 Hi, hello, and welcome to this regional dialogue. And before we get started, let me do a little housekeeping. Just let me share for those of you who are on Zoom, this event is both in English and Russian, and you can choose language settings at the bottom. If you're watching on YouTube, welcome, but you can only listen to us in English. So let's get started. In many conferences and 10 years ago, we talked about how to feed the world in 2050, thinking that the growth of mouths to feed would be the major challenge. Today, the conversation has changed, become much more complex. We have become acutely aware and not just in for our like this of the multi-sectoral aspects of our food system and how it needs to be transformed. We're not just talking about coming to grips with hunger. We're talking equally worriedly about obesity. We're not just talking about food. We're talking about nourishment, the quality of what we eat. We're talking about inclusiveness and leaving no one behind, neither on the side of the farmers, nor on this consumer side. We're just talking about increased production and we are talking about deforestation, free and ecologically balanced agri-food systems. We've become aware of the twin challenges, climate crisis and loss of biodiversity as much as of the promises of trans-diverse, as digitization and plant-based meat or fish from the field. Our challenges have changed. The conversation has changed and some pathways for the planet and people are already out there to be shared. And you, ladies and gentlemen, and your laptops out there in the region of Europe and Central Asia have been part of this conversation. You're driving it. You're identifying the five action tracks in the priority list to be brought to the table today and therefore also in the run-up to the Rome pre-conference of the Big U and Food Systems Summit in New York in September this year. Whether you're part of the issue-based coalition or a government business, farmers representative, welcome to our regional dialogue. My name is Connie Schemacher and I have the honor to moderate this two and a half hour event, which of course is part of the bigger conversation we are all engaged in. You've seen the program as interactive and as multi-topical as possible in such a short time. So I'm just going to mention that you can feed your questions and statements into the chat and we're trying to answer some of them on the panelists. But first and foremost, I would like to introduce your host today, welcome Vladimir Vakmanin, our regional representative for Europe and Central Asia. Thank you, Connie. Dear colleagues and friends, it's in order to welcome you all to today's event which should contribute to the preparation of UN Food Systems Summit. Today's dialogue is facilitated jointly by UN agencies in the region who committed themselves to the promotion of sustainable food systems in Europe and Central Asia. These agencies are UN Economic Commission in Europe, UNICEF, WHO, World Food Program, International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNDP, World Meteorological Organization, and of course, FAO. I greatly appreciate the support and presence today of FAO Director General, Dr. Tsudun Yu. I'm happy to welcome our good friends and partners, Dmitry Mariasin from UNICEF and Martin Frik, Deputy of UN Secretary General, Special Envoy for Food Systems Summit. I would also like to acknowledge the Minister of Agriculture of Uzbekistan, Jamshit Abdukhayevich Adryev, Chair of FAO Regional Conference for Europe and express our gratitude for his tireless efforts in promoting sustainable food systems in Europe and Central Asia. And of course, really warm welcome and thank for all our panelists and participants from all areas of our societies. Despite the fact that the hunger is not a major issue in the countries of our region, in order to reach sustainable development goals, we need to intensify efforts to lift the triple burden of malnutrition, namely, undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies, and over nutrition, such as overweight and obesity. This burden remains the problem in the region and not only in low and middle income countries, but also in the developed ones. We need sustainable food systems in order to guarantee better agricultural production, better rural life, better nutrition, and better environment for all. And we need an action. In Europe and Central Asia, we can lead on those issues and we need to do it. In conclusion of my brief remarks, let me congratulate many of you in our region for the energy and leadership being demonstrated also at the country level. Currently, we have 29 convenience nominated to lead national dialogues on food systems summit in the countries of the region and in European Union as a whole. Over 180 independent dialogues are being held in the region. I am truly inspired by these numbers which demonstrate your interest to be a part of UN Food Systems Summit and to contribute to making it a real people's summit. Back to you, Connie. And thank you also for guiding us from today's dialogue. Thank you so much, Vladimir. And hope to see you towards the end of our session. And with that, we can get started with the opening and we have such high-ranking personalities. It's absolutely fantastic. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, Forest Regional Office in Budapest is hosting the Secretariat of the Issue-Based Alliance in conjunction with seven other UN agencies. And you are all the driving, the topics towards finding sustainable solutions in the food systems complex. I'm very happy to roll out the red carpet for Forest Director-General for probably the past, almost two years in Rome. Sir, we are looking forward to your opening remarks meet Don Yu Chi, Power Director-General. Okay, thank you, Connie. And dear colleagues and ladies and gentlemen, the pandemic has exacerbated the situation that was already there. 690 million people in 2019 that were chronically undernourished. Three billion people that cannot afford health diets and unsafe food supplies affecting one in 10 people. The 2021 global report on food crisis showed that the steady increase in the acute food insecurity reached 155 million people in 2020. The pandemic also exposed the fragility of current agricultural food systems and highlighted the need to transform them quantitatively and diversified. Agriculture systems are the world's largest economic system with over four billion people being employed in there or indirectly engaged with that. A holistic redesign of the world agriculture system is crucial to ending hunger by 2030 and achieving the other SDGs. We needed to jointly address how agricultural systems can be transformed to sustainably deliver and the quality diets needed for the good health, relieving pressure on the planet to natural resources and the driving increase economic growth. Agriculture systems should be far and equitable and ensure decent employment to all those engaged in the food production, food processing, food marketing, trading, delivery and supply all the three chance, production, value chance and the supply chance. Today's panel discussion will provide a valuable opportunity to identify solutions to transform our agricultural systems. I encourage all of you have a very good solid suggestion to your relevant key players in this region. We need a more consensus in Europe and the Central Asia region. I look forward to your opinions on how to strengthen collaboration promoting the circular economy, maximizing use of digital tools, foster innovation, adapt the financial support. Dear colleagues, the region of European Central Asia is an economic and agricultural powerhouse containing diverse cultural, agricultural systems and climate zones. This diversity gives the opportunity to share experience and a good practice within the region and beyond. But I should point out that during the past 30 years, in this region, the bigger challenge are lack of investment and innovation and with concrete action to incorporate the various priorities in our new strategy framework, FAO and a transparent inclusive consultation process was followed during the past two years. FAO new strategy framework for the next decade supported the 2030 agenda to achieve the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agricultural systems. I know that in this region, quantitatively you have enough, but you have very much limited the number of the food diversity compared to other regions. And also you still have a lot of challenges how to produce more with less impact on environment, less input. And there you can improve the efficiency for the farmers, for the consumers as well. So you can really improve the agricultural food system as an economic system, not as only public goods. Yeah. The U.N. First Summit is a timely opportunity to governizing momentum, first the dialogues and present game changer solutions if you have enough and a strong political commitment in this region. We need a solution that are evidence-based and backed by the science. And also we need to build up the coherent ideas across different key partners. The Summit 2021 science days will be facilitated at the co-hosted by FAO on 8th and 9th July of this year. I'm also pleased to see that the young people are engaged to this event as you know, young generation is our future. It's a future for society, future for economy. Of course, it's a social for agricultural food systems. The role of the youth is pivotal in the shaping agricultural system transformation. Their views will be an important contribution to the ongoing discussion in the region and beyond. FAO Youth Committee initiated the World Food Forum powered by the global youth. And the forum will have its first major global event in October, supposed to be after a food summit, which will be dedicated to the further of our agricultural systems. It will bring together youth group, influencers and startups along with youth networks from academic institution, civil society, private sectors, national authorities and the media and the international organizations, you name it, to driving the awareness, environment and resources. Ladies and gentlemen, with the challenges there comes opportunity. Let us see them together. FAO will continue supporting the region's important efforts for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life for all. I thank you and I wish you have a good debate and with a concrete suggestion. And I know they are representing from the food summit here. So closely listening, whether you're talking, whether you're suggesting. Thank you. And thank you here, here. And it's wonderful you did take the time to open our regional dialogue. Now, ladies and gentlemen, when UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his team decided on the necessity and importance to concentrate UN efforts towards food systems, he called upon Agnes Calibata as most of you know, former Rwandan agricultural minister and change maker in Africa to be the spearhead of his high level conference. As opposed to other UN summits, this conference, as you will know, is supposed to be process driven, dialogue driven, exchange driven and has either sponsored or enhanced many dialogues on national and regional levels to feed into it. We are happy to greet now the deputy of the UN Secretary General's special envoy for the Food Systems Summit. And he has just traded bond for Rome and the climate secretary for the Food Systems Summit. In a way, probably Martin, you're actually looking at the global bundle of challenges just from a very different perspective. Thank you very much, Connie. Director General Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to be here and let me start by bringing warm greetings from the special envoy who unfortunately had another commitment and couldn't make it. This is a really timely meeting here and I wanted to make four very quick points as I know time is of the essence. The first one is we are in the midst of it. This is not a food summit, it's a food system summit. And with the systems approach, we are really trying to bring not only the traditional agricultural communities together but also ministers and ministries of youth, health, environment, transport, everybody who should be committed to food systems. And moreover, it's an all of society approach. And this is really something that is getting to a dimension that is really exceeding our own expectations. Vladimir has mentioned in the opening the many independent dialogues in the region, it's more than 400 globally. And what is really exciting we have as of today, 123 nations who are steering national dialogues including all of the government and all of their society. And one bit I really wanted to emphasize is that we are getting so much good feedback from civil society in all of these 123 nations that they can meaningfully contribute to the discussions, particularly young people which is very encouraging. We need holistic national and subnational and also regional approaches. And that is including the regions of countries and quite often also the big cities in countries and the hinterland. And we see increasingly how independent dialogues are complementing the national level dialogues to really achieve system thinking in all levels of government and governance, which is important. The second bit I wanted to say is the central importance of making our food systems more inclusive. This is an SDG summit. And our overarching objective is of course SDG too. The SDGs have pledged to leave no one behind. So our work particularly needs to start with listening to those who are furthers behind. Indigenous population, rural, poor, landless people working in food systems. And that is very close to our heart. There will be however no jobs on a dead planet. And we are mindful that as an FAO study recently has stated, food systems contribute to more than a third of the global greenhouse gas emissions and are certainly the biggest driver for the loss of biodiversity. The good news is that modern production methods and also of traditional production methods are at hand to really make agricultural food production but also forestry and fisheries a driver of restoration. Replanishing fish stocks, restoring soil is important because we have already on the planetary level crossed quite a few red lines. Innovation is a very important bit the director general spoke about it and it goes in two directions. We have access to data and possibilities that were unthinkable 20 years ago. We can equip smallholder farmers with precision data really adapted to their individual needs. But innovation also means social innovation, participatory models, collectivism making and we hope that this summit is setting a bit of the tone on that. And in this inclusion, the digital possibilities play a great role. And I'm really happy and I wanted to congratulate FAO and the regional office for being part of the food systems community. Our website in which we bring practitioners together it's rapidly growing my IT person tells me we are growing by 150 registered users a day. This is really encouraging because ultimately this is a peer-to-peer tool. This is not our megaphone. This is for people to share their best practices. And let me conclude with an invitation. This Friday we will have a big civil society forum and it would be fantastic to see all of you there as well to add a European and Eastern European voice to our global conversation. And with that back to you Connie, thank you very much indeed. Thank you Martin and keep up the energy. I think you will be needing it. Our last opening speaker is a man deeply rooted in the region and doubly engaged with our dialogue both as former representative of UNDP and now in his present job as Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Both organizations are of course part of the issue-based coalition on sustainable food systems. So Mitri, Marian, please take the floor and share your thoughts with us. Thank you very much Connie, distinguished Director-General, ministers, colleagues, dear participants. It's a great pleasure to join this opening of the European Central Asia Regional Dialogue together with our partners in the issue-based coalition on sustainable food systems. Systemic changes in the way we've produced, transport, consume and dispose of food are absolutely critical for achieving sustainable development. The regional overview on food security nutrition in Europe and Central Asia for 2020, which was just launched recently shows that both food insecurity and malnutrition continue to be significant challenges in our region. And of course, as was mentioned by the Director-General, the COVID-19 pandemic has made matters even worse and it disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. But the Europe and Central Asia region is also fertile ground for developing, testing and proving solutions to these challenges, which is why this dialogue is a great opportunity to learn from the diverse experiences in our region about what policies it takes to really drive transformation of our food systems towards sustainability. And I'm confident that we will hear today of a great value that the dialogue, the big picture global dialogue preceded by many regional and local ones at the UN Food Systems Summit, as Mr. Frick just outlined, will contribute to this transformation. Let me say a few words on one particular angle on which we're increasingly working on at the UN Economic Commission for Europe and which is really about systemic transformation. It is about circularity, a transition to sustainable use of natural resources and circular economy, which was key theme of the UN ECE's 69th Commission Session, just concluded a month ago. As the Economic Commission covering the Europe and Central Asia region, we are particularly interested in looking at how we align sustainable development goal too, with goals such as sustained and inclusive economic growth and productive employment, as well as sustainable consumption and production. So it is very much about SDG2, but in our view, food systems, as was mentioned before, is really a whole of society, whole of government issue. And so needs to be looked at holistically. One of ways of making our food systems more sustainable without compromising the economic growth, which is increasingly important in the post COVID recovery phase is the circular economy. Closing material loops, optimizing recycling opportunities, designing waste out of the system. And here comes the link to the innovation and digital enhanced data-driven approaches that were mentioned just now. Very importantly, we believe that concrete solutions exist already in the region, that learning from them, including from the startup community, which is booming in several countries in the agri-tech sphere will be not just a source of innovation, but a source of new economic models, new business models that agribusinesses and governments across the region can take up and move their agrarian economies towards circularity. We also hope that circularity will help expand the economic opportunities for those who actually engage in it and to expand consumer access to sustainably produced food. A lot of this is, of course, about lowering transaction costs and improving access to trustworthy information all the way from the field to the table and across borders. Here, there are a number of solutions and that's why at UNICEF, we're developing internationally harmonized electronic standards as one such solution, many enabled by blockchain technology that make agricultural value chains more transparent and that reduce the costs of verifying compliance with sustainability standards. This should improve incentives for farmers, wholesalers and retailers to invest in innovative sustainable practices and should support them in entering higher value added market segments and earning high incomes. So when we talk sustainable use of national resources and agriculture, when we talk circular economy, we also talk market access for the lower middle income countries in our region that should ultimately help many farmers, thousands of farmers across the region come out of poverty and live a more dignified life. We're also working with governments, currently with the Republic of Moldova and Uzbekistan and I'd like to acknowledge the presence of the Minister of Agriculture in today's event from Uzbekistan on how to stimulate sustainability enhancing innovations in the Agriculture Center. But much more can and must be done to transform our food systems towards more sustainability and more secularity. I'm very pleased to say that at the commission session in April, our 56 member states have issued a very firm commitment to scale up efforts to promote circular economy approaches and we will be working with them and with all of you to make this happen in the region. This includes identifying, assessing and filling gaps in governance and with policy practices which is exactly what we will be talking about here today. We also heard about very interesting specific national initiatives in several countries for reducing food waste and loss and as UNICEF, we will be very pleased to share this information and work with all of you on this specific angle on sustainable use of natural resources contributing to the work of the Food Systems Summit and its follow up. UNICEF is committed to supporting these efforts and I believe the UN system as a whole can play an important role here and allow me to note on behalf of our Executive Secretary Mrs. Algojera, the highly effective collaboration within the issue-based coalition and highlight FAO's leadership in this regard. I look forward to working with the colleagues from the IBC and with the countries of our region on our joint efforts to promote the sustainable agro-food sector, sustainable food systems. Thank you for your attention. Thank you so much, Mithri. And for me, for my part, I love the idea of getting the concept of circular economy also into the agricultural systems. In the industry, it's been already around for a number of years and solutions are there. So why shouldn't they apply on the agricultural side? Thank you so much. So ladies and gentlemen, you have heard our wonderful expert opening speakers have already put down a number of bullet points, a number of issues that we're going to be discussed and give examples from countries, from the regions, from areas of the regions, from people in the regions. And in order to get that started, we would just like to share with you a couple of testimonials that are part and parcel of the observations of governments and others who live in and with our food system. So let's have a look at the testimonials. I'm sure we could go on and on and on. Many more testimonials were already assembled. And this was just an excerpt of statements made within the national dialogues and also in the dialogues running up to this event. And that gives me the chance to introduce my talking partner. Actually, she would have been a keynote speaker. However, we decided to make it a little bit more of a dialogue in view of the dialogue-driven point that we have. And I would like to introduce to you Jessica. And so she is a wonderful scientist and has gotten up really, really early this morning because she's based in the US. So lots of coffee to get away. Jessica Fanso has had not just an extensive academic background looking particularly at this region. She's been awarded many excellencies. And today she is chair of a very specialized agricultural department in Maryland. So first of all, Jessica, let's go back to something that we've heard Martin Frick saying. And he said, we no longer are talking about a UN food summit. We're talking about the Food Systems Summit. And he's already sort of given us an indication why it is important to have this systemic view on things. Would you just sort of take us along? Is it just a matter of vocabulary or what more is behind it? Yeah, thanks so much, Connie. And it's so nice to see everyone. And I'm sorry we can't be there in person together. But it's a real pleasure to at least see everyone's face and have this dialogue. Yeah, so I think right now we're in a moment where we have made a lot of progress on food security. We've made a lot of progress in building a certain type of food system. But we know that with the current challenges that we face, we need a different approach. And as Martin had talked about, this food systems approach is really important. And I'll bring up five reasons why we should take a systems approach. The first is we have climate change disruption. Climate is barreling down on us. And the way we are producing foods and the type of foods that we're growing have significant contributions to climate change, significant contributions to creating environmental stress. And food systems themselves are quite vulnerable to climate. So when we think about earth systems, food systems are incredibly affected. A second reason is we have significant burdens of malnutrition, double triple burdens. And this region of Europe and Central Asia is not immune to these burdens. About 10% of the population experience moderate and severe levels of food insecurity. Women particularly being impacted. And obesity is a significant crisis for the region. A third reason to take a food systems approach is because food systems produce our diets, the food that we take pleasure in consuming every day. But diets are now a top risk factor of disease and death. And even in this region, healthy diets are unaffordable for about a third of the population. That's incredible that we cannot afford what is meant to nourish us. And two other reasons, Connie, is that zoonotic pandemics are not going anywhere. And food and agriculture and the way we produce our food is definitely part of the pandemic situation that we have at hand. And food systems interact in a societal dance with other systems. COVID-19 was a health system shock, a global health system shock that had implications on every other system. The economic system, the food system, the education system, you name it. But it shows that these systems that surround our lives every day and that we interact with are very much connected. And the last is that taking a systems approach we're really seeing some of the inequities. Who gets access to a diet? Who's producing our food and are they protected? We know that many small holders in the region of Europe and Central Asia are toiling away producing our food without a lot of fair wages, protection against COVID and other exposures as they're producing their food. So we really need to be thinking about the whole employment sector and who is valued in that sector and the food system overall. So we've got some big challenges, Connie. And if we don't take a systems approach, it's going to be very difficult to really take holistic solutions to address it. Well, thank you very much, Jessica. And just for the record, this is your proper title, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food and Agricultural Policy and Ethics, Johns Hopkins University. So having said that and having. I liked your other introduction. Put that in there. And let's sort of continue from the food systems and the word systems again. We have, of course, parallel debates. We have the climate change debate and the SDG debate. And we always find that when you try to achieve one goal within all of that, you might find that you might worsen another. So there are certain trade-offs. Insulting the challenge of the imbalanced food systems. What are the trade-offs that we have to be aware of? And can we actually avoid having to make a choice? Is there a win-win-win situation potentially? Inherently, policymakers, and we have many on this call, are always dealing with trade-offs. They're also dealing with synergies. Trade-offs are inherent when you're taking a food systems approach. And we have many examples historically where we've taken on global regional country policies that have benefited a part of the food system and maybe had detrimental impact in another system. People always use the green revolution as an example of something very powerful in producing lots of food and avoiding famine in particularly the Asia region, but had externalities and trade-offs to the environment, to nutrition. It's kind of a classic example historically. But what's challenging is that policymakers are trying to get as much information as they can to make sound decisions. And they don't always have information at the present time and what will happen in the future. So they're dealing a bit in the unknown. Those of us who work in research and work on data are trying to create better food systems data in the present time, better modeling and scenario data for future times to help decision-makers navigate in the light and not the dark and to be able to see trade-offs and weigh those with priorities and synergies. Can we have it all? Can we win, win, win across environment, human health, economic growth? It depends. Depends on many things. Governance, getting the power balance right. Engaging those who are being left behind, let's small holders for this region, particularly women. It's going to depend on good governance. It's going to depend on solid investment and a data-driven decision-making process. So we can actually take a little bit of time on that. Who is driving the process? We here in this particular dialogue are part and parcel of, as I said, the dialogue process, almost sort of equals talking to each other, but you addressed decision-makers. Is that just the government who needs to make decisions? Who is in the driver's seat? Well, I hope that governments are in the driver's seat and I hope they are shepherding and navigating and guiding and providing incentives for all the other food system actors that are working in their country and in their region. Where I live in the United States, government does some driving, but private sector, particularly large companies, are definitely in the passenger seat. Maybe with the foot on the gas pedal. So to me, the governments are really key to this, but they need to be empowered. They need significant investment and funding going towards food, but we have so many private sector actors from very multinationals to small-scale entrepreneurs, and they too need to be incentivized and empowered to promote public health goals, promote environmental sustainability while ensuring that their business model holds up. So government's really in the driver's seat, but also, and hopefully maybe Sophie will talk about this, consumers, particularly those under 30 have incredible power in the food system. Their decisions really matter. They really shape how food systems and food supplies will be directed. So we can't underestimate the power of choice, the power of the consumer, the power of social movements. These are powerful actors that are important for the food system, yeah. We will address that both in panel one, and we also have a beautiful little video that's gonna be at the end of our conversation, that forgive me if I use the phrase, are there any low-hanging fruit, i.e. things that sort of are easy, cheap, and bring about a very big output? Well, I think there's really, to me, four significant things we need to do, and we know really how to fix them. Again, it's the matter of good governance, incentives, and investment. One is increasing the availability of nutrient-rich foods in the food supply. Now, there's lots of ways to do that, changing agriculture subsidies, but even more so, investing in agriculture, infrastructure, in places where there's a lot of opportunity to grow those foods, where there's potential to scale up the growth of nutrient-rich foods. The second is ensuring that food is accessible. Of course, that means cutting food loss in waste, but it also means supporting job growth, ensuring that there's innovations along food value chains. The third is ensuring food is affordable. In this region, all over the world, 3 billion people cannot get access to a healthy diet. Many ways to promote affordability of these foods, including safety net, social protection, taxes and subsidies, taxing unhealthy foods, subsidizing healthy foods. And then last is ensuring that food is pleasurable and desirable. These four things are sort of, every country needs them. They're the low-hanging fruit. Now, how you deal with climate and environmental stress is very local context, locally dependent on the decisions that are made. Each area is affected a bit differently by climate change and by different natural resource base. But to me, when we think about the backbone of food systems and that is ensuring that healthy diets are available, accessible, affordable and desirable, every country is grappling with those four challenges. But we know what to do. There's been a lot of evidence of what works in different countries. So to me, Connie, those are kind of a big four that every country has in common. Despite all the discrepancies and the sort of layout and of course the way in which agriculture is carried out in a certain country. Now, we do just a very quick point of information to have one more minute that we did have originally. So let me just spend one question on something that we have not prediskused, but you've mentioned it three times. Now, you said there is a high gender aspect to bad nutrition and affordability. And it's particularly women and I suppose in extension children that are particularly hit in the region. Why is that? Various reasons. There's a lot of gender inequality and inequity. Inequality meaning sameness. And the lack of equal access to things, but equity goes much deeper in that it goes into fairness. So women are disempowered in society. Women working in the food system are not incentivized. They don't get access to the same financial resources, the same information resources. So there's the whole area where we need to ensure that women have voice, they have agency and they're empowered. And Connie, I think you and I know as women, we see that play out in every sector at every level where women sometimes are undermined. And it's really problematic and particularly women of color or women of a certain caste. It's even more, more stark for them. The other issue is that women have special nutritional needs throughout their life cycle and as do children. And that's important. Whether or not women decide to have children, they have certain nutritional needs that need to be valued and nurtured throughout the entire life cycle. So they should be prioritized. Thank you so much for this, let me say side step. Wrapping up and looking beyond. We're all gearing up to this massive food system summit in September in New York. But of course, beforehand we have the one in Rome and all these dialogues, all the, like, for example, the issue-based coalition has been put into place, has been discussing. What was going to happen in 2022? It's a great question that has a big question mark for me. I wish Martin was still here because we could ask him, but I really hope that it lasts, right? I hope that commitments that are firm are made at the summit and countries adhere to those commitments and fulfill those commitments. What worries me is a bit like the Millennium Development Goals or even the Sustainable Development Goals. There's no real accountability mechanism to them. Countries aren't penalized if they don't reach those goals. Not that we want countries to be penalized, but where's the teeth to the summit? Does it have some sort of accountability mechanism? Does it have concrete goals that the world is going to get to for the food summit? Or will we just use the SDGs as the goal setting, which worries me a bit? So I'm hoping that there's some kind of an opportunity that countries sign up and adopt. That's my goal, but we'll see. On the other hand, we might not want to have another process like COP26 for climate and COP15 for biodiversity and all the traveling that used to be associated with it, which can also not help. Just to give you a little bit of an example, which can also not help. Jessica, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. For you, the early hour for us, of course, it's the middle of the day, so we're quite awake. Thanks very much. Maybe you stay towards the end and maybe we have the chance to talk again. But ladies and gentlemen, you have seen the program entails two big panels, one more directed towards the social issues that we have been talking about, consumers' right, consumers' voices, choices in the food system. The other one is going to be a little bit more on the environmental aspects, et cetera. But in order to get into our first panel, we have something really lovely. There are two beautiful sisters from Kazakhstan and when I mean beautiful, I mean beautiful minds, Dina and Fatima, and they do what do youngsters do. They have a YouTube channel, they are actually broadcasting to their peers, and we are going to share one of those aspects that they've shared with their world. And by the way, I'm not quite sure whether they're still Generation X, Z, or already Generation Alpha, but whatever they are, just have a look at this. Hello! My name is Fatima, and my name is Dina Meisar. We are the sisters of the bloggers from Kazakhstan, the city of Almaty. I'm 14 years old, and I'm 16 years old. We are schoolchildren, and we are also volunteers of UNICEF. Today we are going to tell you about how the Kazakh children eat, what are their preferences in food, what are their proper menus, and what problems do they have and what are their preferences. We are going to tell you that it's going to be our destiny to take care of this topic. Dina, are you hungry? Yes, I'd like to eat something. And what would you like to eat? Apple or banana? Hmm... I would like to eat sweet food. We asked our health care workers what kind of food they prefer. Do they know about proper food and what kind of food they love? The food they love is the food that they feed at home, that they cook in the family and are a traditional food. In Kazakhstan, as well as in other neighboring countries, Central Asia, national food consists of most of the possible food, meat, and some large amounts of vegetables. We are teenagers, and we know that they ride bicycles or scooter. And they buy food on the way out. Because it's important for them not to spend too much time and they buy drinks that are right next to them so that they are cool. Now in Kazakhstan, there are a lot of steps to the fact that the school was right and healthy. The school cafeteria is forbidden to sell husbandry, pocket money. They still buy chips, cans, sweets and sweets in the stores. Children know that these products are harmful to their body. But understanding how it is to act quickly in the water, what kind of harm they bring to health, they don't have. There is no separate program in the school about this. We hope that thanks to proper economic policy we will achieve that all products that children consume will be healthy and useful. We are on strengthening governance for sustainable food systems and we are of course looking at the shaping of the food system that is more equitable empowering all consumers and protecting the most vulnerable by ensuring access to safe, nutritious food and inclusive economic livelihood. In order to do that I do have a wonderful co-motorator Amir Yapavra of UNICEF regional office in Europe and Central Asia is with me. He's based in Almaty and I'd say welcome Amir. Thank you very much for being by my side. Pleasure to me. Thank you very much Conny and colleagues. Extremely be happy and pleased to be here. Thank you. Thank you, Grand. And now let me very briefly introduce our panel. We are happy to discuss all these issues with Anamurad Nazarov Chief Specialist State Sentry for Logical Inspection Ministry of Health of Turkmenistan. Hello. He is there. The Deputy Minister responsible for agriculture at the Ministry of Economics from Armenia. Thank you very much for being on the line with us. We have Doris Lytina. She's the Vice President of the European Council of Young Farmers and is actually producing fruit. As we've seen, you know, the supplier of the positive sweets that we can eat. And Anamurad Yunan Yan is the Director of the EEC Agricultural Policy Department at the Eurasian Economic Commission. Last but not least, we have Jaclina Stoyanovich the Professor at Belgrade University Faculty of Economics who is quite sure that you have listened to the food choices that the girls were describing very much. Let's get started with the Deputy Minister. What in your view can be done to facilitate different government agencies working together as we've heard earlier. You know, you don't just need sort of one part but you need to have the buy-in of all in order to have improved policies for improving nutrition for the environment, for children, women and Jews. So how do you do that? Thank you very much Coni. Let me be very honest to you and to our auditorium because I think that we are here to bring up all the problems and then try to address them. So there is no governmental agency in Armenia which doesn't have a strategy. Well-developed or not so, it doesn't matter a lot. But one of the big challenges I face at work is that you develop a 10-year strategy for the sector, decide an action plan for the coming, let's say, three years and suddenly people who are in charge of implementation are replaced from their positions. A strategy means that when you approve the direction for the next steps it becomes irrelevant to the question who is in charge of the current position. The newcomer should stick on the design pathway doubtlessly just to very quickly changing environment but keep the approved direction. In the meantime each agency ministry is developing its own strategy without synchronizing with each other without knowing what and when the complementary activity is planned by another ministry or governmental agency. The important point is that such a strategy is not developed in line with other ministries already developed strategy. This type of work can be applied for improving nutrition environment, food safety and economic development. Having said that I do believe that in order to create an effective cooperation and facilitation between governmental agencies or other stakeholders for establishment better food safety systems is necessary to create a formal platform for cooperation between all concerned parties to present their observations concerns and recommendations as well as for brainstorming and discussing several policy issues. This platform will also serve for adjusting the action plans with the ministries and synchronizing the activities. Currently the Ministry of Economy of Armenia acts as the policy making authority and we have created formal two such platforms also engaging Armenian diaspora professionals in it. However we are also cooperating with already existing current players of the sector including NGOs, governmental agencies, private sector international organizations, banks and farmers. So the important functions of the platform includes regular meetings cooperation between separate beneficiaries groups also with the Ministry of Economy and creation of new policy regulations and business environment. Very fascinating and I know that we're going to come back to you in the later part to ask some more specific questions but I'd just like to hand over to Amir for his next questions. Thank you very much Connie and colleagues again it's extremely a pleasure for me to be here with you. I have a question to my dear friend and colleague Dr. Ana Murat Nazarov the chief specialist state sanitary physiological inspection from Ministry of Health of Turkmenistan. Dr. Nazarov you have a vast experience in the health sector in Turkmenistan involved in a lot of food and nutrition policy programs. I want to know what policy actions are available to address the specific nutritional challenges of most vulnerable groups in your society especially children, youth and women. So over to you Dr. Nazarov. Thank you Amir. Good evening ladies and gentlemen colleagues In Turkmenistan the medical industry is constantly doing and planning work to improve the quality of health for children with a focus on food and nutrition. The training of parents and the stimulation of the development of children and the protection of the most earlier years of life. The accredited and normative base is reconsidered international requirements. In February 2020 the president of Turkmenistan adopted a new national program of health and nutrition of the Turkmenistan people in 2020-2025. Directed to the development of the health sector in particular SUR2 and SUR3 in relation to children and women. Since 2016 the law of Turkmenistan on the support and propaganda of the Kurdish population has been working. In 2017 the national program on the improvement of the health of children of the Kurdish and Iranian age. Turkmenistan is one of the priorities of the direction of this program is to provide the people with a safe nutrition. The control of quality and safety of food depends on the level of production as well as on the state level. The national center of public health and nutrition is created with the modern and expanded capabilities of laboratory research on nutrition. The improvement of the registration system and certification of produced and imported food products is carried out in the country in order to provide food products such as food salt and wheat flour. In November of 2004 Turkmenistan was handed over to the UN to provide sufficient liquidation for the destruction. In 2011 Turkmenistan received a reward for leadership in the field of transportation of wheat flour. Thank you very much Dr Nazarov. Definitely I will get back to you to continue this interesting conversation and it is extremely interesting that within the panel we also have colleagues from EEC that I guess Connie will get to those questions that would be I think really a conversation Connie Obertyu, thank you. Thank you very much actually before addressing the director of the Eurasian Economic Commission I would actually like to bring in the view of the academic and we've been talking about nutrition quite a bit and we've had this statement from our influencers from Kazakhstan we heard from them that there is a discrepancy between what is good food and what is desirable for youngsters like sweets, fat foods, fast foods etc. So Jacques Lina Soja Novich Professor there are of course a number of dimensions on the consumer's part there are the kind of choices that they can make depending on what foods are out there in the market and in the shops but there is also the question of what they can afford as we've heard already and then there is a question of making informed decisions on what to buy and what to cook so many many dimensions there like in some western European states you have whole industry based on bio-natural balanced foods even mainline i.e. in big supermarkets and let's face it not everybody is actually making the right decisions but in the end they might be buying chips so the situation you observe in the Balkans Thank you very much good morning to everyone and I will address this consumer perspective in the whole story regarding sustainability so it is very important to bring consumer perspective in discussion in other words it is really important to find out what consumers really want so consumers are important as Jessica mentioned at the beginning of our discussion so I can briefly share the results for western Balkan countries the region I coming from the research pointed out the sensory appeal appeal followed by purchase convenience as the most important food choice motives for a modern consumer in the region it is important to notice that this ranking is completely similar to the ranking obtained in the other European countries it seems that consumers simply want tasty food which is which can be both at the nearest shop to his home so he looks for purchase convenience it is also important to emphasize that health and price are identified as the third and the fourth motive for food choice on our list so regarding sustainability aspects there is a difference between developed and developing countries particularly regarding health issues health as the motive for food choice in developed countries it is seen as a single motive however in eastern and developing countries health is additionally connected with natural content of the food so the motive for food choice in these countries is health and natural content to explain a little bit more consumers look for nutritional label on the food and they want to see that food contains no artificial ingredients that is what our research pointed out in region with lower GDP per capita price might have the crucial role in food choice motives it brings us to the conclusion that farmers should apply the best practices in the context of production methods to offer tasty and healthy food at affordable prices in the region unfortunately ethical concerns which is the most important are the least on this list of the motives for dietary choice in our region the interaction with consumers in this context is a little bit harder than it was expected as far as environmental aspects are concerned direct farmer-consumer relations to short food supply chains significantly influence farmers willingness to apply adequate technology and to reduce chemical inputs in their practices just to meet consumer needs suggesting that consumer interactions in short food supply chains has the potential to significantly reduce environmental sustainability of food system to conclude both consumers and producers farmers must be further educated about the importance of different aspects of sustainability of food system additionally it is also possible to identify common characteristic of consumers in wider region if they are historically or culturally or for example socioeconomic environment for example in western Balkan countries we have identified 5 consumer groups or market segments and it is also important not only from the producer perspectives but also from the policy makers point of view as they can bring the common strategies regarding public health improvement and overall sustainability might be also improving the common strategies in the region and this is the main ideas I want to share with participants regarding consumers perspective Exactly now thank you very much that gives a great overview and I'm quite sure what's the numbers might differ some of the main aspects and the categories might apply for other countries in the region outside the Balkans as well Amir, over to you Thank you very much Coni and colleagues actually I have myself a question to Dr. Armen the director of the Eurasian Economic Commission Agricultural Policy Department first of all nice to meet you Dr. Armen I have a question what role can a regional body such as yours slay to improve the nutrition in the region or among the member states of the Eurasian Economic Commission and at the same time ensure we have functioning and fair systems for everyone in the region so over to you Thank you very much it's a pleasure to join the regional dialogue nice to meet you and it's always a pleasure to join FAO organized events At first I'd like to highlight that the Eurasian Economic Commission as a regional economic and trade union has the strategy of development which highlights sustainability inclusiveness and technologies among many other priorities and of course as a department which is in charge of agri-industrial complex we've been working with member states to ensure implementation of the policies that would target those issues that have been mentioned by you. In terms of the food security in general and considering the COVID-19 we've been highlighting three areas of support and cooperation which includes production supply chain and value chain development among all points we've been highlighted programs that would ensure accessibility affordability and availability of the food. Since the union covers economic issues we rather could emphasize and highlight policies on increasing effectiveness efficiency and sustainability production which would eventually bring to a better nutrition for example one of the projects that we've been discussing now at the union level is development of the trade logistics that would make food more affordable and accessible in all parts of the union considering the size of the union and the diversity of the population living in parts within that's an important point. Another policy document that we've been discussing at the moment at the union is the concept of the food security which includes all some measures which we impose and in cases of say crisis such as COVID-19 last year platform was formed which bring together all members and based on that platform will allow participants in case of the emergency situation to apply to the managing body of the platform in order to ensure that the population in all member states have access to affordable food that mechanism was basically designed to kind of confer the problems that we face during the COVID-19 crisis. Of course I have to mention that the self-sufficiency level of the union in general is 93% at the moment but some of the things when we see still a wilder ability is the production resources and some of the policies at the moment is also targeting on developing and conservation of the indigenous varieties of the seeds and seedlings also in terms of the developing a better genetics for our union. In other words the policies are many but what we're trying to accomplish as I mentioned in the beginning is to ensure that we have the principles of the green economy principles of the circular economy to be designed and integrated in different national policies of the member states but simultaneously we'll look at the production value chain development and the supply chain in general to ensure a food availability and affordability. Thank you very much for the talk. Harte and Jan has been really exciting to hear to this and I'm sure definitely colleagues and other participants also are interested to hear from you more. I'll get back definitely to you with some follow-up questions on that but let me just pass this now to Connie for the next question. Thank you very much Amir and you see ladies and gentlemen what we're trying to do is sort of put down the ground and I will really see that you the observers the audience have already put some very interesting questions into the chat function. Please continue to do so. We're going to get there but of course we haven't addressed everybody yet so I'm very happy to bring into the conversation Doris Letina and Doris is the Vice President of the European Council of Young Farmers. As I said she is producing hopefully great apples and affordable apples based in Slovenia now Doris being primary food producers farmers are of course at the heart of our food system but you have to watch these days all these three aspects you have to sort of work economically quite obviously you need to take care of the environment even beyond your farm and you sort of have to look out for the social aspect. So is that something that provides or that is a challenge for a farmer doesn't he or she have enough to do to actually till the soil to see to it that apples or the flowers don't freeze when suddenly it's too cold? Thank you Connie first thank you to have me here Yes being a farmer especially being a young farmer is challenging for itself if you like me I will highlight three main challenges that we are facing as young farmers not just young farmers as farmers but still access to land access to finance and of course decent income and then access to knowledge. I'm very glad that different stakeholders are here today different stakeholders that also can help to address these challenges so if we start access to land for farmers there is strong land concentration there is also low degree of mobility in transfer then price of the land it's pretty expensive and we cannot also forget about urban sprawling that is first if we want to to start farming we need when we can produce the food that we are talking about today so how to nutrition food then secondly we also need knowledge with knowledge so knowledge and innovation that needs to be accessible affordable for farmers and of course useful I just point out here connection between researchers and farmers that needs to be not just on paper but also in the field and one of the important place for exchanging of knowledge it's also the event as today I'm sure that these different links are helping to exchanging knowledge and skills also peer-to-peer learning it's extremely important to mention mentoring system not just in the sector but also outside the sector for sure one of the most effective way of knowledge transfer then sharing experience best practices also the worst practices because that's also something where we can grow as I mentioned and the event that is today but all the knowledge it's useful if you cannot put it in practice and this cannot happen with all access to finance we were talking today about affordable food of course that's very important but if there is no decent income for farmers we cannot have sustainable production we cannot have healthy food we are talking about and young farmers are not just a decent income also access to finance in general young farmers are more often rejected by banks in sector with all finance it's not possible especially in this extraordinary times and when in these times being good is not always enough and development in agriculture development it's the only constant so investing in environmental friendly farming strong risk management strategy then whole or direct selling then general resilience so there are a lot of challenges but not just challenges there are also a lot of opportunities but first we need to address challenges that we can start reaching all these opportunities and on the end of the day what only matters is sustainability as used that not just economical but also social and environmental I don't mean here just for the farm for the sector but also for the farmer the three young farmers will see the bright future and we will be the ones who will co-creating this sector with all of you stakeholders and I'm pretty sure that also all the today's panelists all the today's attendees can do something to co-create better agriculture sector better food system not just for the consumer to have affordable and healthy food but also for the farmer who's in the beginning of this process Doris your heart is quite obviously very full of everything that you're concerned yourself with and of course you are talking to all your colleagues around Europe thank you so much for sharing your views and your analysis I think the one aspect that you mentioned also was finance and maybe we're going to get some answers to that in the second panel but right at that moment I would like to bring in somebody into the conversation whose prime job is concerned with one aspect that is sort of being hailed as the big new thing in agriculture and that's digitization the promise of more yields digitization of innovation on farms and in the system so I'd just like to do a quick reality check with Jaroslav Ponder who is the head of the office for Europe of the International Telecommunications Union Jaroslav I've just sort of mentioned everything that we associate with the positive outcome of higher and more digitization in the industry the question is there's always a difference between reality and promise where are we in the region and what needs to happen in order to keep to the promise rather than to reality Absolutely good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you very much for inviting us on this special occasion of course as the specialized agency being in charge of the ICTs we are advocating for the enabling role of the ICTs which can change the way how the agriculture system and the food system works making it much more efficient but also taking into account the interest of the end users those who are consuming on the daily basis and they can benefit also from the ICTs in order to consume healthier and to become healthier of course during the COVID all of us we experienced how dependent we are on the digital infrastructure and how digital can change our life but this was experienced by those who are connected but there is several millions of the people who are still disconnected in Europe we are talking about over 80 million who are not connected they are in the reach of the ICTs but they are not connected and this makes us a little bit worried once we are talking about a real impact of the digital on the food systems and here of course we have the two dimensions of this one is on the side of the demand where the end consumer would like to know more it healthier using the series of the new applications providing such a range of opportunities to really to behave in the more sustainable way also contributing to the circular economy or contributing to the sustainable development but also by the end of the day also become healthier thanks to the better food and also these platforms are providing easy access to the healthier food which is a very important and growing market for the ICT sector and more and more becomes relevant but again we are coming to the question who can in fact benefit out of this when we are taking a look at the Europe and Central Asia we are still facing a significant digital divide where people are disconnected and we are only taking a look at the averages for the countries when we are diving into the rural areas where the areas are non profitable there is no investment in the fast broadband then we are really having a challenge of exclusion exclusion of the end user consumer but on the other hand very important component of those for producing and here we are coming to the important point and that the emerging technologies these days are offering such great opportunities for bringing efficiency to the food systems making sure that such technologies like the internet of things smart sensing systems, blockchain artificial intelligence for agriculture are really in use and bringing these what we would expect from the food system as the end users of course artificial intelligence is for all of us for many of us the new face recognition is something what we know from the television and from some reporting but it's reality it's happening on the daily basis in some advanced economies where the face recognition for example for swines it's a daily business improving the efficiency of the business also touching upon the health systems so from our side in order to make all this possible we have only one advocacy to take a look at this digitalization and digital transformation of agriculture from systemic point of view embedding these strategies and making sure that it's also touching all the agriculture system so thank you very much for bringing us to this discussion on this very important item thank you lovely you already heard me sort of trying to intervene as I'm having a look at the time and I think the answers in our second part of the discussions need to be a bit more snazzy into the point and Amir is going to put the first question please thank you very much Kani colleagues I have a question to Dr Arman Khoseyan the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Armenia Dr Arman what do you think it needs to be done to ensure that the value chains in the private sector can respond and meet the needs of the consumer to provide nutritious and diverse foods over to you Arman thank you very much for the question so the Government of Armenia has adopted a system approach which ensures inclusive value chain development by the more during the first introduction to Armenia within the frames of UNFSS it was reaffirmed that a cooperation especially between the Government and private sector is vital in finding solutions for building strong agriculture production and healthy does for the population and this regard investing in SMEs along the value chain is widely supported by the government as due to that small businesses are strengthened also level incomes increase jobs are created educational opportunities arise people have access to nutrition and safe food investments are made in innovative and green technologies that address climate change this acts a buffer when a shock hits and allow for speedy and more solid recovery so this is a new way of thinking and doing business that leverages on a problem of more nutrition and hunger to achieve multiple gains economic growth jobs education and a healthy and productive population in addition investments in roads and infrastructure is another point where the state and private sector meet as the more developed is the state the more infrastructures the private sector creates for the state in this regard for such country for developing country the state development and support programs are crucial one thing is certain the role of the food value chain for nutrition should not be underestimated in terms of identifying innovative ways of improving the availability affordability and acceptability of nutritious food both in the context of under nutrition and the context of overweight obesity and there is currently a push for policymakers in terms of supporting actions for the food value chains that can contribute to healthier consumption patterns however there is also a role for the private sector applying a business lands to nutrition will help identify opportunity for integrating nutrition into food value chains with a goal of increasing availability and acceptability of nutritious food thank you much thank you very much thank you for Diana has been very interesting and I would definitely want to learn more about it and I guess that's where we reach out so over back to you Connie let's continue with this as the time is also pressing yes we've got 10 minutes left for this discussion so Doris we've heard a long statement from you but you just sort of pinpoint where you see innovation happening maybe even innovation especially driven by young farmers so where do you and your colleagues look to when you say there have been all traditional ways of production all traditional ways in the supply chain we need to change that where do you look to I will be very briefly I just want to point out that we have very diverse farm in my area my own farm also across the Europe we have big farms small farms extra small farms then low technology to high technology all kind of sectors also resources are very different so also innovation that can be implemented on the farm needs to be very diverse we don't I'm not sure that the solution one size fit all would be would be good so we need to find different tools that farmers can choose and implement on the farm so as much as possible of course sustainable and it needs to be affordable and useful for the farmers thank you so much and just very quickly one sentence from your own personal experience how digitized is your upper production it defines if you're speaking about my farm we don't have very digital we are starting to do but everything starts and ends with the money so also resources are something that are the the barrier or the opportunity but hopefully it will change lovely thank you very much for that sort of personal picture that you've painted I think we've now heard several times from Doris and also from others that finance of course needs to be there but you need a financial model government support so how would you price in A finance but also sort of the concentration on smaller medium size companies you can hear me now so one financial model might fit large producers they usually want to be heavily subsidized in the context of technology improvement in order to be more efficient and to address properly all environmental issues for example on the other side we have small holders who already apply low input technology by definition because they are poor so we need to solve different problems regarding financial aspects in this area related to small holders from the financial point of view we can address best their needs by specific microfinance system or credit lines but my opinion is that these producers might have to be supported by other needs as well financial support will not bring better off for these producers if we miss other aspects I think on organization and knowledge transfer already mentioned by other participants in this dialogue and both belong to the social innovations in the food system functioning so farmers should be better connected with other producers I mean producers groups or unions or cooperatives to straighten their position in the market it is the first step but if they are even better organized they will face with unfair trade practices it is a huge problem identified in the recent research therefore policy makers should faster adoption of regulation regarding unfair trade practices in agricultural and food chain I also think about the second aspect mentioned by Doris and Jaroslaw it covers better extension service for small farmers the advisors must be better organized to improve the small holders practices for example in Serbia we have biosense institute which is private public partnership and they offer free of charge information and advice for small stakeholders for example farmer can ask and send just a picture from the field and according to all the information in the big data system will replay what kind of practices he should apply on his fields to improve production it will bring better environmental sustainability for farmers and of course will improve their practices it will also improve their income at least they will be available to support small markets, local markets with the local food, healthy food offered to the consumers so my message is to tailor the public support to meet farmers needs efficiently particularly needs of small holders in rural regions as they are vital for many reasons economic, social, environmental political whatever you want thank you thank you so much Amir thank you honey and thank you Doris I want to go back to my dear friend Dr. Hartunian from the Eurasian Economic Union as you know there are several factors outside the national food systems but yet they can influence them heavily you know the EU is a key player in a like the group of member states facilitating trade among the members and harmonizing standards and trade barriers how do you see food system approach could be sometimes affected by certain policies or standards of the EU I put you an example for example the larger scale flour fortification or salt adhesion is among the national strategies in the region to fight macro nutrient deficiencies sometimes the one of the means to control the quality of this program is to control the imports and trade across the borders and the different standards of these products in different countries could end up with countries not being able to monitor as they are willing so how do you see the EU could play a role in adjusting this in future towards healthier diets through adjusted trades thank you thank you very much for the very good question I think I'll split the answer into the three components one company is of course regulation and all free trade agreements that have been discussed between the region economic union and third states the second of course while we do that type of negotiations as you know the free trade agreement includes most of the things that you've mentioned but simultaneously we also continue work in terms of the approximation and harmonization of our internal trade agreements between member states which usually includes the best international practices and that's very important for us recently we have signed a new agreement on circulation of seeds for example which considers OOPOV and other best international practices and also regulatory documents the second important thing I would say is the visibility of our work and also popularizing say all the tendencies that have been happening all around the world that could be the policies targeted on the reduction of food waste and food waste management in general it could be policies that stimulating the production of the plant based proteins for example and we have a couple of very good examples on that and other policies that would promote all the nutrition but also a better and healthier lifestyle for the people and of the members of the Eurasian Economic Union and the third set of the policies is of course projects that we've been designing and the projects that would target sustainability as I said inclusiveness and finally also technologies some of my colleagues have mentioned technologies and I think today we have a great opportunity in terms of the introduction of those technologies that would contribute to the green agenda it could be for example the precision agriculture technologies that help us to better use the chemicals and the fertilizer in general optimize the use of the inputs at the farm level it could be the policies that promote as I said plant based protein development or food waste management technologies and many others but also to summarize I would say we are continuing to the harmonization and approximation process in terms of the taking into account the best international practices we're continuing our free trade negotiations with the third member states which again includes all the issues that you've mentioned in terms of the close border control and other issues and finally of course it's in projects that I would say target more on the formation of the ecosystem that would help us to address the challenges of implementation of the digital and sustainable agenda in the member states. Thank you very much Dr. Hartungen that has been an excellent and thorough response and definitely this to be continued later on bilaterally I have a last question from my end actually Connie will continue to Dr. Nazarov from Turkmenistan has just taken over the chairmanship of the secretariat for regional nutrition partnership platform in Central Asia and Caucasus we also heard from Jessica that holistic food systems must be in sociatal dance with other multiple sectors like agriculture, health, social protection, education etc you're coming from the health sector so I want to ask you if you could bring some examples where regional nutrition partnership platform could bring multi sectors around health to respond to some of the nutrition concerns in the region and what measures you think further needs to be taken by the health sector through the RMPP in the region to improve the nutrition situation of the most vulnerable groups thank you. Over to you Dr. Nazarov Thank you Thank you as you said first of all we are happy to announce that Turkmenistan has taken over the role of chairmanship of the regional platform of nutrition partnership for over 2 years 2021 and 2022 for those who may not know what is regional platform let me give a few examples in July 2018 many sectoral delegations from Armenia, Azerbaijan Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan, Turkmenistan Uzbekistan and also for the development of UNICEF, VOS, VAO and VAO and also announced that in response to many times of nutrition among the most vulnerable groups of Central Asia and Caucasus it was necessary to create a mechanism of regional partnership in the field of nutrition led by the state members this mechanism is aimed at strengthening the potential of structural elements of the nutrition and management system in the sub-regional at this moment the regional platform has mobilized different systems and sectors sub-regional which are considered responsible for nutrition in the field of nutrition these sectors are food products health care education social policy water supply and sanitary and even we accept the responsibility of this aspiration for example as a result of the multilateral propaganda in the field of nutrition several regional countries have already developed national policy and many adult strategic plans in the field of nutrition or several countries in the region have managed to integrate successful national program food products such as flour and salt and of course in this region successful effective events continue and research and educational works of a wide range Thank you very much Dr. Nazarov for your response to this and I give it back to you Coni I've seen I've been muted so thank you very much and I'd actually like to bring in somebody towards the end who's been listening the whole time and she and her age group are the ones driving the process they are actually of the youth community of the UN FSS Summit and Sophie Hiddiso youth ambassador from Ireland speaking for everybody around the globe so what kind of vision do you actually have how we produce and consume food having listened to everything that you've just had in the last 35 minutes what's your take yeah so today over 1.1 billion people are under the age of 30 so that's over half of the world's populations and we need a voice at the table not just for now to make decisions but for our future and I have the pleasure of co-chairing the UCA's on group for the UN Food Systems Summit and that's made up of over 150 activists and agriculturalists from around the globe that are all under the age of 30 and we are there to help hold the summit accountable to what it promises to do but also to ensure that young people are integrated into the summit decision making structure and program and what's really beautiful about the UN Food Systems Summit is that it has allowed us to have this space to also connect with other youth initiated organizations and campaigns like the World Food Forum which the director general of the FAO has already mentioned but it has also led for youth campaigns to come out of this process such as the act for food act for change campaign which is a youth global promise to galvanize action to transform food systems but we cannot do this alone this is not only our responsibility but the responsibility of governmental agencies and businesses and why businesses because I say 1.1 billion young people are across the globe that's 1.1 billion consumers and it is profitable for businesses to have us on their side young people wanting access to safe, nutritious and affordable food but as Fatima and Medina mentioned access means nothing without education so this is the responsibility of everyone and we hope that everybody here can work with us to ensure that a healthy diet does not remain a luxury for future generations Thank you so much and definitely your voice was heard and with that I thank you and I thank you all the panellists that have given voice to the program, to their engagement whether it's on a macro level or on the ground how to change the system and how to bring in those that are less privileged at the moment. Thank you very much Amir pleasure to be here and thank you and now ladies and gentlemen on the way to panel 2 let's have a look at one aspect of innovation and it may strike as weird that looking back can be innovation because some of the technologies that we're looking at are CRISPR technologies for example gene editing, agri-engineering but there are other pathways and that are for example of our food plants and we're going to have a look at what they do in Georgia. We're going to have a look at what they do in Georgia. Biology is one of the most important associations in Georgia. It's an organization based in Kartulia. In the past 8 years, Kartulia has been the most popular conservation center in Georgia. In the past, Stilops, Amsakmianobash, were the most enthusiastic farmers. I've been a farmer for a long time. I've been a farmer for a long time. I've been a farmer for a long time. I've come here to work as a farmer, and to be more popular. The interesting part is that the forest from Agilobriv is a forest that has been left to the forest. Agilobriv is a forest that has been exported to Georgia, but it's still in the past. The forest is in the form of an emissary, which is Tuis. I remember that Tuis, which was a tradition located in Tuis, and it's a very important part of our work. It's a very important part of our work. Eli Rogoza, an American expert, said that he had a very good experience in medicine. He was very good at it. He was also interested in the role of a cardiologist. He also had a very good experience in the role of a cardiologist. It's been my research over many years that the Georgian weeks are elite, superior, disease-resistant, best flavor and gluten-safe, meaning that they're real food growing from the earth. And with that, we are into the second panel. Just one quick remark. We're going to talk more about the big picture about nature-positive and climate-resilient food production. We're talking about greener outcomes and the financing of it. And I believe the Director General and the Director of the Department of Health have a very good understanding of the topic. We're going to talk more about the big picture about nature-positive and climate-resilient food production. We're talking about greener outcomes and the financing of it. And I believe the Director General said it was roundabout a third that greenhouse gas emissions today are associated with the agricultural production chain and network. Some of the figures put it as low as 18%, but whatever, it's a big percentage so it is worthwhile looking at it. So I'm not going to be alone. I have Maxime Fagaychik of UNDP as my co-moderator for this session Maxime, normally based in Istanbul and from UNDP, so the absolute specialist. Thank you for being with me and I'd now like to very briefly introduce our panel. Here is Eminence Jamshid Kogyayev, the Minister for Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan, who is a driving force for both the process leading to the UN Food Systems Summit and also the Fire Conference last November in Uzbekistan. We say hello to Elena Matejsku, the Director General of the Romanian Meteorological Administration, Vice-Chair of the WMO Standing Committee on Services for Agriculture. We say hello to Dua Abdel-Motal and she has here the title Senior Counselor of the World Trade Organization, but there's hardly any organization around the planet Climate Change Agriculture International Trade that you have not worked for, so with an eagle's view so to say. And last but not least, we have talked about the industry, we have the industry here, Falkert Engelsmann for the private sector, CEO of EOSTA, an international distributor of organic and fair fruits and vegetables based in the Netherlands, but of course trading a long way around. And ladies and gentlemen, we are a little bit late in time, so maybe we tighten our answers just as much as we tighten our questions and Maxime is going to start. Thank you. Thank you, Connie. Thank you, colleagues. It's great to see you. Great to be co-moderating this session. We've just saw a quick movie from Georgia which is about the environmental aspects of productivity and clearly at the end we heard the message that it's critical to have collaboration between government, farmers and the research. My first question, Mr. Minister, will be to you if we take Uzbekistan, what concrete policies, maybe financial incentives is Uzbekistan, putting in place, has put in place already or is planning to put in place, so that this transition to more sustainable from the biodiversity perspective, from climate perspective, transition to more sustainable agriculture could actually become reality. Looks like the picture is frozen. I'm not quite sure. Maybe at this point we skip this question. I think the question has arrived and we'll bring in the minister as soon as he is back online. And in that case I'd like to turn to Dua. Can you hear me? Oh, no, we can. Yes. Thank you. Apparently we're having some technical issues. Maybe we try and suss out the technical issue. Maybe they can sort of re-dial in and ladies and gentlemen, you're all used to this happening once upon a time in a conference. Dua, one of the leading thinkers in Switzerland has recently titled his thought for a food conference. What's the point of having healthy people on a sick planet? And the question that's leading back to the WTO of trade policy for both having a healthy planet and healthy people. Thank you very much for this question, Connie. And thank you very much for this invitation to this conference. What is the role of trade in ensuring that the planet is healthy? Well, trade is a connector, right? Trade is what allows products to move from one country to another. It's what allows food to move from one country to another. It's what allows people to move from one country to another. So it eat to move and it allows those who produce what we eat to move led to the creation of global agricultural value chains. So in the context of food, I think the international trading system has an incredibly important role to play in ensuring food security number one. Then when you, you know, countries, there are at least 30 to 40 countries around the world who import the vast majority of their food. Without those imports, they would starve. So trade and food security are key. And that's the first thing to keep in mind. Then when you consider the fact that food is water, food is energy, food is land, then it becomes immediately clear that food is trade and natural resources. It's a more efficient allocation of natural resources. And I always like to take my own country, Egypt, as an example being Egyptian. The UNDP has told us that we're Egypt to try to grow all of its food and to attempt to be self-sufficient. It would need three River Niles, not one. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about the role of trade in a healthier planet and a more efficient allocation of natural resources. I'll stop here. Yes, I just wanted to specify what I wanted to get at. And thank you very much for laying that basis because that is why international trade agreements, as we've heard earlier, as we've heard from the EEC as well, what they're doing on a macro level, WTO. So would you consider I mean, you're an advisor, but would you consider the OS policies and frameworks are pro-naturally based agriculture and therefore the trade, i.e., like for example, in the EU there's this discussion on deforestation free supply chains that we want to institute even. So how does that mirror, how is that mirrored at the WTO? So the WTO is a trade organization. It doesn't set environmental standards. The environmental standards that governments set at the national, regional, international level are standards that they are free to choose. The important thing that we look for in the WTO rule book is policy space. What we try to ensure and what our negotiators have tried to ensure is that all countries have the space under WTO law to create the standards that are needed, environmental, social consumer information standards that they require. So in that sense, this is the WTO has come a long way in creating that policy space. It recommends also that governments base themselves on international standards because international negotiated standards with more acceptability are easier to use than a variety of different and conflicting national and regional standards. Now, you mentioned deforestation. This is a very good example. Countries are completely free under WTO rules to set the standards they, the environmental standards they want to protect their forests. When it comes to traded products and how those standards reflect on internationally traded products, there there's a series of rules that they might, that they must comply with in setting those standards. The standards must truly be aimed at environmental protection and not be a disguised restriction on trade etc. Thank you so much and we're just going to try and see whether Mr. Kodyaev is back Maxim and maybe he's certainly grinning so he might be. Yes, indeed it's good to see Mr. Minister back so shall I rephrase my question or Mr. Minister, was that question clear to you? Just indicate. Well, it was clear to me thank you. It is not necessary. To be honest, we are already for two years experiencing really a good change in institutional change in the policy change and it is a good change for our farmers in terms of implementing the innovation the water-saving system and of course the grinning innovation systems as well. So that was because we adopted a new agriculture development strategy for the 2020 and 2030 and we worked very closely with our partners from World Bank, EU and FAO so to give you some practical examples we developed a new promotion for organic farming and good agriculture practices and our main focus is currently on defining the specific standards for organic production and certification in line with the internationally recognized practices and according to our new program in this year we are going to introduce around 200,000 hectares for organic farming and that would be three-year program which starts from this year and they are upscaling the introduction of the good agricultural practices and certification system for 500,000 hectares I think and we have quite a number of the comprehensive incentives for the producers and in addition starting from this year again we launched a educational program for bachelor's and master's students to allocate 120 scholarships annually for organic production system specialists and it is very significant efforts of the government to achieve a sustainable agriculture practices in line with SDGs and in February this year we committed to establish and develop a new integrated agriculture knowledge and innovation systems as everyone knows AKIS to create a sustainable mechanism for farmers and producers in order to access the necessary knowledge and services at all levels and of course we have this year we made a very big jump on the water-saving system and we introduced almost 200,000 hectares and we applied the water-saving system there it is almost like ten times more than the last year because not only the scarcity of the water but we believe this is the only way how we can actually make our agriculture more sustainable and of course we have many many pilot incentive programs which are aimed to promote the uptake of new technologies and of course the water-saving technologies, smart innovation and harvesting technology and investment in targeted sorting, grading, storage and processing technologies and it's just a very brief introduction I don't want to take much time of yours on introducing our new systems so as a final as a chairperson I strongly encourage all our countries in the region and development partners to mobilize our efforts to work together towards the global food system summit thank you Mr. Minister this is amazing input we've worked very concrete things that you're doing as a as a government I think it's because this session is going to be recorded this is empty this is for learning from you for others to get in touch with you and learn. On this panel we have a voice which is actually a person who is running a sustainable fruit company Falkerd Engelsmann and I would like to ask a question now that we've heard what the government of Uzbekistan is doing to promote from the side of farmers those who work with these things in your experience representing commercial sector essentially is there now time to talk about sustainability becoming a new norm recognizing the production as such which is continuing to harm environment and climate is probably not going to survive not just because of environment and climate but also from the profitability point of view what is your experience and do you really make it profitable thank you for asking Maxime and pleasure to be here first of all my a big compliment for the minister from Uzbekistan for his vision and his commitment to sustainability and particularly organic farming which we believe is the future whilst not the only way to sustain farming principles by far so far the best system on the planet from a legislation and certification point of view the market is fed up with farming that pollutes the environment and is embracing fully organic and sustainable food that looks after soil fertility, clean water biodiversity and mitigation of climate change to begin with the market is fully embracing healthy food without pesticides and mineral fertilizers or genetic engineering and finally the market is totally prepared to pay premium for that after all health is not a matter of pills but peppers so to speak it's not end of pipe solutions that count is beginning of pipe healthy food that counts as the best way to more health and social inclusion and healthy ecosystems in the first place thank you so much and if we're all good then we can actually come around back to you follow cut in a moment I'd now like to address Elina Elina who is also not just working for the WMO but also the part of the standing committee on services for agriculture and we've already heard that academia that the advice of scientists has had in the last couple of years and certainly since COVID-19 a much higher standing that people are actually listening to what you say now the question is what are they listening to you have a bunch of advice you have a bunch of systems thinking and ideas of how to improve the climate change issues and the weather related crisis how do you transfer your knowledge to the farmers to the decision makers thank you Connie thank you Maxim thank you to all to be part of this event and see you all again our experience as scientists must be in the context of climate change how we could develop the best infrastructure in terms of metrology and agrometrology domain to observe, monitor and forecast in events because it will be very important if we could connect such a kind of information and data with adaptation measure to climate change for agriculture and food system we could find the most appropriated measure to reduce climate change impact on the extreme phenomena on our lives how we could transfer from the research to innovation to practitioner will be very important in the future as scientists I support very strongly the Horizon Europe Program because this program is dedicated to research and innovation in particular to food by economy, natural resource agriculture, fishery, aquaculture and environmental project in this way all institutions that have research as domain expertise and domain including methodological services could apply and to input share experiences by sharing the best practices and sharing the information on agricultural climate change impact and losses in this way we could share information to find and to offer the best scientific information to the decision makers to the politicians because without scientific information the most appropriate adaptation measure at national, regional or international level in this way regional and international cooperation on food research and innovation with particular reference I told you already to climate change adaptation and mitigation, acroecology sustainable land management or sustainable use of biodiversity, resilience and risk assessment must become the first priority on the decision maker agenda in this way we offer information and Horizon Euro and its EU key funding program for research and innovation with a budget of 10 billion euro we need to correlate also the EU green deal on the biodiversity strategy it's one of the best strategy in present correlate with the farm to fork strategy because common agriculture policy framework offer also dedicated framework for this domain to find and to reduce the impact on climate change I want to emphasize the word or say by the words when the EU green deal on biodiversity was approved, climate change and biodiversity laws are a player in present danger to humanity at the health of the green deal the biodiversity and farm to fork strategy point to a new and better balance of nature food system and biodiversity to protect our people health and well-being time to increase the EU competitiveness and resilience this strategy are a crucial part of the great transition we are embarking upon lovely and thank you very much and maybe we come back to Orient Gate later and just to let everybody else know originally we had planned to have a EU representative today however is big day the EU parliament discussing with the commission on the new way that the agricultural policy is going to go and of course with those discussions going on we lost our EU representative over to Maxime Maxime are you with me? I'm mute. Sorry technical difficulties on my side I would like to say we just heard that the European Union has one of the most advanced systems of supporting farmers through incentives and these incentives or subsidies so to say that is actually one of the buzz words these days with respect to transfer transition towards greener economy and greener agriculture amongst others. We have on our panel Mr. Namik Shalbuza from the agrarian research center this is the ministry of agriculture in Azerbaijan his deputy chair and I would like to ask him we certainly know what EU is doing on subsidies but if we take a country which is slightly different let's put it this way sorry Azerbaijan what in your opinion is possible to do in a country such as Azerbaijan maybe you again you can give us examples of what your country has been doing what you're planning to do with respect to subsidies and how these subsidies can become actual instrument of transition towards green agriculture Thank you First of all warmest greetings from Azerbaijan to all of you okay how subsidies can be tool to help farmers for adoption technologies actually in mind different technologies and to save land and water in Azerbaijan you know agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the economy and state is supporting this sector by all means and of course one of the mechanisms to support agriculture is the current subsidy system so in Azerbaijan subsidy system is actually maximally designed in such a way that it promotes farmers to adopt technologies that protect soil and provide efficient use of water resources so I will bring you some examples first of all subsidy system in Azerbaijan stimulates agrochemical analysis of soil what it means it means each producer of seeds and seedlings and agricultural other agricultural producers with so many more than 10 hectares they have to apply agrochemical analysis of the soil if they do not apply this analysis they cannot get the subsidy they are not paying the subsidy this in some kind stimulates the producers make this analysis of the soil second subsidies are paid taking into account the characteristics of economic regions natural and climatic conditions which means in Azerbaijan the subsidies are stimulating the production of agricultural products in a principle right crop in right place so it means the agricultural development with the harmony with the nature let's say so also starting from 2021 a one time investment subsidy is paid for intensive orchards in Azerbaijan and an orchard to be assumed as an intensive orchard in Azerbaijan is that dripping irrigation systems or other more than irrigation systems should be applied in that orchard only after that they can get this investment subsidies and by the way the amount of this investment subsidies is around 200 months and to 11,000 months so it's a considerable amount of money and also in Azerbaijan the agriculture agricultural producers let's say so it is highly fragmented because we have lots of farmers with 2-3 hectares even less so in Azerbaijan cooperatives get subsidies with extra 10% of current subsidy amount if this is their cooperative so it also stimulates the producers come together can you come to close we are a bit pressed for time sorry also you know we have other with the subsidies actually it is all but we have other also strategies mechanisms to which promote application of modern technologies and of modern irrigation systems one of them is 40% discount is applied for purchase of agricultural techniques and irrigation systems through state budget yes also irrigation facilities we highly appreciate that you have probably 10 more examples and that's absolutely fascinating alas we are running a little bit over time and we congratulate you on walking down that pathway and hope that you keep up the energy of implementing those positive policies and of course financial incentives and with that I'd like to switch over to do again we have these discussions and we've seen just now the example of how it can be made on a let's say on a concrete regional and national level now we have the questions of the loss of biodiversity, infertile soils, climate crisis fall out and of course they have to be priced in that sort of the modern way talking and thinking how does that reflect in an organization like the WTO which of course you always say is about trade but it must have sort of a resonance there okay well as mentioned before the WTO creates policy space for governments to their environmental objectives and that policy space is very wide in fact first of all the agreements provide for that policy space governments are allowed to set product standards the only thing we say with respect to product standards is that they must not be disguised as restrictions on trade they must truly have an environmental objective and they must be the standards must be prepared in such a way that they do not represent unnecessary obstacles to trade so the standards themselves must be relatively straightforward and not an impediment to trade even when the objective is a good one otherwise WTO rules in the field of agriculture allow countries to use subsidies to pursue environmental goals there is a green box of allowable subsidies in the WTO rulebook in the EU common agricultural policy evolve in the direction of expanding its use of WTO permissible subsidies and reducing its use of trade distorting subsidies but we also have environmental negotiations taking place in the WTO we have a variety of different subjects I don't know if you would like me Conny to comment on those now or in your next question I'm not quite sure whether there's going to be a next question so if you can sort of you know pinpoint two things and then we'd be very happy if you could do that of course with pleasure so in the WTO we have environmental discussions that are also taking place one of the most important environmental negotiations that are taking place in the WTO has to do with fisheries subsidies and I would love for this region to take note of those negotiations and to support them because we really hope and I'm keeping my fingers crossed as you can see we really hope to bring those negotiations to a conclusion very very soon now the fisheries subsidies negotiations are intended to reduce the environmentally harmful fisheries subsidies that are depleting our oceans that are driving too many boats to chase after too few fish so I really hope that governments will support those negotiations but we also have other discussions and environmental discussions taking place in the WTO on climate change how to address climate change how to reduce our use of plastics and so on so this is just a flavor Conny, thank you lovely, so nice of you and I'll hand over to Maxime indeed this is great to hear I'm very much enjoying this discussion like the point that had been made about the environmental discussions happening at the international level and like the point that was made by Azerbaijan about the right crop in the right place which I think is pretty much about the sustainability to do things right at the right time in the right place in the long-term perspective now turning again to the minister of agriculture Uzbekistan we've just heard some of them mentioning that organic is about biodiversity more than anything else however we've also had discussions happening about climate climate is big on the agenda mitigating emissions is one of the key things on the international and national policies with respect to Uzbekistan agricultural sector and its connection to emissions maybe you can just give us a couple of examples of this also thinking that the government is having with respect to how reduce the impact of agriculture on emissions thank you Maxim I will continue on behalf of minister Khajaev because of his commitment for another important meeting just he left and I will continue so my name is Alisha Shikurov I am the senior advisor to the minister as our minister mentioned we have a significant commitment on introduction of the organic more green technologies and the practices in the agri-food sector this is very much linked with the climate change and speaking about our region in Central Asia we have already the impact of the climate change is visible which is the land degradation which is the soil erosion more than 50% of the soil is highly salinated can you imagine this is the really warning situation and also biodiversity loss so I can list many many challenges and speaking about the agriculture sector we are first of all really vulnerable to the climate change and secondly agri-food sector land use and land use change sector is the contributor to the climate climate change so we should think about the both in this respect as our minister mentioned we have also significant commitment in this respect and based on the agri-food strategy which which we have introduced until 2025 we have a commitment 30% of decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions and until 2030 50% decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions of course this is really significant this is the challenging but we need to work on this we have a big ambitious plan and we need to work on this and today we have launched the national assessment of the climate change impact to the agriculture sector together with EU and World Bank and FAO so this year will be more precise activities will be will be defined and starting next year will be introduced to the practice so we would like to work in this and we have plans and we have partners so I believe in the coming year we will have more tangible results in this respect sounds great thank you very much and with that I'd like to come back to Elena you have in the last intervention sort of pointed out how the research is being conducted and what would you say from your research what strategies would you advise both politicians policy makers but also farmers to cope with the climate variability and the change for agriculture forests and fisheries yes will be very important the last technique and technology that we need to develop to offer the best information for the decision maker and policy climate change in our domain impact on agriculture rely on the modeling of long-term observation and agro-climatic data in order to establish risk assessment and to highlight the area with high vulnerability to extreme climate events for this reason the data on climate change pro-production and water demand indices must be integrated in a GSI platform in order to identify area with high vulnerability to water scarcity and road for example also the use of information and communication technology ICT technology in agriculture based on soil the use of drones wireless remote and control irrigation system data collection processing and information system to support decision makers are very important and are very best decision makers for example innovative remote and ground sensor data and tools into a decision super system for agriculture water management in our country as a pilot study for a very droughty area in southeastern part of our country offer very good information and deliver recommendation for on farm irrigation scheduling this is the best connection between research and practitioners in our field also will be very important the role of transfer of knowledge and professional training in the development of the domain in this context I would like to mention the common initiative of the WEMO FEO and meteoromania because we organized in last year in starting from November to December 2020 the virtual training course on the use of satellite product on drone monitoring and application in agrometrology in this way expert from the ministry of agriculture and national meteorological and hydrological services participate in these three weeks in virtual training course and we find the best possibility to share information and to find new technology as one of the main priority to use in decision climate change and adaptation measure finally I want to mention that only the link is between scientific community and practitioner in agriculture and food production must be correlate with the need to put in practice the scientific knowledge and thank you so much and I'll hand over to Maxime and Falkert very interesting inputs let me ask indeed Falkert you've heard decision makers from different countries you've heard on technologies what is your message so to say to decision makers to policy makers from the ground from those who are working in the fruit sector well thanks for asking Maxime I think the most important thing to achieve is a level playing field in the market where the polluter no longer gets away with a competitive advantage this is precisely what's happening now so we can talk endlessly about mitigating climate change to cut it short we can talk about people and planet but if we don't address the profit definition that allows externalization of costs to future generations it will be like mopping up the floor with the tap open so with all respect for the WTO who speak about subsidies and fisheries etc I think it would be a tremendous opportunity for the WTO to contribute to a more level playing field in which also costs that are presently being externalized are implemented in today's short-term profit definition it all starts with transparency sustainability should be measured managed marketed but also be monetized and there are plenty examples of monetization exercises that put a price on the damage done to people and planet if we don't address that long-term profitability of society at large then we can forget about profitability in general so my appeal to policy makers would be please help to create a more level playing field by means of implementing regulations targets threshold values but also by creating a more level playing field by exercising fiscal incentives that prevent that costs of damage to soil, water, biodiversity and climate change will be externalized to future generations over to you Conny thank you very much Volker and you know we could listen to you each and every one of you on the panel a bit longer, unless we have one common enemy that's time I would like to say thank you not just to Maxime for the great questions but also to each and every one of you Yamchit Elena Doha and Volker for your contributions I'm quite sure there will be some questions afterwards and we know that the Q&A section has been played quite a bit for everybody who is still on the line we will take another 7 minutes and then we are really finished so forgive us that we are over running a bit but we have such fantastic messages again thank you talking about messages there are some people who sort of take initiative into their own hands as we have seen before like NGOs on the ground and we have a wonderful initiative that we do not want you not to see and that's an initiative that is looking at the food waste everybody here is probably aware we have 30% loss at the beginning of the production then we have 30% on the consumer side and you can actually save on that you can reduce that waste and Balazer Yossi Fofsky is actually doing something like that with his NGO he is the president of Let's Do Macedonia and we are going to see what he does Hello everyone from the Macedonian rice fields my name is Balazer Yossi Fofsky I am coming from the NGO Let's Do It Macedonia we are fighting food loss and waste every single day we have developed two programs that are focused on the marginalised groups in our food systems on the one side are the farmers for whom we have developed together with FAO a strategy to fight food loss and waste in our country and develop policies that can attack all the issues that are stopping us into making a sustainable one on the other hand together with 30 NGOs in the country we have developed a network that works through a web platform that connects food entities and NGOs that can help the marginalised social groups and through this web platform we have saved thousands of tons of food every single year and helped a lot of people with the most the biggest problem in the country unfortunately every fifth person in our country has problem to provide themselves food despite the fact that we are throwing so much so much food I want to speak about the problem with Covid because it has even emphasised how important it is to save the food in this kind of situations because more and more people are in the poverty line that is why the next session that you are going to have to be motivated and help as much as possible the different stakeholders in the food systems thank you what a charming man and what a great initiative with that ladies and gentlemen I would just say each and every one of you has heard all the messages now it is time to almost say goodbye it is eight weeks to go to the 2021 food systems pre-summit hosted by the Italian government end of July and now with a brief summary and his outlook once again the FAO assistant director general and regional representative for Europe and Central Asia Vladimir your floor thank you very much Konia thank you all very much for such interesting and rich discussion I learnt a lot personally I was staying through the whole meeting and do not regret it at all it is not only because I am a host and I also understand that your patience we went over a little bit of time but I still dare to take another maybe four minutes of your time to share with you some messages and precisely 10 messages which I want you to bring with you and to reflect upon not claiming to be exhaustive first message we all agree that food systems using the old phrase is the link by grasping which we can pull out the whole chain of food security and reaching sustainable goal too food system is the key second we all agree that circular economy dealing with food waste and loss will help us a lot in promoting food security third we all agree that there is a strong connection and we need to use it for our benefit between climate change environment and agriculture four investments are very important for agriculture and we need to create good comfortable conditions for the people who are producing our food five innovation is important in all its forms not only technological but social it was correctly mentioned by colleagues speaking here sixth inclusiveness we need to be inclusive and we need to put particular emphasis on the views and contributions from youth and women and I got the message that there are 1.1 billion young people on this planet and I hope that they will influence the development of food systems seven healthy diets and nutrition it's the prosperity of our nations if the people are healthy they are smarter it's also very important for all of us and we need to pay special attention to work with the young people not to forget something that we borrowed from our parents and how to be healthy to bring it to the next generation eight at the national level multi-sectoral approach food systems is not only Ministry of Agriculture it's all agencies working and it's trade as well as we learned from our WTO colleague so the government should work together and find a way to promote it but it's also to bring into the discussion of course private business civil society and academia nine our region Europe and Central Asia is the beautiful region full of very important experiences it's very advanced in agriculture and we need to challenge ourselves to contribute not only to food systems summit but to food system development to share our knowledge and our best practices ten and final summit which we shall have in September is the beginning it's not the end of itself it's the beginning and we should stay committed to build and to develop sustainable food systems on a long term basis so we are just starting our work so concluding on that allow me to express my gratitude to all for contributing to this discussion for you to stay with us for excellent moderation of Amir and Maxim and of course very skillful comfortable and polite guidance from Kony as usual thank you very much and allow me just the final thing because I have very dedicated very good colleagues working with me I am privileged to have them and I want to mention them it's Raymond Yele, Mary Keny, Valeria Rokka just three of them who contributed a lot to this discussion so let's say together it's a noble work which we are doing I'm really proud that I'm working for FAO and I have an opportunity to contribute to food system summit thank you all very much it's such a pleasure to meet you again and to now sort of be together in the picture even and before we sign off I'd like to leave you two or three ideas one we actually see a plethora of people in organizations that are actually chipping in that are making progress and I for one see that progress is happening everywhere today was certainly an example of that the question is is change happening fast enough for the health of people on the planet and that's of course up to us and others secondly we have just launched a community based platform on food systems in Europe and Asia by the issue based coalition and that's of course in conjunction with the UN food system summit the website you can see there and we have started this conversation we have continued this conversation you can share, connect and have you say exactly on this platform and it is not moderated it is definitely for everybody to have their say and last before I actually say goodbye we would love to leave you with the voices of the young and you remember that we had food for thought and that's going to be part and parcel of it so for me it's been a pleasure to moderate this session thank you to all of the 8 member organizations behind the issue based coalition for WFPWHO WMO, UNICEF UNDP, UNEC EFAT and I think the thank you was already expressed by Vladimir so now we can just listen to the voices of the youth community and malnutrition, climate change and safe food deforestation poverty, soil erosion inequality human rights violations and abuses food systems adds to these problems we are the future, the young generations but our future is uncertain food, environment people, we are all connected our beautiful planet should nourish us food should not kill us food doesn't help to cause the earth food can be a way to create not to destroy to learn and to honor and to protect our past and our future to build mutual respect fairness collaboration we must act for food and act for change so we can have good food for all we can pledge we can act we can change our world join the movement for better food systems