 What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people, which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate-related disaster comes and you start again. It's not about how it's affecting you now, it's about how it's affecting you your entire life. The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, really there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is. To achieve the 17 sustainable development goals, we have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate-friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drag change forward. The world I would want to live in is a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope. Hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. Good morning, good afternoon and welcome to this 100 million farmers for a future session. My name is Indideed Munem, the co-founder and managing director of Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition, and I'm pleased to be your moderator for this incredibly important discussion. Now agriculture and our food systems are one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Nature and ecosystem degradation. This predicament is a double-edged sword for the food systems and the farmers at the center of the systems, because while food systems contribute to climate change and nature loss, they fundamentally rely on climate stability and a healthy nature ecosystem to thrive. Fortunately, food systems are unique in their potential to address the interrelated goals of climate, nature and food security through mitigation and adaptation. For this transition to happen, we need to put farmers who work hard to produce our food at the center of our conversation to include them in the co-creation of solutions that work for them and with them. So today we have a packed schedule for you, and the question we're addressing together is how can we empower enough farmers to accelerate the transitions in net zero, nature positive food systems so that we can collectively create a tipping point of change for the future we need. To answer this question, a session today is divided into three segments. First, we'll hear from our esteemed stakeholders who are active in considerable efforts to transition towards net zero, nature positive food systems who will share how they're doing this and the important opportunity space. These remarks will be on record and made available online after the session. Then we'll hear from the 100 million farmer platform, an effort that seeks to catalyze a global scalable effort to transition towards net zero, nature positive food systems. Then we'll learn about what this platform is doing to drive regional and country led action. Finally, we'll move into an interactive Chatham House rule discussion for participants who are officially registered for the Sustainable Development Impact Summit to exchange ideas on how to further engagement, connections and impact for the 100 million farmers platform. I have a distinguished group of panelists and I'm really excited about engaging them in discussion. First, we have Aaron Fitzgerald, who is the Chief Executive Officer, US Farmers and Ranchers in Action, who is leading the decade of ag, the first US and food agricultural sector-wide movement to align to a shared vision for the next decade. Aaron is at the forefront of designing finance, data and partnership solutions in the US for and with farmers. Second, we have Professor Ramesh Chadd, who is a member of the National Institute for Transforming India, an ITI. In Professor Chadd's rank and status of the Union Minister of State, he has been involved in policy formation for the Indian agricultural sector for the past two and a half decades. And finally, Leanne Gundel, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Bayer AG, a leader in the European Coalition for the 100 million farmers platform, who as a leading global agri-business is making bold commitments and leading difficult coalition-building efforts to drive change on the ground. I'm so delighted to engage these fantastic panelists in a discussion on how we can empower 100 million farmers to transition towards not net-zero, nature-positive food systems. So let's welcome Aaron to start the conversation. So Aaron, you've come off your annual forum, Honor the Harvest, where you convene leading farmers across the US to shape and lead the next decade of agriculture. As the farmer representative on the panel, what are you hearing from the farmers? How important are climate and nature for them? And what do farmers need to transition towards net-zero, nature-positive food systems? Aaron? Well, thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here today representing farmers. I work for Farmers Sincere Thanks to the World Economic Forum. I'm truly hopeful we can have some bold conversations and inspire authentic partnership with farmers and ranchers. You know, in the year of action on climate, the decade of action on climate change, we fundamentally believe that action starts from the ground up. And agriculture and our farmers are truly key to unlocking. You're going to hear from Theo. I'm seeing him here today. But it unlocks all 17 sustainable development goals. In other words, a decade of action starts with a decade of ag. And it is critical that we partner with farmers to fulfill their potential to our communities and the planet. We're the sector that's also most at risk. This is no longer business as usual. Eight out of the last 10 harvest season have been faced with extreme and episodic events. The farmers in the United States, we saw in 2019, Mississippi underwater. 2020, we saw COVID, a fire drill of the food system. It bent but didn't break. We also saw the derecho, 8 to 10% of the American corn crop loss. And now we're faced with fires and extreme drought. I don't think that this is just a challenge in the United States. So we are also equally have incredible potential. Every farmer I talked to has a whole list of things that they want to achieve on their farms. They're constantly working on new innovations and have ideas. And guess what science now tells us that not only have we reduced our carbon footprint and providing for ecosystem services, but we are on a trajectory to have our carbon footprint. And with innovation and bold investment, we could be the first sector that is net negative, meaning that we are the sector who can transition to a net zero economy. So we are asking every leader to step up and put their strengths to work in this idea and bold vision for a decade of ag. We currently have 150 CEOs, presidents of North America, farmers who've signed. Some of you on the line today, you're going to hear from Liam. We're also going to hear Candace Lane, nutrient ICU, Christa Hardin from dairy to our partner. It is not enough to have a vision. It is fundamentally going to take contagious collaboration. I hope we can talk about that today in the breakouts. We believe that there are three action tracks to help us reach that vision. One transformative investment for our farmers and the ag sector at a whole. We need to imagine that we look like the renewable energy sector did 10 years ago. It took stackable catalytic capital to transform that sector. We need to mobilize investment now that work for our farmers that work for science and innovation and create an usher in an era of green innovation for our farmers. We did a report this year with World Business Council for sustainable development. We now know that there's about a trillion dollars just in the US in private sector investment. If we grew it just by 1%, we would already eclipse the investment of both federal government spending and the potential ecosystem service markets. We need real investment on our farms and real investment in the science and innovation and tools. Second, we must mobilize data. Our farmers are doing great work, unbelievable work, but they need climate smart intelligence now. And our scientists need to be using the science and data and information to be predictive and developing science and innovation for where we're going to be by 2030 as we start to see the real impacts of climate change. And finally, authentic partnership with farmers. We have to build this from a ground up with the farmers at the center. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from the rest of the panelists and just excited to hear all of you in the breakout on mobilizing towards contagious collaboration in these few days as we think of the food systems forum. Thank you, Erin. I love your passion for this topic and the collaborative nature of engaging across the board. Data is critical. You've emphasized that partnerships are paramount. Authentic leadership is needed at this time. We hear you loud and clear and we're going to be discussing more of this in the breakout sessions. Thank you for your pioneering work and for your passion and dedication to the cause. Now I'm going to turn to Professor Chan. Agriculture is a critical economic and social driver for India, which holds a significant percentage of the world's small farmers. The country also struggles with high rates of malnutrition, which affects approximately 200 million individuals. Now you are the forefront of agricultural development for the country. How can policy help balance the urgent need of climate change with the realities of millions of small holder farmers and the population dynamics in India? Professor Chan, welcome. Thank you very much. Being in India realized that moving toward net zero, nature positive kind of agriculture involves strong trade-offs, but we can't escape these trade-offs. We have to accept it because it is a question of survival of people as well as planet. I would like to support the point mentioned by Erin about farmers. I feel other than economic reasons other than what agriculture emissions are there, there is a moral issue also here. The farmers were doing traditional agriculture, which was not so damaging for natural sources, which was not so damaging toward climate change, but they were persuaded to leave that agriculture and adopt modern agriculture, green revolution technology, all those kind of things in order to meet the need for food and fibers. So I think the focus has to be on the farmers in a large number of ways. The first is that farmers in a developed country, they are very large farmers, generally well educated, but in developing country, even the awareness about impact of climate change is very, very weak, very, very low. We may talk in seminar, et cetera, et cetera, but we need to think of some concrete measures to sensitize farmers that the way we are doing agriculture, it is affecting climate change. You see there's a difference between field and factory. Factory, you see that that smoke is coming out of chimney, but a rice field, 24 hours it is emitting greenhouse gases, but it is not visible to naked eye. So first I feel that we should start a campaign in a very big way to sensitize farmers about the need for different measures, the need for this change. And secondly, bird economic forum and other institutions concerned with global agriculture, they must differentiate between different categories of farmers. You know there are countries which are very food insecure, there are countries which are food self-sufficient, there are countries which are food surplus. So the trade off are the strategy which we want to suggest are developed for farmers. It must be specific to different geographies, different level of development. If you tell a farmer in Bangladesh who is not getting enough food, they are importing food about these kind of things, I don't think that they are going to listen. They need to have different approach for India and Bangladesh and different approach for US and Europe. Then thirdly, I feel that in terms of public support, the biggest support is needed for R&D on climate smart agriculture. I read a lot of literature about what they are doing under climate smart agriculture, but what they are doing is not to reduce the emission, they are just doing and guiding farmers. If you adapt your agriculture, your sewing date, your particular operations like this, then the impact on your crop and income will be minimal because of climate change. But I read a lot of literature on these climate smart villages. Their focus on reducing this climate footprint emissions is very, very less. They are focusing on climate smart agriculture, meaning the agriculture which is not affected by climate. Not that the agriculture which is affecting climate. Since this is a two-way-carget-factor relationship, we must distinguish this that climate smart agriculture doesn't mean we are keeping income of farmer intact. It should also mean, along with that, that we are reducing this footprint of whatever way we are doing our agriculture. And for that, I think a lot of R&D is needed, a lot of changes are needed, but we are doing in a few minutes, just to tell you that we have one national action plan for climate change. Under that, we have eight sustainability missions, three or four missions are related to agriculture. We have a solar mission. If a farmer wants to replace the diesel pump set with a solar pump set, we are giving significant amount of subsidy and encouraging farmers to shift from diesel-operated pump set to a solar-operated pump set. And he can also, he can also sell surplus power, surplus electricity, generated from solar panels to the grid. Those kinds of provisions are also being made. Second is that we know that conservation agriculture is another way that after paddy, when you are preparing for wheat crop, if you do not cultivate it and go for direct sowing without delays, some kind of minimum delays are zero delays. That requires specific kind of heavy machineries. So we are giving financial support to the farmers that you go for these kinds of machinery, which support conservation agriculture, and that is being adopted in many states. Also, we are encouraging farmers to change the practices they are doing live. There are two methods of growing rice. One is you transplant, another is direct seeded rice. If you go for direct seeded rice, it makes a lot of difference. So we are some of the states, you see, in India, central government as well as states. So they are encouraging farmers that if you go for these kinds of practice, you change the practice and we encourage you in different forms. That is the other way that we are encouraging farmers. Another center which we are giving, I just, that is the last point, is encouraging farmers to grow agro-fresty. Agro-fresty on field ones, agro-fresty so that you have this crop, livestock and the tree kind of farming system. And that is also a suppressing. For that, we changed the regulation also in some states because felling of tree was not allowed. We changed those regulations. And we are also giving some subsidy for purchase of plants for growing in agriculture field. So it is difficult area. The designing of incentive is not as easy as giving fertilizer subsidy or prices for kind of things. So you require technical knowledge and combine that with the structure of investment. So in brief, this is what I would like to clear in the time later. Thank you. Thank you so much, Professor Chand. I commend India's dynamic leadership and the different innovative steps you've just described. You've reminded us that one size doesn't fit all. We need to accommodate and plan for farmers in different parts of the world who are at different stages of their journey towards climate smart agriculture, the need for R&D, appropriate technology and incentives for farmers to make the switch. And I applaud India for so many of the amazing incentives you've just described from the pumps to the type of crops to the types of seeds and even agroforestry. We'd love to learn more about the amazing work that India is doing as we progress. Let me move on finally to our third panelist, Liam. In recent years, we've seen a shift in Bayer's strategy. You have a net zero GHG emissions target, but it's not just emissions you're concerned about. Bayer is hard at work to reverse biodiversity loss across the globe. Additionally, you plan to support 100 million smaller farmers with sustainable solutions. Tell us as a private sector actor, why are you taking on these commitments and how will you help to empower farmers in their transition? Liam? Yeah, thanks a lot, indeed. I'm very excited to be here. And let me say a big thanks to Erin for shouting out the voice of the farmer. It's super important that we started with that. And thanks a lot to Professor Chand for highlighting that it's not just about increasing productivity and ensuring income growth. It's about ensuring that agriculture is done in a manner that is really respectful of planetary boundaries. And I think this is the core conundrum that we're facing from a Bayer point of view. The way we look at the world is there are only a handful of really big challenges that we need to solve, one of them being climate change. And we think that transforming the food system and through that the agricultural system is a key part of actually addressing climate change. Right now, agriculture is positioned clearly as part of the problem of climate change. We have a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, different parts of the world. It might be methane in India and APAC and microcarbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide and other parts of the world. But we have a serious problem. And as Erin already pointed out, this is actually one of the few, if only, industries in the world that has the ability to actually sequester carbons, not just reduce emissions on the field, which we have committed to do, but actually to transition the entire economy towards a net zero economy. So this is something that we take very, very seriously. We're working together with many partners on topics, for example, like carbon farming, where we basically have verified methodologies that ensure carbon is sequestered in the soil. And I think here this is really about the paradigm change. It's a paradigm shift in how we view agriculture. Because for basically, since mankind has been around, we've looked at agriculture as the source of our food and we paid farmers for what they produced. We did not pay them for how they produce. And I think this is where the paradigm change comes in. We need to incentivize farmers for sustainable practices. And if we do that properly, we open up a new income stream for farmers. We pay them to do the right thing for the planet. Consumers benefit because they can benefit from food that is not just healthy, but that's also climate friendly and planet friendly. And through that, you basically can get a virtuous circle in place. But this is a difficult undertaking. It requires a tremendous degree of collaboration. There's no one company or institute or government who can tackle this alone. This requires public-private collaboration. It also requires a degree of access to technology, particularly digital technology, to track and verify that carbon has indeed been sequestered. It requires educational awareness. Farmers need to know what practices they need to use that needs to be tracked and verified as well. And it requires new financial incentivization mechanisms that do ensure that the farmer gets paid for doing the right thing. I think today we actually have all the tools in place to make sure that we can feed the world without starving the planet. But it requires a massive effort. And my concern a little bit is we're not moving fast enough. I think we have a very grand vision. And I think everybody around here will all buy into the vision of the UN Sustainability Development Goals. But we have got to move faster. And this requires stronger collaboration. It requires better use of available innovation. And it also requires a more inclusive approach, particularly on the farm and particularly in the Southern hemisphere because a lot of women are actually doing a lot of the work, but they're not getting properly remunerated for that. So as we think about how to approach the challenges for the future, I think they've got to be farmer-centric if we want to transform the food system. There's got to be a strong focus on collaboration, particularly public-private collaboration. And our overall approach has to be very inclusive and then I'd be confident that we can not only go far towards achieving our goals, but that we can go faster as well. And with that, I'll hand back to you indeed. Thank you. Thank you so much. You've pulled the words out of my mouth. Catalytic financing, innovation, a sense of urgency, speed, engagement across the board, private-public partnerships. But as you were speaking, I was like, wow, the financial requirements are huge. We have to think out of the box as we think about this concept of catalytic financing and incentives for farmers. And I'm going to come back to Erin. What can we do to truly galvanize both public and private funding to address some of the challenges you and Professor Chan and Liam have identified and to actually push us to achieve the goals that we're all collectively speaking about with this sense of urgency that we have no time to waste. Eight harvest left. Where can we start? Erin. Yeah, I think the economics are front and center. That's what I hear from my farmers. And we need new financial tools. So case in point, we see ESG investment growing rapidly. If you look at those financial institutions, largely they're looking at the renewable energy sector as the solution. We want to make certain that agriculture is seen front and center as that investment to support our economic growth of the sector and investment of our farmers. There's ways to do that. In Q3 of 2020, we saw $10 billion in green bond commitments from the private sector of which agriculture was not included. We can develop new types of tools that have long-term investment for our farmers. When our farmers are out there, they're making decisions for 10, 20 and 30 years. We need to think about this as a perpetual asset similar to how we invest in highways, airports, and other large capital infrastructure that has long-term resiliency for communities and now the planet. We need to develop new financial tools for our farmers to deploy these climate smart solutions on their farms. Additionally, we need new forms of risk mitigation. Our farmers are front and center in climate change. We're going to need new insurance and financial risk mitigation tools that wrap around these financial instruments. So we've got to bring all the wisdom of the financial sector to bear in partnership with our farmers and partnership with our ag technology community as partners in this so we can really get the investment that's needed to mobilize the solutions. Thank you so much, Erin. I mean, you hit it on the head. And I'm excited that these conversations are already going on in the farmer community and that key stakeholders are being galvanized to address them. Professor Chan, as you were talking, I was reflecting on the fact that a country like India, like many of our countries in Nigeria, are grappling with so many demands on resources from COVID, addressing COVID to addressing all the other economic and social challenges. How can we really galvanize the financing required to make that switch and to incentivize farmers financially to actually grow in a sustainable way? And what are your thoughts on what other countries can do to also learn from how India is financing these transitions? I take it in a somewhat broader sense and in the context of smallholder agriculture, it is very clear that if we want to transform food system to achieve the goals of climate change and sustainability, we need new knowledge, we need different and more capital. And as I said that farmers are not aware, so we need to create awareness that will also require resources that will also require some mechanism of taking messages toward farmers. I feel that participation of private sector in the food system, not only in production, in the entire food system, the way it is defined is very, very important. For instance, if we want to sensitize farmers, we know that personal extension is turning very costly. So private players, they can adopt digital means, digital platforms which are becoming very popular these days to sensitize the farmers about these kind of things. Regarding finance, I will again divide into category production finance and value chain finance. Still in India, we have done a lot for production finance. We have been keeping some minimum allocation, requiring banks to allocate at least 15% of their credit to priority sector like agriculture, cooperative, that is one thing which we are doing, but much more need to be done. Another way that private sector can meet even financial need of the farmers is through the system of contract farming. That is very, very important. Government of India and many states in India, they came out with new kind of regulation to encourage public and farmer participation through the system of contract farming so that private sector take their knowledge, take their seed, whatever technology they feel is good to achieve our objective, along with meeting the financial requirement of the farmers. We already have model in different pockets and they have shown very encouraging results. But we need to pay attention to value chain finance that is very, very important. That is important for private sector. Also, that generally what is our experience in India that even banks are not very happy to give this value chain finance. They have to go to private sources or non banking finance companies which charges much higher interest rates. So I feel that role of private sector is very important. Both in terms of giving some capital and finance to farmers and also in participation in value chain to get finance from some sources to have efficient value chain. Thank you so much. And we're going to start rounding up our panel. I'm going to come to Liam first with this rapid fire question. There are only eight more harvest until 2030. Eight more harvest until 2030. Let us sink in. What key actions are you committing to take to make this transition possible with enough urgency? And how are we galvanizing other private sector players to be at the forefront like bear? A quick response please. And then I'll come back to my two other panelists for just a 30 second charge. Yeah, thanks a lot. So we are completely committed to working in alliances and coalitions with like-minded partners along the entire value chain to essentially enable 100 million small holders by 2030. And we've realized after many, many, many years of trying to do things alone that we weren't making enough impact. We can only make an impact if we work along the entire value chain and help connect the dots and ultimately connect the grower to the consumer and make sure that the grower is producing what the consumer wants but that they're also producing it in a manner that the grower, that the consumer is willing to pay for. This is going to be key. We have one wonderful example with Professor Chand in India who was on a session this morning called Better Life Farming. We started with 20 green chili farmers in India in 2016. In the meantime, we're at 400,000 farmers working in an ecosystem where we have connected the entire value chain, many other companies, also insurance companies, finance companies and lots of companies that involved also political support. I think it's these types of initiatives that we need to scale up to make sure that we can really achieve our targets in the next eight harvests. Thank you so much. More partnerships like yours, their Indian government. Erin, 30 seconds, what's your charge? For those that are in the United States, I would say get involved. I think Lea mentioned partnership is key and so we're really asking for all leaders in action to work on the Decade Act together. And then second, I think Dr. Shan mentioned, we really have a job to do to bring awareness about the role agriculture can play as a solution. So it's up to all of us to be out there and highlight the potential that is really lying under our feet. We just released a film today. I'll put it in the chat. I'd love everyone to get involved and be out there and really be advocates really for what the potential is so we can get investment and we can inspire technology for our farmers. Thank you so much. Prof. Chan, your final words, 30 seconds. I think two more sources which are becoming very important. One is the role of startup in connecting farmers to financial institutions. A lot of startups are coming to connect small farmers to sources of finance. And second is some funding under corporate social responsibility. We have started one aspiration district program in backward districts of the country and we were successful in persuading some of the corporate to make investment in a public good kind of activity and that is happening. So I feel that along with other these two sources are also very important. Thank you so much to our esteemed panel for their terrific insights, pioneering work, visionary leadership and collaborations. I appreciate your efforts and I give you a round of applause. Please keep it up and we are here to support you and champion the cause. Now it's time for us to move into the second part of our session and close this out as this recorded segment out. Thank you for all of you who have been watching on the record. I hope this was an inspiring, as motivating for you as it was for me. I know all the participants on our Zoom call have been engaged and I'll encourage you to remain on the line so we can continue to create an idea together and have a more interactive session. So we're going to stop the recording now.