 map focus on the sustainability and the more resources efficient economy that will contribute to making Europe the first climate neutral continent by 2050. Under the umbrella of its flexible program, the EU Green Deal, it launched the farmers to focus strategy along with the biodiversity strategy. These two strategies are interlinked under the complementary between the biodiversity and agriculture is relevant, not just for European countries, but also for the West, the Bagan, Kaka, Sass, and the Central Asia countries. In this context, the five regional offices were led the way in the design and the development of the five regional technical platforms to accelerate innovation through the sharing of information and experience and the strengths and partnerships and the collaboration. I'm pleased that that today the AFL regional office for European and Central Asia is launching the regional platform on great occasion. The European and Central Asia region has a long transition extensive experience and has made a good progress in advancing policy and the legal frameworks in promoting a sustainable and a great agricultural system approach. This regional platform provided a digital use friendly open intra and inter region gateway for sharing information. It is a knowledge repository that facilitated connections among the expert networks in virus technical areas related to the green and cultural. It's my objective is to accelerate innovation facilitated dialogue with the objective of ensuring better production, better nutrition, better environment, better life for all living on the hand. Today this regional space on green and cultural is in your hand with your participation and the contribution. The platform will benefit from the collaboration of the partnerships with diversity international entities including the government, civil society organizations, private sector networks, your agencies and academia. Let us work hand in hand to optimize the potential of this digital platform to transform agricultural system to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable to eliminate hunger, reduce poverty and build a better future for all human kind through the closing collaboration and deeper integration. I wish you a fruitful discussion and thank you. Thank you to our DG for this inspiring opening remarks. I think it's clear that the current agri food systems contain almost half of the solutions to the global climate crisis and our regional technical platform on greening agriculture is really a tool to collect and share them. So we need your guidance, your knowledge, your experience to start now using the features of this platform and we talked now already quite a lot. Let's have a closer look at this regional technical platforms on green agriculture and we have produced a video and we will do a journey to understand it better and to see its diverse functionalities and how the platform could be also used as it stands now. So let's play the video. Is there a technology issue? Okay, it says one second. Our agri food systems represent a complex set of actions and relations. To understand them, we should consider the environmental, social and economic issues. A range of threats are challenging our agri food systems ability to provide nutritious food. Our agri food system is fragile. Over exploitation of natural resources and biodiversity harm the health of ecosystems and the well-being of people. These elements also affect food safety and security, human health and the entire food system. It's important to green our agri food systems. To support this goal, FAO launches the regional technical platform on green agriculture. What are the main features of the platform? What are its goals? And the platform users? Let's explore the platform. The platform includes information on its objectives, details on the areas of work and the three components of the platform, and also news, events, publications and related links. In the areas of work section, the three categories are natural resources by diversity and green production, green transformation, processing, transport and distribution, consumption, food loss and waste. Let's have a deep dive into two technical areas, land management, food loss and waste. You will see here a general overview on the topics, the role of FAO in the region of Europe and Central Asia, as well as information on current programs, activities, news, publications and other relevant links, and similar information on the topic of food loss and waste. We aim for better production, better nutrition, better environment and better life. Our agri food system is hungry for new ideas. Let's work together on greening our agri food systems. Visit our website at FAO.org. Thank you for this great video. I hope it gave you a first appetite on how this regional technical platform is going to look like. I invite you certainly all to visit the platform. It's available in English and Russian. There was quite, let's say, a fast overview, but when knowledge is shared and connection opportunities increased, our agri food systems will become more resilient, sustainable and also inclusive. We are focusing on the theme of green agriculture. In this case, I'm really very happy to welcome a terrific panel of speakers today. We have, on one hand, Paolo Barbieri, he's connected online professor in Sant'Anna School in Pisa, Italy. We have Valeria Forlin from the Director General for Climate Action in the European Commission. We have Deputy Minister Abdini here in the room from Macedonia. We have Ramona Dumini-Cioju, a farmer and a member of the Coordination Committee of Eco Ruralis in Romania and Small Scale Farmer Associations. We have online also Olga Leandres, Project Manager and Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, who is from the United States. We have Caroline Vongera from Kenya, Senior Scientist and Global Leader Policies and Institutions for Climate Action. And we have Roberto Azofeira from Costa Rica. And in this case, it shows also that we really have an international panel and a global panel here. And of course last but not least also Vladimir Ragmanin, the Assistant Director General and Retro Representative for Europe and Central Asia. But let's probably start with Paolo Barbieri and his research has really focused on functional agro-biodiversity, weed ecology, integrated weed management, and the design of agro-ecological low-input and organic cropping farming systems. He has been expert for several institutions, FAO European Commission, European Food Safety Authority, but of course also Italian Ministry. So Paolo, very much welcome and let me ask you the first question and hopefully you are from your research. You're providing us with an interesting also answer. We have witnessed the development of diverse concepts and approaches to make agri-food more sustainable. One of them is the green agricultural. So could you please briefly clarify what it means and why do we need to focus on this approach, particularly also for the region and what could be in this case also the benefit for the other regions. Paolo, the floor is yours. Thanks a lot Raimund and good afternoon everyone, and thank you also for giving me the opportunity to set the scene for this important event. So green agriculture, I think that green agriculture is a way by which we can synthesize several approaches to sustainable agricultural and food systems that are emerging as important ways to shape a better future for the planet and for ourselves. I think that the present period is particularly instructive because we are facing unprecedented challenges in the form of several crises, in the form of climate crisis, biodiversity crisis, and the pandemic crisis. But in my view, in this situation, there is an important take-home message. We should have learned that everything is connected with everything else. So our human health is inextricably connected with animal health and with environmental health. So this is what is called a one health approach, which is emerging in the global discussion about sustainability and about our future as the way to go. And green agriculture has a lot to do with this one health approach because I believe it gives the message that we can only approach the several challenges of agricultural and food systems if we really consider all the interconnections that we can envisage in agricultural systems. And if it is true that as humans, we are the major cause of this crisis, it is also true that we could be the major actors towards finding sustainable solutions. And when we talk about agricultural and food systems, let's take Europe, for example. In Europe, more than 50% of the global land is agricultural. So this means that if we are doing something wrong in the way we manage agriculture, we can do serious damage to the environment and to ourselves. But at the same time, if we manage it in the right way, we can achieve massive benefits for everyone everywhere. And I think these are the premises for the support of green agriculture. Our reference framework, as it has already been mentioned, is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. They are important not only because they have inspired important policy instruments like those of the European Union, but also because they remind us that true sustainability should encompass all three components, so environmental, economic and social. This is to say that if we produce a system which has fantastic effects on the environments and on the provision of ecosystem services, but that leaves little room for social equity and food sovereignty, this is not a sustainable system. So we have to acknowledge this. So the social component has to be part of the game. So therefore, the objective of green agriculture should be not just to adapt to a changing situation, but to really transform agricultural and food systems towards true sustainability. And this has to be done across every special scale, so from the field to the farm to entire landscapes, and also from the local to the national, regional and possibly super regional level. And it's important to mention that every step of this transformation process matters and that every one of us has an important role to play to meet this ambitious goal. So farmers, their organizations, food processors and retailers, citizens, policymakers, all levels of international, national and local organizations, civil society movements, and of course, scientists. So it is important that we all work together towards a common objective. So we have to act together and this is exactly why an action like the launch of the FAO Regional Technical Platform on Green Agriculture for Europe and Central Asia is so important because through sharing and collecting and discussing knowledge, we can really put the basis for a more sustainable future. Then if we want to go into a little bit into more details, it is important to mention what is has to be the approach of green agriculture. So green agriculture does not mean to provide a one size fits all solution to improve sustainability across the countries, rather it should find tailor made solutions based on locally defined priorities, but that has a common approach. And this approach has to be centric and there is no other way of doing this, other than making a wise use of renewable natural resources. And this means understanding and using agro biodiversity, for example, to enhance the provision of agricultural system services and to achieve adequate food and food production of high quality and nutritious for everyone. At the same time, at the larger scale, we need to minimize food losses and waste while maximizing the efficiency of resource use. Green agriculture also means to facilitate knowledge sharing between researchers and practitioners at any level. And this is important, as I said before, because if you really want to work together, we have to facilitate this knowledge sharing and all these technical platforms are there exactly for this reason. This is the only way, I think, through which we can really achieve long lasting transformation of agriculture and food systems. And if I should choose a buzzword to highlight the true spirit of green agriculture, I would choose diversification. Because whether we are focusing on production, on value chain, on trade, on consumption, on diets, diversification is key to long lasting success and to true sustainability, I think. And this is increasingly pointed out by scientific evidence. For example, there is a very important meta-analysis, which was published about one and a half year ago in Science Advances, one of the most important scientific journals in the world, which is showing that in 63% of the cases where diversified arable systems were compared with known diversified systems, there was a win-win situation in the sense that at the same time, we could maintain or increase production and improve the provision of ecosystem services. And this evidence, I think, is at the same time very encouraging for green agriculture, but also revolutionary because it contradicts the usual belief that systems promoting biodiversity should be financially rewarded, compensate for production losses. I would rather say that they should be financially rewarded because they nearly always produce better ecosystem services. So it's a slightly different perspective, but I think it's important to highlight this. And it is also true that recent scientific evidence suggests that agricultural systems, and approximately very similar to that of green agriculture, can also be economically more viable and resilient than conventional systems. So they can pinpoint the economic sustainability leg or the overall approach to sustainability. And I think that all these evidence are opening up fantastic opportunities for the successful greening of agriculture and food systems, and they demonstrate that green agriculture is the way to go. On the side of weaknesses and threats of this transition toward green agriculture, I think that the main one lies in the reluctance or resistance of some important actors against transformation of agricultural and food systems. For example, farmers may fear to embrace such a transition because of lack of knowledge or aversion to innovation or because they are locked in a system in which dependence on inputs and markets is the standard. But this can be changed, for example, by facilitating the engagement of farmers in participatory innovation and in creating networks of farmers that may share inputs, equipment, products, and they altogether contribute to co-create added value and additional market opportunities. So again, this is pointing out, in my view, the strength of networking at any level. There might also be resistance against change from major actors like agricultural input providers or food retailers, but actually, for example, in Europe, we are observing some interesting processes towards change in this direction, too. For example, some important chemical companies are developing new sectors like the production of organic fertilizers, biostimulants, and biopesticides, and some large-scale retailers are picking up the increasing demand from consumers to buy sustainably locally produced food. And this demonstrates that green agriculture can provide new business opportunities also to those that might be more reluctant to undertake an ecological transition. To foster green agriculture, I think it would be important to build strong alliances with already existing networks promoting the transformation of agriculture and food systems. So again, in my view, the importance of networking. For example, networks engage in agriculture, organic farming, agro-bidiversity, agroforestry, mixed crop livestock systems, conservation agriculture, IPM are examples of excellent potential allies. If I may put a final note, I think that it will also be important to have a positive attitude towards new technologies. Technology can be instrumental, I think, to accelerate the ecological transition. The important thing is to select and push the development of those technologies that serve the purpose of green agriculture and not forcing green agriculture systems towards the needs of already-developed technologies. This is an important game that we could play, and the outcome of such a game will be very important for the success of green agriculture, in my opinion. So in a nutshell, I think that green agriculture can really be a win-win situation for everyone and ultimately for our planet. And thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Paolo, that was excellent, giving already quite a number of the key points diversification. And I'm very happy because I was actually prepared to ask also the question of the economic sustainability and the transitioning. You have in this case also mentioned the fostering, let's say, the positive attitude also to the technology, but at the same time also not forgetting the farmers and the participation. So I think this was a great starting point to go further. And in this context, I would like to go also to the next speaker, and after we have discovered the platform, after we have more understanding also what green agriculture is, because for many of us, as Paolo also was said, is maybe the buzzword, let's reflect a bit more how we could move from ambitions then of course to action. I think the independent chair of the council yesterday in a side event said we want to see what are the actions on the ground and we want to see more. And I think this is also related here to green agriculture. And in this case, I think there is nothing better than maybe hearing somebody also from the European Union who has approved the European Green Deal and the related strategies from farm to fork, biodiversity and representing in this case also role model. And I'm really happy to welcome Valeria Follin from the directorate general for climate action of the European Commission to give us probably more insight. So Valeria, thank you for being with us. And the first question, which I have to you, is how do you see the role of the EU Green Deal? Actually, we have heard this already in various statements in the last two days. In achieving the transformation of the agri-food systems and in your perspective, what do you see are the main challenges and opportunities to implement these policy initiatives in the EU member countries? Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you, Raimunde, for the invitation. I hope you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you. Yes. And thank you for your questions. I actually prepared a few slides that I can use if possible. If not, I will just... If you want to display it yourself. Well, I was told that you put... Okay. Let me ask the technicians to put them on and then you may also start. Yes. So, indeed, you mentioned the European Green Deal. Sorry. Can you mute yourself otherwise I hear my echo? Yeah. You mentioned the European Green Deal, which is a strategy that the European Commission published already, well, already almost three years ago at the very beginning of the new Commission by Ursula von der Leyen to make a point that sustainability is a very important priority for this commission. And so, next slide, please. The European Green Deal actually covers the whole economy of the European Union is a strategy to achieve a crime neutrality and zero pollution and a sustainable society while leaving no one behind in all sectors of the economy, as you see in this slide. But now I will focus mainly on two of these components, which is climate and food systems. So, if you can go to the next slide, please. So, on climate, the main goal that was announced in the European Green Deal was that the European Union will be climate neutral by 2050. Next slide, please. So, how do we get there? So, first, a lot of things have already been done in the last three years. There was a law, the climate law, that enshrined this objective of climate neutrality into EU legislation. So, this now provides certainty to the industry, to all citizens that we have a legal commitment. All the countries in the European Union agreed on this legal commitment. As an intermediate step, the climate law also says that in 2030, our emissions should be 55% lower than in 1990. And this is higher than what the European Union initially pledged to the Paris Agreement in 2015, which was a 40% reduction. We decided to increase our emissions to 55% reduction. And to then achieve this new emissions target, we had to update all our legislation. And so, last July, we adopted a set of proposals to achieve this new target. And specifically for land use, which is what is interesting today. So, next slide. We proposed an amendment to the regulation on land use, land use change and forestry that increases the target of how much carbon our land and our forests should remove in 2030. And this target is to remove 310 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030. So, this is a quite ambitious target, but also in our assessment a feasible one, because the costs of doing so through improved management practices are relatively lower than in other sectors. And it's also a very, very important step, because when we talk about climate neutrality in 2050, of course, the priority is to decrease emissions. There is no doubt about that. But even if we decrease emissions at the maximum extent possible, there will still be some emissions in the economy in 2050. Actually, many of these emissions coming from the land sector as well, from agriculture and all the non-CO2 emissions, so all the methane emissions and nitrous oxide emissions that come from agricultural activities, those will be difficult to completely cancel. And so, we will need to have a lot of carbon removals in our economy to achieve climate neutrality. And even after 2050, to achieve net negative emissions, so to become a net sink of carbon in the EU. And so, our first step is this regulation that gives a target at the EU level, and also targets at the level of the EU countries. But then, in the next slide, we also have a vision that we should incentivize the carbon removals at the level of the individual land owner, like Professor Barberi was saying before, it's important to have an approach at all levels. And therefore, we published a few months ago a communication, so a strategy titled Sustainable Carbon Cycles. And this is a roadmap to incentivize carbon removals, actually not only in the land sector, but it also covers technological solutions, such as carbon capture and storage from such as carbon capture and storage. These are technologies, for instance, when you produce bioenergy with sustainable biomass, and then you immediately capture the emissions, and you store them underground in geological reservoirs. And another type of carbon storage is also when you use bio-based products, such as wood in construction of buildings. So, there are many types of carbon removal solutions available, and it is very important that we use all the tools we have and we promote all these types of carbon removal solutions. In particular, when it comes to agriculture and food production, we talk about carbon farming as a concept which is, this is about rewarding land managers for improved land management practices that result in carbon sequestration. And of course, it's very important also to consider co-benefits for biodiversity, as also Professor Barberi mentioned. And after this strategy that we published, the first regulatory step is to propose a regulation on the certification of carbon removals. This is actually what the unit I work for is working right now. We are preparing the impact assessment, so a document outlining different policy options, assessing all the options we have on the table and selecting the preferred one. And then we will make a proposal by the end of this year. So, this is mostly my area of expertise, but since the topic I wanted to cover is much larger than this, now I will move to the next slide, which is the Farm to Fork strategy, which was rightly mentioned already a couple of times as the European strategy for a more sustainable food in the next slide. So, this is not managed by the Director General for which I work, but I can still give you some data from this important paper. There is a slight problem in the slide, but I hope you can read it. So, the Farm to Fork strategy was presented in May 2020, together with the biodiversity strategy that was already mentioned on the same day. And it proposed some goals at the EU level that you can see on the slide, and it covers really the entire value chain. So, an important element that is also highlighted by these strategies is the importance of a holistic approach from the Farm to the Fork, actually it's in the title. And there is maybe 20 actions that are promised in this roadmap, and possibly the flagship, the most important one, is that the Commission will propose a legislative framework for sustainable food systems, which will also include a labeling framework for sustainable food. But not only, it's also about governance of ensuring policy coherence for everything related to food. And colleagues are working on this right now, and there is an open consultation, open for feedback until July, and the proposal will be in 2023. How to achieve all these goals? One of the main tools for the agricultural sector is definitely the European Common Agricultural Policy in the next slide. So, as you may all know, in the European Union we have a very large policy to support farmers' income, but more and more through its history the Common Agricultural Policy has moved also to support the sustainability of the agricultural sector. So, in the next slide I just want to quickly mention how the new policy, which will cover the next five years, asks member states to design a strategy on how they use the budget allocated to them to achieve 10 objectives of which climate change, environment and biodiversity are a central part. And right now the member states have presented to the Commission their plan to use this money to achieve these objectives, and they have a very large toolkit available to do this, but they also have to take into account, of course, the context of their specific situation in their country. And now the Commission is reviewing these plans. We already provided some comments, some observations that we are now discussing these observations with member states. The goal is to approve the plans by end of this year, and in the beginning of 2023 the new Common Agricultural Policy will officially start with money being disposed to farmers for achieving, for implementing certain farming practices. So this is the end of my presentation. I try to stay a bit general because I only had 10 minutes, but if you have more specific questions I'm happy to answer. Thank you very much, Valeria. Very, very useful, very important, and giving again also a good overview about the Green Deal, the concept of the carbon farming, and of course also climate relevant objectives also of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. And I think the exchange of information and using the Green Agricultural Regional Technical Platform is in this case a great opportunity. Of course there will be in this context maybe other questions. How do we handle, for example, the carbon neutrality by 2050 with now the increase of energy prices and also the current situation, but this might be an issue which we would like to maybe discuss at another opportunity. Let me turn, and thanks again Valeria, let me turn now to let's say more the practical part, or let's turn regional and globally and have experienced ideas from the region, but in this case already demonstrating what this regional technical platform can definitely do, sharing experience from other regions, North America, Latin America as well also Africa. And I'm very happy to have here the speakers. The first one we are starting in this case here in watch is the Deputy Minister Abdini from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy of the Republic of North Macedonia. We are definitely, thank you Deputy Minister Abdini to be here and I would be very much interested to hear also from you already based on the discussions, based on the definitions of the green agriculture. How could green agriculture really be beneficial for North Macedonia and where do you see also the main opportunities? Thank you Mr. Chair, distinguished ministers and participants of the FAO Regional Conference for Europe. I have the great honor to participate on the global launch of the regional technical platform on green agriculture and to present the challenges we face for the production of quality and healthy food in sustainable, minor respecting the environment and natural resource. First of all, I'd like to convey the great support that the Republic of North Macedonia gives to this initiative that will contribute to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems. FAO is an important partner of the government in creating and implementing policies and strategies in the agricultural sector. Cooperation covers wide range of areas such as land management, biodiversity, local community development, food safety, animal health, forestry, climate change, adaptation and mitigation. There has been a strong emphasis on policy and institutional support in compliance with the European Union standards and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Transforming food system is essential to achieving the sustainable development goals which remains a challenge despite the progress made during the last years. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has had like the vulnerability of the food systems and the urgent need for applying systematic approach while taking cross-sectoral integrated responses. On this occasion, I would like to present the National Policies and Strategy as well as Intervenation to Promote Green Agriculture in Our Country. In the next period, the agricultural holdings should significantly implement the concept of green agriculture. In this regard, they will be stimulated through measures of several types of agricultural policy intervention such as the conditionality of direct payments by meeting the requirements of cross-compliance agree environmental measures including organic production, support for the protection of biodiversity, measures promoting climate-smart agricultural practices that will be supported with an increased rate of co-financing of investment of promoting sustainable agricultural production. North Macedonia is highly vulnerable to natural hazard including floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures caused by climate change. Increasingly resilient of agriculture is a core national priority and key area for cooperation between FAO and the North Macedonia government. With joint efforts, the Ministry and FAO have implemented several climate adaptation projects. Two green-climate funds readiness projects have been completed successfully, preparing the country to effectively access the import-climate finance mechanism. In 2021, FAO support the government to finalize and submit the first GCF country-work program of North Macedonia containing short and long-term properties including green energy, water resources, agriculture, biodiversity, and forestry. In addition, FAO supported the ministry to develop a climate adaptation project proposal governing the Soviet region of the country. Throat improved, irrigated infrastructure and efficient management of natural resource, water and land. Forests play a key role in reducing carbon emissions, maintaining biodiversity and protecting ecosystems. Investment in the development and protection of forest areas contribute to the growth of the potential of rural areas and decreasing the potential of the production of renewable raw materials for the green economy. In the regard, the strategic goals of our government in the field of forestry is to increase the contribution of the forestry sector to the national economy and rural development through sustainable forest management providing renewable resource and protection of the local and global environment, which will improve the quality of life of all cities. In order to support farmers, foresters and other food producers, agricultural sustainable measures will be part of the agricultural knowledge and innovation system, which includes a set of procedures for creating and transferring knowledge in agriculture. Such a research project, advisory service and mandatory trainings. The Republic of North Macedonia continuously implements financial support for encouragement and development of organic production. Throat financial support programs in agriculture and rural areas, which are provided by the state budget. The national strategic goals in organic production contribute to increasing the competitiveness of organic production and its integration into the markets of Southeast Europe and the European Union. Improve the income of organic farming and ensure access to safe and healthy food for consumers and building vital rural communities through sustainable rural development. Distinguished participant of the conference, I would like to emphasize once again that the policies for greening agriculture and food production will include many more measures that will contribute to enabling local food system to avoid environmental degradation and successfully fly poverty throughout sustainable agricultural practical. The Republic of North Macedonia in cooperation with FAO will actively participate in the promotion of green agriculture in the region and globally, which includes good management of natural resource, biodiversity and sustainable and resilient agro systems. We are available to actively contribute to the development of the regional technical platform on green agriculture as an important network for the exchange of knowledge, technology and experience in the field of organic farming. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you Deputy Minister Abedini. I think I'm very happy to have heard that you were touching of course also on research that you're touching also on organic production. So very good having heard in this case also the policy level from the side of the ministry. Let me turn now further to practitioner level. Let me turn to Ramona. Do me draw you from Romania, who is also a farmer but also a member of the coordination committee of Eco Ruralis. So I think Ramona in this case will be hopefully in a very good position to give a bit the perspective of the farmer and also the small farmers association. And Ramona, you can maybe explain a bit how you see knowledge transfer and information exchange on green agriculture and also what is the role of the civil society or how do you see this in this platform? Thank you very much Raimund. This green agriculture that we're discussing here, we're very pleased to hear, we were pleased to hear from the general director talking about these three important dimensions of the green agriculture, the social, environmental and economic dimensions. And we believe that this is a timely work building this platform where we can exchange to upscale our efforts to improve, to respond to the climate crisis. It's really important for us to acknowledge the fact that agriculture is not a monolith. There are different types of models of production. There are different types of using the natural resources producing that food. I speak from the perspective of a small scale farmer, an agroecological small scale farmer. And in our experience knowledge is built really as a living process. It's a daily work. It's a way of life. It's embedded in our communities, in our culture. And it's also very much practice oriented. It's not developing these kind of pedagogical ways of transmitting the information as it exists in the formal education. But it is very well maintained throughout our region. Even though we have more developed countries, of course, we're trying now to make efforts to bring back local and traditional knowledge and local and traditional food systems that foster this knowledge. For us, building knowledge at a small scale level, it's a way of using also maintaining and developing natural resources, local natural resources like seeds, for example. I am also a small scale seed producer. And in my village, with my family, we have been maintaining from generation to generation genetic material that fits to the needs, cultural needs, culinary practices in our community. And they are adapted to the ever changing climate conditions because this is another aspect of building knowledge at local level. We are working with elements that are changing gear by year, and we're finding solutions immediately on the ground. We're building knowledge in a very, very fast pace. And yes, this kind of knowledge is resilient and it's innovative. We're building tools. We're building practices that are new, that are represent innovation. We have been developing for the past few years in our region, agroecology schools. This is something, it's a phenomenon that is happening throughout the world. And we are able to connect through our agroecology schools in the region with other regions in Latin America, in Africa, in Asia. I have come actually before being here in Poland, I came from an agroecology school program that took place in Italy, where I met small scale farmers and academics from Serbia, from countries from Central Asia. And these are, agroecology schools for us are spaces where we are able to exchange and we're able to develop political conscience. I also want to mention the fact that the use and creation of technology on one hand is useful. We are using technology as small scale farmers to access information, to exchange and promote our work, to access the market and to effectively work the land as well, and to produce food and to process food. But in the same time, technology is also a very big concern for us because there is an enormous promotion and support for high technology that is not accessible to the poor, that is not acceptable to the majority, overwhelming majority of the small scale food producers who produce knowledge, who support and provide food security for all. In many aspects we consider high technology as being antisocial, proposing basically to replace people with machines. And this is something that we fundamentally believe that innovation has to be social. Without a social component, we risk to create food insecurity by using technology in an irresponsible way. To respond to your question, how the knowledge transfer can help us transform our lives and how can we engage, we are already engaging and we're looking forward to share the knowledge we have been producing, the practical knowledge, the materials we have been producing through our agroecology schools. And in order to have a successful process, we need the participation of all the actors. For us, the most important actors are the small scale food producers in all their diversity, including peasants, including indigenous people, fisher folks, pastoralists and so on, civil society, policy makers and academia. And of course there are other actors considered, but for us these are the most fundamental. We're going to and we are, we have been participating in good will in these processes and we're looking forward to continue. Thank you Ramona for this and particularly reflecting the civil society as well as also the farmer's perspective. So let's leave in fact the region. We're not yet at the end, so I ask you for staying with us around 20, 25 more minutes, but we are moving in fact now out of the region and would like to get other regions involved and to like to see how can we bring in these perspectives working also on the green agriculture. And in this case, I'm really very pleased that we have North America, that we have Africa and that we have also Latin America available. Let's start with Caroline von Guerra, the senior scientists and global leader policies, institutions for climate action from the CGIR and she's particularly also specialized in farming systems and climate change. And Caroline, let me ask you in fact how do you see from your perspective the role of the digital platform such as ours, so using such a tool and the engagement of the young generation of farmers. Thank you. Thank you very much, Raimu, and I appreciate the opportunity to share the experience of what we see from our work, particularly bringing the Africa perspective. So what you've seen is that for instance, we have seen that there's a contribution in terms of enhancing digitalization and this is also very uniquely going to link to what you're promoting in this green technical platform. So one of the things that we see in Africa is that the COVID-19 crisis strengthened that role, the role that digitalization is contributing to Africa's productive transformation. And that we see as an opportunity for Africa to fulfill its agenda, 2063, where African Union's vision is for the continent to develop, to become very, to become climate resilient. And from my youth's perspective, we see that the young population is becoming increasingly educated. And this is an asset for us to accelerate the continent's digital transformation and participation in the platforms such as what you're launching today. And as well, what we have seen is that in the recent years, we have a rise across the continent in agritic and data-related startups. And this then offers us an opportunity to link those promising solutions to such platforms, not only focusing on the young population, but how we can also bring SMEs that are supporting young population in agriculture. Why we see this unique perspective and role of the digital platform for the young people, especially is because we have a lot of promising solutions on green agriculture that are available across the globe, not just in Africa, but this remain largely unproven. So if we can have that information on the use of those green technology in a platform and how that evidence can potentially help to accatalyze the adoption of green innovation, then we can be able to see that those digital green solutions can be able to be adopted at local context because they will be providing solutions that are best suited to those local contexts. But what we also see is that these platforms can also be able to bring evidence on contextualized research and data and information that's needed to inform what's happening at specific contexts and evidence also on what could be green technologies that offer options for climate resilience, as well as a platform being an opportunity or a platform that can also support learning and especially between regions like South-South cooperation and also that can also support us to be able to see and assess what's the progress in different contexts. So what I also want to emphasize is that the platforms can also play a very critical role, especially for us in Africa because we are trying to also be able to close the gap on social inclusion, especially how we can support the dissemination of green agriculture technologies for vulnerable populations and we've seen particularly women and young people being those who have least access to these technologies that are available. So I really think that this platform then plays a very critical role to make sure that we have not only that we are promoting technologies that make the systems more resilient but also can foster the aspect of inclusivity. Thank you. Thank you Caroline. Very, very interesting how do you particularly also see it in terms of really policy solutions making available but in this case also the transfer in both direction and particularly also the young farmers generation, how to get involved. Let me in fact move from Africa, from Kenya to Costa Rica, we have Roberto in Latin America, Roberto Asofeifa who is the chief of the agro environmental production department in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Costa Rica and Roberto has experienced unsustainable agriculture production during the last 30 years. Roberto as we have now heard from Caroline how she sees green agriculture is the perspective for Africa. What are your views from Costa Rica being in a ministry in terms of greening agriculture production and in your country or maybe also in the region and how do you see in this case also at the collaboration and the usage of such a platform for the knowledge exchange. Good day everyone. Can you hear me well? Very well, very good. Okay, okay. Thank you Raymond and your team for this opportunity to learn and share. Based on the experience of Costa Rica for 33 years in agricultural extension program, development of green agriculture production is feasible under four main conditions all at the same level of importance. A national legal and policy framework that promotes green agricultural production. This includes the role of the science and technology promoting technical options for green agricultural production. Secondly, public investment that enables producers to have the practical capacity capacities in the application of technical options to produce with use of low external inputs efficiently and profitable and at the same time protecting and improving the natural resources basis particularly soil, water and biodiversity resources. This means applying agroecological principles. There's a cultural extension program in particular development of school farms or also called integrated and didactic farms by which based on practical experiences the technical options for green agricultural production and its economic and environmental reserves are shared and disseminated among farmers with similar socio-economic conditions. And last but not least and consumer market demand for food for agricultural production systems which apply social and environmental standards. The role of consumer sector is critical to accelerate positive changes toward green agricultural production and sustainable food systems. Thanks. And how I mean maybe one one question more to to you Roberto. Where do you see let's say the the connections in this case to to Europe with the exchange of this information? Well for me in my opinion the main three areas of work in which the regional platform on green agricultural production would be a vehicle for sharing experience are agroecological principles, application and results, sustainable diets and practical indicators to measure advances in sustainability in food systems. These are the three main topics I think or areas that this platform can contribute. Very very very good. I think in this case we're really looking forward that we are using what we have already now but moving also in our second phase making the platform also more interactive that we are able to to provide exactly this purpose. Let's move from Latin America further north. We are moving to North America to Chicago to Olga Leandres from the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute and Olga is specialized in agricultural conservation programs which are focusing on performance and climate change mitigation. Olga grew up in Belarus but she's now living in Chicago so it will be very interesting Olga from you to hear what are the trends related to let's say green agriculture in North America and and how do you see this from a global level this could be addressed and and where do you see in principle the opportunities and advantages of such a platform? Thank you and yeah maybe if you could meet yourself so the echo can be introduced perfect thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to to speak so just quickly I wanted to mention what Greenhouse Gas Management Institute as an organization does to put some of my remarks in context and our organization works to construct the long-term social and technical infrastructure needed to support the implementation of climate change policies in particular making the field of greenhouse gas management and accounting more professional so our work includes training staff at government agencies and within private sector on the basics of greenhouse gas accounting and building capacity to conduct greenhouse gas management and because we focus on monitoring important verification of greenhouse gases our projects sort of focus on you know how best to account for agricultural emissions and assess impacts of policy interventions within the agriculture sector so from that particular perspective I'm going to focus on kind of the US trends in particular the the key issue that needs to be addressed to advancing green agriculture is generation of access and consistency of data about farming operations and management practices in the US farmers are notoriously private about their data and so sharing that data generating the data sets that can allow us to manage greenhouse gas emissions and quantify them is a challenge that needs to be addressed of course to to address that there's a growing growth and development of satellite imagery and kind of approaches that look at land from from space and in particular you know technology to assess ground cover and to some extent tillage practices on the land are really coming are being developed to support this the idea of quantification and managing greenhouse gas emissions this should really bring down the infrastructure and transaction costs for any kind of offset projects that are you know coming online within the agriculture sector on the kind of the the market side I wanted to mention that there's definitely a drive to shift to green agriculture as more consumers are demanding sustainably produced goods and come and companies are starting to set emission reduction targets but companies face barriers and meeting that because there are limited development in markets for new crops and infrastructure is lacking to process store and and trace commodities so currently in the US the Department of Agriculture supporting this effort through a partnership for climate smart commodities investing in development of the supply side of the market so it's providing one billion dollars for pilot projects to create market opportunities for commodities produced using climate smart practices and you know just last week the the proposal applications were due to be submitted so this is an exciting initiative that's that's currently happening so in regard to the the the platform I just wanted to quickly mention and kind of echo I think a lot of the things that have already been said that you know facilitating access to practical knowledge and community of practitioners is is very important people turn to to tools like this when they need information and trying to solve a particular issue so you know a way to facilitate or direct users to hands-on learning events and you know practitioners community of practitioners would is a great opportunity for this program to to leverage and provide thank you thank you thank you Olga for this particular bringing here also the aspects of the greenhouse gas emissions but but looking also at some of the technology issues and very very interesting this North American perspective and to hear this so we have in principle done the tour through let's say the the globe or across the globe in this region North America Africa as well as also Latin America so I think the speakers very much for for this and particularly I'm I'm thanking everybody to stay so far long behind I see we are getting certainly less and less so I don't know if there is one comment we could either from the floor or also online maybe we would leave this open for one question but of course if there is not necessarily one then we would move to do we do we have a question online not really good it's probably already quite late or for some of course also in Latin America quite early I would like to thank particularly also the ones Olga in North America as well as also Roberto in Latin America for being up so so early and staying with us but of course also the the representatives and the panel members here on stage and that brings me to the pleasure to ask Vladimir Akmanin to maybe have a bit the difficult task to summarize this debate in very short time and to bring in and summarize some of this innovative experience which have been also shared but shared but of course maybe also further forward looking from the point of the regional office thank you very much Raymond and it's it's a really important event for us and a practical action I would say that there was a discussion among regional offices how can we bring to the global level best regional practices and that regional offices may lead in these aspects when we are thinking about what can we bring from the Europe and Central Asia of course we're thinking about green agriculture and the inspiration for us was European Union Green Deal it was very straightforward it was the first large concept of living in the world not the environment anymore and it was explained today to us by one of our colleagues in the European Commission so we believe that this is the aspect which would define and which can be covered from our region with the very practical outcomes that might be useful to everybody of course we're thinking about the concepts coming out from this Green Deal and this is from farm to fork and biodiversity also being devised by European Union and we need to recognize that again the organization was the first one and maybe the only one who is doing this important work in the conceptual way and bringing it into practice in practical policies so of course we listen today to our friend from North Macedonia we listen to the colleagues from Latin America but when I talking about the region I also talked today with the ministers of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and they have also very practical tasks and very practical solutions for developing agriculture in environment friendly way and also adopting to the climate change so we have various practices European Union was initial inspiration and I believe we still continue to do it but we have a very diverse region where many countries can contribute we also understand that some methods coming from developed countries like when we talk about European Union may not be immediately applicable in developing countries because they're expensive but we also think why not to let the others know about it and decide whether they want to take it because we're living we need to look into we need to have a long-term vision we need to think strategically and I believe every country in the world deserves even if it's expensive now but just to use these technologies and to see about the applicability so we are determined to spread the wisdom of green agriculture from the platform in our regional office but the wisdom is yours we are just the messengers and those who will be compiling the methods I encourage everyone who is listening now or who will be watching the recording of that to bring your ideas to bring your practices we need to do it together and we need to enhance our capacity to increase agricultural production without any further damage to our environment in conclusion I want to thank the speakers the participants and not to least I want to mention my colleagues from the regional office Raymond Yelle, Tanya Santivanes, Morton Hartwixson, Valentino Gasparia who made this platform possible it was the first initiative that we are doing and we're trying to do it as good as possible and I want to thank my colleagues for their determination and wish luck and productive work to all of us thank you very much thank you very much Vladimir Olegovitch I would like to thank of course all the participants who are still in the room I think modern hybrid technology makes it a bit like sometimes we're sitting in a tv studio so the camera is in front of us but we don't know what is really behind but as we do the recording we are doing this not only for the life event we're doing this of course for knowledge transfer around the globe and so I would like to invite you to discover the platform on the rewebsite we are constantly of course providing new information we're looking for your information to share of course also ideas recommendations and in this case also the improvement and really we're looking forward to scale up this initiative to scale up the platform to galvanize knowledge sharing engagement in the regions across the regions and I would like to thank you again for this staying with us and wish you a good rest in the morning for some probably breakfast good afternoon and a good evening thank you very much thank you very much