols, the farmers have leapfrogged from ancient farming techniques to very modern techniques and the higher quality has drawn demand from consumers. I'll show you a picture here of strawberries grown in China being sold at, this is a picture of strawberries being sold at the Hema store which is an Alibaba store and on them you have our map logo. It's not very visible. You can hardly see it simply because you're of course in a green in an artificial background. I'll make it available but there's also a QR code here and that QR code allows the consumer to scan it and see a picture of where it was. Then sustainability data and a picture of the farmer. Already the farmer is getting connected to the consumer and the consumer is getting connected to the farm. This is the future of food and the sustainability data that comes with that enhances the production quality and the yields of the farmer. The farmer is more profitable and this kind of approach I believe is something that can be very much extended around the world. Thank you so much and I think that was really a tangible issue and it also reflects something that COVID-19 probably has done in the last year that consumers are much more aware that we are part of this food system that we are actually consuming something and a lot of people have actually had to cook at home which otherwise they wouldn't have done. So the connectivity to food and the food systems has become much closer and with that actually we are almost at the end. Thank you everybody for sharing but this is for two minutes. I can invite the Director General of the Faroed again to maybe come to a sum up of this discussion. Thank you. Thank you my panelists. I really appreciate your wisdom and your contribution and I really appreciate the G5 and of this platform. You know the years we have to get the FAO connected with the global platform which is G5 is one of the most important one. So I appreciate that. Second, I think of the whole innovation I already said I don't want to repeat but for responses a pandemic COVID-19 pandemic built back better and the greener and the producer more and the better we need the innovation only innovation solution but it's a very good to see now we FAO I don't want to repeat that we have a must-piece plan for the response of the COVID-19 which is several areas cover all the food security and food quality for the diversity and the environment and the climate change and so on and financial service and also digital food and just say Eric said that in China spend so many years more than 10 years on that issues. So I want to bring this experience to the international platform and the last on the list I think innovation we need also political commitment. I'm very happy to see strong political commitment now from America, new president. So it's Eric, another Eric. Eric Landa is my close scientific ally because 20, 30 years we started genome sequencing I was on the field of genome sequencing so he was on the genome sequence of human being. We have a very close cooperation with BGI. So I think it's not political support is very important scientific only offer the suggestion and the versa political should be implemented and the business man that's why the private sector you are really task force you know combine the politician innovation and have the farmers build the link between the government and the farmers. So I appreciate the Eric offer you to help me in China not only your big one and some small one also we'll talk about Africa in Uzbekistan. So please go to Uzbekistan pick it all one commodity make it happen because you know digitalization it's only the reverse the business to reduce that all the production of a question pool seed chemicals bio economy you name it and about chemistry whatever so that's is only the driving force and the second driving force is the consumer and so we needed the consumer driving force to innovation so without innovation no matter America or your small hold the pharmacy in Asia in Latin America in Africa nowhere out and in Europe you kind of depend on a very traditional green technology. We had to build up a competitive green bad technology and innovative approach. So thank you. Thank you for your support. We want to build a real big team and then more political engagement from Europe from China from America and of course from Africa and that's real one word one house one planet one human being. We only have one human being in the world. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for these final words from Rome. Thank you very much everybody whether you got up very early like Eric or whether you are sort of on European time zone. I think the challenges are very similar everywhere. Let me just point to one aspect that has transpired despite the fact that we're talking about innovation one health digitization. The one aspect that all of you mentioned even if it was just as a side was the question of training you have to have educated trained people in order to bring about what every one of you is actually working at and I think that's sort of one of the underlying issues also in food and agricultural systems. So with that ladies and gentlemen all I can say if you want more we have the insurance buyers in Gentile that they will answer your questions if you write to the email address that was given in the chat. I know from some colleagues that the chat has been very well frequented and there was a parallel discussion going on in the chat. Sorry we couldn't bring all the questions into our panel. We ladies and gentlemen have two more deep dives to offer and we're very happy that the ministers from Uzbekistan and South Africa are willing to stay on rather to dial in again for the one deep dive session that is coming up and for all of you ladies and gentlemen if you want to know more the FAO has just for the GFFA brought out a new brief and that's called Opportunities for Innovation in Livestock Systems. So there is so much knowledge out there go out and grab it and continue discussion and I love the fact that despite it was digital we already made the connection between some of the panelists so I hope that your conversation is going to go on and not finish this week at the GFFA 2021 which of course is digital but it is a good place to discuss. And Joey thank you very much to this wonderful panel. Thanks. And there's one last announcement. All of you are four panelists. Due to time limited your speech please send me to FAO OCC as an office for the communication. We will get you on on the I'll ask the director of OCC to conduct a few because you didn't read all your text. I want to get you for information and on the web. Thank you. Thank you so much. And with that we will finish the session now. Thank you. And Eric see you next time. Coming to you Ron. Bye bye.