 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good morning. Good afternoon. My name is Viktor Lagutov and I will be one of the moderators for this session for a webinar called COVID-19 Response and Digitalization in Europe and Central Asia. On behalf of the team, I would like to say a couple of technical notes for everyone who joined us today. And I will be saying it in both languages to make everyone's lives easier and you can test all the connectivity issues. So a couple of issues which will be mentioned is the first one, please make sure that you have the latest Zoom version installed. It has a lot of new features and it will be needed for following our seminar well. First of all, I would like to be sure that you have the latest Zoom version installed because there are a lot of different features and useful things that are needed for our event. Second point is we will be providing interpretation in both English and Russian so you won't be able to have any issues with that. Third point, we are in webinar mode so we don't have any video audio coming from the audience. For communicating with us and for communicating with the team, please use chat or current days. Chat would be only for technical issues for publishing bios for the presenters or sharing some information you consider useful for other attendees. We are in webinar mode, so to speak, and there won't be any video audio coming from the participants. So if you are interested in sharing your experience or asking questions, please use a special feature which you can find below the screen. Next point is chat and questions and answers. We use chat only for technical issues so that you can share your problems with our team. Also, if you can find a biography of the presenters, if you have any questions, please use them. The next point is that sometimes we live in digital time and we often have problems with connection. Next point is that we sometimes have some issues with connectivity indeed, and if interpreters were not able to use chat, we often have some issues with connectivity indeed, and if interpreters were not able to use chat, the next point is that we sometimes have some issues with connectivity indeed, and if interpreters were not able to translate, they will communicate verbally and continue the translation as soon as possible, so please be patient about that. Next point and final, we are live and we are running this broadcast in this event and recording it and be ready with being available online and recording if you have any questions. The last point I would like to mention is that this webinar is recorded and broadcast live on YouTube. On this note, I would like to officially give a word for some of the welcome remarks to the regional leader of the program, Raymond Yelle. On this note, I'd like to give the floor for official opening after those kind of technical remarks to FAO, your regional program lead, Raymond Yelle. Please, Raymond, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Victor. Good morning, dear colleagues, dear friends. Good afternoon. Dobri Vecher, distinguished speaker, panelists, participants. It's really an honour and a pleasure to welcome you to this regional webinar on the COVID-19 response and digitalisation in Europe and Central Asia. I'm just coming, in fact, also from the EU FAO strategic dialogue. Actually, this is still running and where digitalisation, of course, is also a key issue of the discussion. So the webinar today is really very timely because technology and innovation are of paramount importance in FAO's work and it's increasingly going to be really important. It's a key element of the strategic framework of the new strategic framework 2022 to 2031. So really for the next 10 years, it's widely recognised that digitalisation can and is a key accelerator supporting the transformation of the food systems. And the food systems itself is a key accelerator in order to achieve also the SDGs. Digitalisation supports achieving economic, environmental and social sustainability in the agrofood system and therefore it's really a key element also supporting our aspirations, leaving no one behind. So technology, innovation and digitalisation are embedded in the regional work programme with our focus on small orders and youth food systems transformation and sustainable natural resource management. Emerging technologies are already changing the food and agriculture sector, yet most of the governments or the agrofood systems actors have yet really to harness their powerful potential. So helping farmers take full advantage of new approaches such as digital agriculture, precision agriculture, biotechnologies and innovation in agroecology to increase food production whilst respecting the environment will need to be emphasis in national policies. To give an example, agri-food sector can harness digital tools ranging from e-commerce, mobile technologies for increasing access to markets to the use of also artificial intelligence for improved pest controls and grub genetics, as well as tools allowing an optimised management of natural resources and early warning of food security. FAO has launched several global and regional initiatives supporting the digital world transformation such as the geospatial platform and the digital village initiative. The digital village initiative will be definitely a key issue in order to also further transfer knowledge and science in this context between the countries and from countries where already some of this technology is already available. However, we are not alone in this process. The digitalisation activities are driven by a variety of stakeholders using diverse technologies and we are glad to see the representatives of various of these sectors and organisations amongst the speakers and panellists also today. This excellent composition of these speakers and let me thank already all the speakers and panellists for your readiness and availability to this important discussion. The key actors contributing and facilitating the regional digital, sorry for this, and agri-food sector in their respective fields during the challenging pandemic period. So many digital initiatives were completed already in our region. Many were initiated and we are expecting more to be triggered. So dear participants, the objective of the webinar today is really to present a number of technologies out of the wide digital agriculture range such as each rate mechanisms, internet connectivity in remote areas, precision farming systems, crop predictions and weather monitoring. The presentations of our speakers will really focus on the interconnectivity and the potential benefits of these technologies as well as challenges to practical implementation during the pandemic. I really hope and I'm convinced that the discussions will be a contribution to identifying the regional digital trends in agriculture during the pandemic, sharing the experience of various stakeholders, building resilience when faced with a crisis and shaping digital strategies in agriculture in post-pandemic. I also invite you to use the webinar really as a basis for further exchange and collaboration in this important area of digital agriculture and I would very much welcome further collaboration in this area. In concluding a quick remark about the series of these webinars, with this session we are closing the series of 12 webinars that we have started just a year ago with the aim of facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogues on the impacts of COVID on the food systems. I think the series provided really an excellent opportunity to exchange experience amongst others on extension services, smallholders, research and innovation and migration, as well as many others. You can have the recording available on the website of the regional office but they have been also all being made available on YouTube. So with this, I'm really looking forward to the discussion today and a fruitful exchange and of course this as a starting point for a continued dialogue. Unfortunately, I cannot stay with you for the whole session so I wish you really good luck and an interesting deliberation. Thank you. Back to you, Victor. Thank you, Raymond. An excellent overview of our meeting today and what was done and will be done by FAO in the region. Of course, digitalization is the key and of course our office is doing a lot on this in the region but indeed it's way not alone and other units and other stakeholders are quite important and it's well represented and we are looking forward indeed to what will be said. But to start it, to start the discussion, I think it would be quite great and quite important to see what was done by FAO in the region and for that I am giving the floor to Sophie Treinen, regional digital agriculture team leader. Sophie, floor is yours. Thank you very much, Victor for passing the floor and for setting the stage. So, we have been working on digital agriculture, of course, way before COVID, and let's go immediately into the next slide to really show that information and communication technologies digital technologies are nowadays everywhere. Whether it's on our phone, computer, whether we are using broadcasting, web platform, clouds, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, sensors, digital communication, robotics, software solution, internet of things, blockchain. So you see a great diversity now of technologies. And in the next slide, you will see that in agriculture, there are a lot of opportunities offered by these digital technologies. We are using them in agriculture extension and advisory services. They are helping us for a more sustainable farming, but they are also very important for disaster risk management and early warning system. With market being disrupted during COVID time, digitalization was really something important and it can really enhance the market access. We want to have to be sure that our food is safe. So the traceability is also a sector where we can work with digitalization, but not only that, also financial services and insurance. And to be a we are using also digitalization for capacity development and to empower people, communities, women, youth, and also elders. So we also have the digital skills to improve the usability of digital technologies. But this cannot happen if you don't have a regulatory framework. And this is why we are also working on strategies and making sure that this is embedded into national programs, agenda, and that everybody is involved. So let's move now to how is the digital divide. It is unfortunately still a reality. It is a reality and it is more so even in rural areas. During the COVID time, there was an increased demand of connectivity for e-commerce, e-health, teleworking. But in rural areas, and some of us connected today are really facing this, the connection isn't stable, irregular, of poor quality, and we pay the same price as in the cities. So they are still room for improvement. And we realize that there is a lower use of digital technologies in agriculture and rural areas. And this is specifically true for small older farmers. And this is mainly due to poor services and lack of investments, investments from farmer's side, but also investments from public sector sites. So let's see how is our region and these challenges. So the human challenges in our region can be embedded in these different factors. The young generation is living rural areas and we need to attract and keep the rural areas in agriculture as attractive for the young generation. Because our farming population is really aging, the average age of a farmer is above 50 years old. And the majority of farmers are small older. And with the COVID, we have seen that due to the seasonal migration, there was shortage of farm labor. So this is something that was already an issue, but that has been exacerbated during the COVID pandemic. We also face another problem is the negative connotation of the word cooperative. So we need to really enhance collaboration, cooperation among the small older farmers. And some farmers, not the young one, but the older generation has a conservative attitude towards technology. And women and elders and poor people have left access and control over technologies. And because a lot of issues are related to the digital skills. So let's move now to what are the challenges in the next slide of a small older farmers. So in the region, the farm size varied a lot. Because we have very small farms to extremely big and still they are called small older farmers. So it's really depending from one country to another in the region. And what are the issues is that the technologies are sometimes available but not always adequate for small farmers reality because you need to have a larger farm to be able to do that. So what we have to make sure is that small orders are not excluded from policy in incentive and rural services. And we also have to face another challenge is the capacity to generate use and manage data and information at all levels, whether it's farmers, service producers or regulators. And so access to and control of data in the agri-food sector is also still something that we need to work on due to the limited integration in market change, the limited decision making powers and unclear on farm data ownership. Whether it's a farmer or is in the private sector or the government, so we need to also regulate this and have clarity. Let's move to the next slide, please. So all these issues and challenges can be summarized with keywords and we are using some of these. So be sure that technologies are accessible, affordable appropriate, adaptable and actionable. And this is related to replying to the barriers I've mentioned to you about the connectivity, the cost, the content, to have good content localized context, which is really replying to the request and the needs of the people or in local and rural areas. The capacity at different levels, whether it's institutional or whether it's individual, and we need to also have trust in what is being done and confidence in using these technologies. This is why we should reply with a people-centered approach using participation and partnership from the different sectors, participation from the different actors in the society and the partnership between public, private, civil society, academia. So this is a long process and it should be based on learning lessons from the practices, whether there are failures or successes. So hopefully we should keep this digital transformation simple, sustainable, and as an approach, a system approach. And the publication there, it's really to show you that all these aspects have been covered in the publication on gender and niceties. So how is FAO responding to this? So we have help having guidelines to actually develop a national framework. We are looking at the gender issues and taking really the people-centered approach. On a regular basis, we are doing a regional assessment. We're also doing national assessment. And the latest publication with ITU is on the status of digital agriculture in 18 countries of Europe and Central Asia. And the Russian version of this publication will be able available this year. But all the work that we are doing, as mentioned by Raymond Yelle, is embedded in the work and the program of work in the region and with the member states. And so we are also sharing you these documents. And then, of course, things are moving and I have also added from France to space, from space to France, sorry. And we will be able to talk about this in the panel discussion. So in a conclusion, in the next slide, you will see that a conducive environment for digital agriculture requires this inclusive approach that I mentioned, people approach, not leaving any one behind. That we have to improve the infrastructure, both for ICTs and also in the agriculture sector. We still have to increase awareness on what are the benefits, the challenges that have to be overcome. And it's important that we continue sharing knowledge, sharing good practices. And we will not bridge the rural digital divide if we are not improving digital skills. So this is something that we are also working on. And this should be embedded in a regulatory framework conducive to innovation and that takes into account the specific cities and the risk that digitalization entails. So this gives you setting the stage. I think we have some technical difficulties a few are not hearing you. Thank you. I'm giving you the floor, Victor. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Again, it's a very good overview of what was already done and what is to be done and how digital agriculture depends on many sectors and many prerequisites, I would say, and it's great that you outlined all those elements. Out of all those variety of prerequisites, maybe connectivity to rural areas will be one of the main ones, and one of the major obstacles. And on that note, I'd like to give the floor to Yaroslav Ponder, who is coming from International Telecommunication Unit. Yaroslav is head of European Office of the Union and who's better than him can represent the digitalization and connectivity trends in the region. Thank you very much. Please, Yaroslav, the floor is yours. Yes, thank you very much, Victor, and thank you very much, Sophie for inviting ITU to this very important dialogue on the digitalization of the agriculture, which is very close to our farts. With ITU being the UN specialized agency in charge of the ICTs, we are paying very much attention to the connectivity, but also to the meaningful connectivity. It's not only about providing the cable and to the home and to the unit, but also to build upon this what creates real value proposition. And I think that this value proposition in case of the agriculture can be really much more strengthened, but certain parameters have to be also addressed and many of those already selfish as addressed. Thank you very much, Sophie. In the preparations towards the World Telecommunication Development Conference, which is our milestone conference discussing all digital transformation undertakings by the government and taking a look at how to accelerate the transformation, transformative power of the ICTs for the SDGs. We have prepared and took a look at where we stand with the connectivity. And today I have the pleasure, not speaking on behalf of the European region, but also our colleagues from the CIS region and to the office, which is placed in Moscow. So we encourage you to download those two publications as they're going a little bit in depth and giving good understanding the challenge of the connectivity in the context of digital transformation. Next slide. So of course, all of us, we have the feeling that the world is becoming mobile and this is true. And it's true for all Europe and Central Asia, as we see on those graphs. Equally, European and Central Asia countries are well connected in terms of the providing the access to the ICTs through the mobile connectivity. Usually going up to the 4G, but now you're entering in the new phase of implementation of the 5G and many countries are just working on this important journey which requires additional investment. But the technology which will offer us not only to make the real Gigabit Society in reality, but more importantly providing also the proper foundation for digitalization of the sector and providing the sector the possibility that Internet of Things smart agriculture and smart production becomes reality that artificial intelligence about which we are reading so much in the context of the of the agriculture sector can really debug and to grow in terms of the applications of different services. So next slide please. So this is the reason why we are also taking a look at the use of the mobile telecommunication in terms of the mobile broadband and we see that when we are diving in those numbers already and the use and the number of the subscribers is very different and diverse and very different from this what we've seen from this just simple subscription to the mobile technology. So let's keep in mind the connectivity is good, but the quality of the connectivity and the access to the broadband through the mobile technology has an important meaning and when we many of you going through the countryside very often experience the lack of the connection and the connection and the service, basic service, voice service. So in order to change this we need to also make the systemic change which we will be talking about just in a second. Next slide. So also, let's take a look at the broadband fix broadband connectivity, which is taking off, but not that fast as possible. It could be and requires much more attention that urban versus rural connectivity is still becomes a significant challenge once the urban networks are very well connected in the rural areas, we still do not have the proper roll out of the broadband and in different countries, it rolls with different dynamics, and it's not only the advocacy and the challenge of the policies and the regulators, but also of the digital of the ministers of agriculture, and those who are creating the significant demands, because without this infrastructure, we cannot progress with the next layer value at its proposed by the services Next slide. Also, when we are taking a look at the pricing, we see, and that in terms of the pricing, even though most of the countries in Europe and Central Asia are below the target of them. The UN Broadband Commission has set by the United Nations Broadband Commission commissioners to be below 2% of the GNI. But still we have some countries where this connectivity is a challenge. It's a challenge for the end users who should benefit from the daily connectivity, but also for those who are using this in more entrepreneurial Next slide. Also, when we are taking a look at the issue of the digital skills, what Sophie already mentioned, we see that the dynamics in Europe and Central Asia is very different and very significant efforts need to be dedicated because we can face the situation that even though we create a lot of services and value proposition coming from the ICT industry. Unfortunately, the end user will not be able to use it properly and this is the challenge which we need to address from the more systemic point of view to make sure that all this innovation is embedded and adopted from the inception point of view and not just later on just to become the following. Next slide. Of course, we have the challenge of the gender. These are the data for the global reach and global average. We see that we have around 5% to 7% depending on the country of the difference. Once we are taking a look at the desegregated data, at the rural areas, these data are looking even worse, and this makes us really worried. And this is some space where we really hope to advance in the near future much stronger. Next slide please. So what has to happen also to make this change? In order to unlock investment in the non profitable areas and to bridge the digital rural divide, we need to make sure that enabling environment provides the conditions for the investment. And that's why we're monitoring the enabling environment in all countries and as you see the dynamics looks very different. Because of the assumptions and the strategies of the countries, but also because of the speed of adoption of certain good practices coming from the different countries. So there is still the work to be done in order to reach this golden reference point, the generation fifth of the regulation, and by all countries what is happening already progressively, but very slow. So next slide. So there are several items to be addressed in order to make the progress, but once we are coming to the diversity of the items and moves to be done in order to accelerate digital agriculture expansion, we need also to take a look at the cross sectoral collaboration. And this is something what is very close to our heart. And this is something what has been advocated. Next slide. When we are talking to the membership, when we are designing the regional initiatives for Europe and thank you very much. FAU and also other UN agencies and the community of FAU for advocating this when we are discussing about this with the ICT ministries. So just to close, I encourage you to take a look at the different origin initiatives and the synergies between this what we are doing as the ICT community. And this is what we are creating together with FAU bringing into the discussion these two communities. So just to close, there are several groups, the liberators of the joint work with FAU and we are very proud of this collaboration, and we just draw attention to the recent developments on focusing on the activation of the ICT centric ecosystem targeting specifically agriculture and we hope that you will be able to see very soon the excellent compendium of the over almost 200 digital solutions which are making change in the way how the digital agriculture functions providing the solutions to those who are in the business and looking how to increase the efficiency through the digital. So we look forward to the great collaboration and also to the great discussions during this session and thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Great, great. Thank you so much Roslav. Excellent overview of what was happening and we're always happy to collaborate and open for that. Of course, digital agriculture is a huge area and there is a lot of different technologies. Sometimes you can do things without connectivity, but it's very relevant and very important specifically for small holders in remote areas in challenging locations as I would call it. So on this note, I'd like to give a floor to Hank Tran who is working on this topic, trying to bring connectivity and internet to the areas without it. Coming from Panacea. Hank, floor is yours, please. Okay. Victor, thank you so much. It's an honor and privilege to be here with you all today. That was really great presentation from Sophie and J. Osloff. I've learned a lot already, you know, from looking at some of the items that you guys are working on. That's amazing. So, as Victor mentioned, I'm from the private industry. I work for SES and I'll go through some of the things that we do. Please. As we all know, prior to the epidemic, a paradigm shift toward digitalization, technology was well underway, just that COVID-19 have really, really speeded up the adoption of technologies. I think I've seen it somewhere in statistic that within, instead of doing this over five years with COVID-19, it really pushed it up in a few months. As you can imagine, last year when COVID happened, all of a sudden, you know, we were asked to do the remote work. The kids were asked to stay home to do this and learning. As Sophie mentioned earlier, it's fine for the first world countries, however, in a lot of the rural places, such as in Africa or even here in the US in the rural area, it was not that easy for some of those people to do these basic things that we take for granted, such as connectivity, right? So everything has changed for all of us such as telemedicine, just being able to do the basic things and we couldn't do it. So for example, I do support a lot of the UN agencies and definitely in Central African Republic in Bangdee. When it first happened, the UN staff was not able to do a lot of these things because the infrastructure was not available. So as I mentioned earlier, we take some of these things for granted, such as digitalization. Sure, it sounds great, but some of these rural areas, it's not that easy to do these things. So in this digital area, high speed connectivity and reliable network access is the utmost important to empower business and communities, especially remote area as Sophie mentioned earlier. Next slide, please. So this map here, I just want to show you just to see that the connectivity that we have today, right? This shows all the suffering cables. And if you look at it along the major cities, they are well connected. But if you go in the middle of the continents, the landlocked countries, the suffering cable, the connectivity doesn't quite reach some of these locations. And as we can see with the lack of connectivity, the rural area really suffer. For example, we were working on a project with the UNIDO for the smart villages. Just the basic things of being able to access the information in some of these villages in Nigeria was really difficult. People had to travel to places or download information on a thumb drive and access it. So it's not really real-time information. Just to show the challenges in some of these locations that they have to endure. And that's why we as SES are trying to work with some of these governments, UN agencies to help to mitigate some of these problems. Next slide, please. So I would be amiss if I didn't take a few minutes to talk about who we are and what we do. SES is the largest satellite operator in the world today. The headquarters is based in Luxembourg. As I mentioned, we do a lot of work supporting governments, the UN agencies. So for example, if you're on a boat or a plane and need to be connected, a lot of that service come from SES. As I mentioned, we do support and work with the emergency telecom clusters supporting disasters. So if there's a hurricane or flood that takes place, we work quite well with the ETTC, which is really typically sponsored by the Warfruit Program to go through and support a lot of these disaster responses. Next slide, please. As I mentioned, SES is the largest satellite operator today. In a lot of these locations, whether it's on the fringes of the Central Asia or in the landlocked country, you know, jungle DRC. The best things to reach some of these locations is through satellite because the fiber, it's either difficult or it's really cost prohibitive for a lot of these telco companies to be able to extend the range out to some of the locations. This slide just to show you the innovation that we are working on. We've been using this technology to support a lot of the markets in Central Asia, Africa, and it really helps a lot of the market that we hear. So for example, simple things as someone being able to pick up a phone and ask for the weather or the price of a certain crop. That really gives them real-time information that they didn't have before, right? At the end of the day, we want to provide the real-time information to the villagers so that they can make a smart decision based on this information that as I mentioned earlier, we take it for granted on a lot of places. With this satellite, it's really flexible. It provides a lot of great services to a lot of these villages. A lot of times, most people think of satellite as slow and unreliable services. However, as you mentioned earlier with the changing in technology, the advancement in the satellite technology has led to an improved user experience gone on the days of endless buffering due to the high latency and low speed internet. We have proved for the past few years that passengers on cruise ships or on the planes are able to serve the information just as today. So the next time you want to take a nap on a plane and you must check the service, you can thank us for that. On this one, I just want to show that when we come in and do a project with a lot of these locations, we want to work with local telco partners. Why is that? From our experience working with the governments and the UN agencies, it's good that the local companies, they know and understand the local, the regulations. And at the end of the day, it's good for the economy that we work with a lot of these telco companies. One minute left. Okay. Next slide, please. I just on this one just want to show the couple of the projects that we work with other agencies. So for example, this past April, we signed an MOU with the Kyrgyzstan government supporting their digitalization process. If you can move on to the next one. Just to show that, you know, there's a map where a lot of the small villages that it's difficult for them to access the information that we mentioned before right the ability to access the information, the payment system. So with this connectivity, it really brings the people and the villages together and really at the end of the day, right, it's access for everyone. Last but not least, go back to the first slide, right. So even once the COVID is finished, go ahead to the next one, please. Yeah, even when when post COVID, there will be no return to normal. I mean, the remote work arrangement, the hybrid, this and learning telemedicine, I think it will be here. And connectivity is part of the infrastructure. So with that, Victor, again, thank you so much for having me and I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Hank, and apologies for interrupting and just making your smooth talk a bit interrupted yet. And apologies in advance for all other speakers will have to interrupt if you're going above it, but it says we agree. I have my noble duty in front of all the attendees that we will try to stick to two hours as we schedule. So one that note, I mean, it's great a great indeed what you were referring and mentioning and of course a partnership and collaboration is a key between public and private stakeholders in bringing connectivity to to all those challenging areas in challenging times, as you said, it's very COVID indeed is a very challenging time for everyone. But and as Jaroslav mentioned, it's very important to meet this connectivity meaningful, and that's our next session will be devoted on that. And before going there, I can see some questions in our current days session in current days functionality and I'm inviting again anyone to publish your questions there were relevant to that meaningful connectivity and all the aspects of different applications. I'm trying to see if we have any questions about connectivity per se in the current session and I see many and many questions already answered. I am kind of maybe should bring up one of the questions and discuss it. If we can do this quickly we're a bit out of time but if we bring one. And I think it will be quite relevant if someone you hung or or Jaroslav can answer the question. Let's say let me pick one here. That was about about any subsidies for smoke holders if it's possible to get subsidies for smoke holders to invest in technological infrastructure. If you can briefly somehow reference to it because we do know connectivity costs a lot and it's a lot of a lot of a lot of funds required for this you have said it's not expensive but if you can reflect a little bit more on this and Jaroslav within short answer that would be great. Again I will repeat the question. Is there is any international subsidies. Is there any international the question jumped. Is there any international subsidies program for smoke holders farmers to invest in technological infrastructure. Thanks. So thank you for that Victor. We do a lot of the projects whether with you know countries in Africa or Central Asia and if necessary SES. We do make donations to some of these projects when it's necessary right. And then we do a lot of these stuff for example last year when COVID-19 hit. We already support the UN agencies and we made a lot of donations to some of these agencies during this difficult time. So so yes you know as part of the corporate social responsibility when we work on some of these projects we do make donations toward it. And I you know we can certainly take it offline you know on a specific projects as well. It's great to know and it's anyone who was attending can see all their credentials and if there is any discussion or interest from participants they can reach out. Indeed. Thank you so much for that. I'm turning to Jaroslav. Do you have anything to add on that specific question. Do you Jaroslav? No. Okay good. So I think it was well answered. Victoria you muted yourself. Great thank you. I did indeed. Another question was coming if there is any if there is any opportunities for service providers to collaborate and engage in the programs in UNFAO. May I direct this question to maybe Sophie who probably would be representing UNFAO on that quickly if you can mention something. I think that this is the right moment to make the transition with the next speaker who is exactly going to answer this question. So rather than replying myself I would prefer to have George Beers explaining what is being done. Absolutely it's a brilliant idea. Let's do that. George's floor is coming to you and as we know we're starting with a little bit of video coming from you. And then for your thanks. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities in the European agri-food industry. It has disrupted our food supply chain and affected the lives of people working in the sector. Guaranteed access to fresh food is more important than ever. It is not only hotels, bars and restaurants that are struggling. Travel restrictions are also causing severe labour shortages in the agri-food sector. The COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing climate emergency require a more sustainable agri-food system. The twin challenge of resilience and sustainability in agriculture can be achieved through digital innovation. This is how the smart agri-hubs community responded. The creation of online marketplaces allows the most vulnerable members of society to satisfy their basic needs in an efficient way, as our digital innovation hub Paix de la Loire has shown. The use of robotics, precision agriculture and online matchmaking services can address critical labour shortages. Our flagship innovation experiment, Autonomous Greenhouses, tackles this. Most of the solutions will encompass a digital application. Whether it is through data-driven platforms, AI-based tools or matchmaking algorithms, the potential is enormous. Smart agri-hubs digital innovation hubs across Europe assist in the development of these solutions and foresee what is needed to bring these promising ideas to the market. Thousands of organisations and individuals have joined up within the scope of this project. The innovation portal helps to deliver a digitalised European agri-food sector that remains efficient yet is still resilient and sustainable. The community is expanding enormously. Join us and be part of this sustainable wave. Okay, I'll share my screen. Yes, George, we can say anything. Okay, thanks Victor for giving me the opportunity to present how the smart agri-hubs community, a pan-European network dedicated to digital transformation in agriculture, how we responded to the COVID-19 crisis. Maybe first some words on the project. I think it's good to be aware that digital transformation takes place at local level in the fields, close to farmers and farmers are ground bound, so they cannot move their location. So the digitisation has to take place at the local level. But on the other hand, we see a lot of examples in European projects, national projects, where digitisation is taking place. And the project is about how to connect the dots, how to make the state of the art as it is present all over Europe, how to make it available for farmers in the region that want to digitise. This is not only for farmers to digitise, it's also for not doing the same everywhere, but building upon each other's experiences and results instead of doing the same all over again. The concept we are using for that is Digital Innovation Hub, and Digital Innovation Hub is a local centre, centre of expertise, you can say. It's close to farmers, so it's in a region where farming is an important activity, and the Digital Innovation Hub is supporting farmers and is promoting digital tools, digital solutions to their own farmers, to the farmers' community at local level. They do it by providing services, not only on technology, but also in business and on ecosystem, so brokerage events and so on. And for the business part, it's also important that Digital Innovation Hubs have a service for looking for funding, looking for the funding opportunities. We are targeting on 400 of these Digital Innovation Hubs and how to connect the dots, and it's already illustrated in the animation that we have an innovation portal for that. In the innovation portal, we are collecting good practices on digitisation, so interesting projects that can be interesting for other people. We are making a register of competence centres, so this is not a register of yellow pages or something like that. It's a register where we have companies that can provide innovation services, and we have a collection of Digital Innovation Hubs, so Digital Innovation Hub can contact each other and interact with each other, and a lot of tools and guidelines, webinars for developing the services of the Digital Innovation Hubs. So all in all, this is a lot of knowledge that we collect in the innovation portal and make it available for Digital Innovation Hubs at a local level to provide service to their community. So that's about the, like I said, we are targeting on 400 Digital Innovation Hubs. At the moment, as we speak, we are halfway in the project. It's a four-year project. We already have 250 Digital Innovation Hub connected to our network. How did we respond to COVID? Because we are an H2020 project, and we've got a request from the European Commission, what can you do to help us out in this COVID crisis? For that, we established a task force on COVID-19, and the task force developed a vision on what digital agriculture can do to reduce the negative impacts of the COVID crisis. I think it's the special edition that we made on this newsletter. I can recommend everybody to take a look at that and to see what our vision is and how we are communicating it to the farming community and to the smart agriculture community. And I think the animation is one of the results of that. I don't have the time to go into all details, but I want to focus on the open calls that we also launched dedicated to the COVID crisis. The call was focusing on the challenges, the challenges of the broken supply chains due to the COVID and on the issue of labor shortage in the agricultural sector. As a result, we got 8 SME solutions that we have funded and to give you an idea on this SME solution. So it's SME companies that are providing solutions. An interesting one was to reduce the visits of veterinarians to dairy farms. So a tool to support online, the farmers online on the healthcare of their cows. We have an interesting example of a, let's say in the labor reduction, an application to manage the flocks in the poultry. We have an example of robots in the packing of fruits. So also to reduce the labor. A platform or maybe you can say a marketplace for seasonal workforces. That's also one of the solutions that SME is working on. And of course we have a couple of marketplaces for local produce to shorten the supply chain. We have business to business platforms but also business to consumer platforms. So these are a few examples in the SME solutions. On the other hand, we also have 13 hackathons. And to explain for those who are not familiar with hackathons. Hackathon is a competition. You bring together a lot of expertise of people interested in the challenges. You bring them together, make them forming teams. And think about bright ideas to deal with these challenges. And the function of these hackathons is to mobilize people, to bring people together. From different, from IT, from AGRI and maybe some other knowledge domains. Bring them together. And you challenge them to bring out the best ideas. So it's a really competition and there are prices for the best ideas. The 13 hackathons are presented in a nice overview in this link. So please take a look at that to have more, then you can see what the ideas are. So in summary, I think the SME community responded quite efficient and effective to this COVID crisis. And I think it's for the audience today it is important that we are in an open innovation. So everybody is welcome to join us. If you want to establish a digital innovation hub, please register yourself on our web portal. It's not, we are an EU project, but we are open to other areas in the world. And please connect us, make use of all the knowledge that we have in our innovation portal. And please also provide us your knowledge in the innovation portal. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, George. That was George Beers, coordinator of SMART AGRI HUB, the European Union project with the good examples how to make the connectivity meaningful and a variety of them. Great. George, good over you. But now let's move to some specific examples. And on that note, I'd like to introduce Marcus Picard, economic affairs officer at United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, who will be talking more about E-Trade and potential solutions there. Please, Marcus, for yours. Yes. So thank you for inviting you and ECE to this very important meeting and also very timely meeting given the situation that the global pandemic has created. If you could please put my presentation on screen. So if we have very little time, thank you. It's a good slide. So next slide, please. ECE is in the UN system, the focal point, the global focal point to develop standards, best practice and recommendations for international trade. We do this in a specific unit, the UN Center for Trade Facultation and Electronic Business, UNCFAC. This is about 1,000 participants working as volunteers in the center. We develop global standards in particular on the standards for electronic business and the standards support the complete supply chain. So that is from production, distribution, regulatory control down to finance and insurance. Now trade is something that is intrinsically linked to everything else that affects humans. And so if you develop standards for international trades, then you have to work with all other players. So I made a list here of some of the standards and players that we're working with, in particular FAO, IEC, IPPC, and so on and so forth. Now what we do is we develop standards for electronic information exchange. So for example, sanitary, phytosanitary certificates, electronic anxiety certificates, quality certificates, just to mention this. And that's what we're doing. But the standard itself is at, Mr. Gil in the opening said e-business technologies are accelerators for change. And so if you have a standard, this is the basis and the precondition for a lot of other things that you want to introduce in an agriculture supply chain, that is improvement of the logistics and trade supply chain, improvement of trade procedures, traceability, transparency, using of modern ways to control supply chains like electronic risk management. And all this leads at the end to resilience in times of crisis and pandemic. I give you two examples so it's not too abstract. E-business can be or is often very abstract. I give you two examples and I looked for examples that are relevant for transition economies and developing countries also because Sophie mentioned an important aspect of e-business is to bridge the digital divide. So one standard we have is called E-SERD. It's a standard for electronic licenses, permits and certificates in agriculture trade. It's recommended in Thalia by the IPPC as the global standard for electronic phytocertificates, but many countries also use it for SPS certificates for meat fishery products, dairy products and so on. Electronic SPS are exchanged between the big players already since quite a while and they have greatly helped to reduce transaction costs, make trade better and to increase the, to lead to better regulatory control. However, the use of SPS certificates was a bit prohibitive for smaller countries and therefore the IPPC together with the World Trade Organization in Geneva they developed, next slide please, they developed what is called the E-FITO hub. So the E-FITO hub consists of two components. One component is a generic system for national competent authority to fill in an electronic phytocertificate and the second component is an exchange hub. So once the authority has generated such a certificate it can be electronically exchanged to other competent authorities. And there's also a bridge between this E-FITO hub and the traces and T-hub of the European Union. So a country connected to the E-FITO hub will also be able to exchange electronic certificates with the European Union. Just to give you an example, the speakistan recently adopted this hub. It took them only three months in order to get everything running and today they're already exchanging 4,000 certificates with countries like Korea, Germany, the US, Russia and so on. Next slide please. The next short example I want to show you is electronic certificates for trade and international species of wild flora and fauna. CITES convention, next slide please. So CITES has, if you could move to the next slide please. CITES is a problem that illegal trade and international wildlife is the fourth biggest international crime. And so a lot of CITES permits and certificates are tempered with, are forged. So CITES set up a vision, a concept for an end-to-end control of trade and endangered species using internet technology. If you could please move on. Yes, thank you. And so one of the components of this strategic vision is a cooperation with the UNCTAD ASICUDA project to develop a cloud-based tool for issuing and controlling of electronic CITES permits that can be used by management authorities. This is the UNCTAD ASICUDA-based solution. This system, as I said, is cloud-based. Traders can actually request permits using mobile phones or any other stationary computer equipment. And even the government agencies can control in a personal-ass manner the complete workflow and the approval of this permit. The system, the first country where it was implemented was Sri Lanka in February of 2020. Very shortly after the inauguration of the system, Sri Lanka had to go into a hard lockdown. All government agencies were closed. I talked in spring of last year, I talked to a trader and the trader told me before it was taking months and longer to get such a certificate and I would have to go several times to the management authority. With this new system, we had a zero disruption of our export procedures. And he said without that system, they were exporting the FENTAS so that is ornamental flowers. He said, I would have lost my complete production. Yes, thank you. So next slide. And this is basically what I just said. If you can go to the final slide. So what I wanted to show here is the two main pillars for electronic business. So it allows efficient controls and supply chain operations, which is faster movement, less base of produce and paperless, contactless clearance of goods. And the other, I think very important aspect is and that was said in the presentation of George before. We've seen in the COVID pandemic a disruption in the supply chain. We have seen major shifts both on the production and on the consumption side. And that required a lot of changes in order to deal with this, with this disruptions and electronic information and the possibility to use electronic systems that are acting on this electronic information was one of the pillars that kept international agriculture trade alive and still keeps it alive in the current pandemic. Thank you. Thank you so much, Markus. It was also a good overview of various applications and ways of using, of making connected meaningful. Thank you so much. Now let's move to a little bit different area to earth observations and to using all other type chunk of technologies like satellites for precision agriculture, etc. To prescribe a senior scientific advisor from general mental group on earth observations with his presentation on Gail Brown. Okay. Thank you, Victor. Can you hear me okay? Perfect. Great. Thanks so much for inviting me to participate in this webinar on behalf of the group on earth observations. I just want to talk a little bit about in a first instance, the global earth observation agricultural monitoring initiative. Actually, it's a flagship of the geo, which as you may know, geo the group on earth observations is an intergovernmental partnership of over 100 countries and participating organizations. And geo glam is working to fight food insecurity and to increase the use of the global earth observation markets through the use of earth observations as, as you just mentioned. The group on earth observations, global agricultural monitoring flagship was initially launched by the group of 20 agricultural ministers in Paris in June, 2011. As part of the ministers G 20 action plan on food price volatility. And the group also has a global food security and agricultural monitoring focus to include a broader emphasis on global food security. Geo glam delivers on its mission by producing an openly disseminating consensus based, relevant and timely and actionable information on agricultural conditions and outlooks of production at national, regional and global scales. And the group is also working to increase the use of earth observations in 2011 from the G 20 agricultural ministers. Geo glam participants include representatives from most G 20 nations as well as many other countries and several international organizations and NGOs. Participation is from more than 120 institutions and over 50 nations with beneficiaries from at least, from least developed nations further expanding the reach of geo glam. And the group is also working to increase the use of earth sensors. What we put forth was something called the crop monitor for the agricultural monitoring information system. And this produces monthly crop, condition assessments for wheat, maize, soybean and rice. The, since 2012, geoglam information has covered. Amos major importing and exporting countries and the crop monitor. In 2016, over 30% of global production consumption and trade volumes of Amos targeted crops. Over 40 nations and institutions contribute to the crop monitor. And then since 2016, the crop monitor for early warning has monitored crops that are important for food security by region, generally encompassing countries and regions that are susceptible to food insecurity. And so, we're working to increase the use of geoglam information, such as the world food program, FAO, USAID, Fusenet, the joint research center of the European commission, AZA rice and others. Combined the geoglam crop monitors covers most of the world. And here is an example of that comes from the latest crop monitor early warning for May, which shows conditions across central and south Asia. And so, conditions in Kazakhstan, for example, are favorable for the crops that are looking at. And the planting of spring wheat has continued across Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan. And then the outlook calls for below normal precipitation and above normal temperatures during May and June in parts of central Asia. And we can see again that this is the case in regions such as Kazakhstan. Now, what has been the impact of COVID on geoglam operations? Well, according to the geoglam report that is going to the G20 meeting to be held later this summer, the world is currently facing one of the greatest food emergencies in more than a generation. Geoglam is monitoring that global food insecurity. And it is shown that it has risen due to the challenges associated with increasing conflict and the world's changing weather and climate conditions. Impacts from other events include floods, winds, and droughts, and in across Africa, one of the worst waves of locusts in many, many years. What is different in 2020 is that COVID-19 has amplified the risks already facing the world 690 million hungry people, potentially doubling the population, and the number of food shortages. That's from the world food WFP. The joint research center in Kenya indicated that 76% of the small-holder farmers were impacted by pandemic measures affecting the availability of inputs, labor, transport, and cross-border trade, and compounded by the crop loss and 16% of farms due to the locust invasions. But in response to the evolving food crisis, the provision of objective and transparent near real-time information on global agriculture was critical, and G.O.Glam rose to the challenge in 2020 and continues to do so in 2021 by providing state-of-the-science information products to the Amos G20 community. In a year when much of the world was in some form of lockdown, the pandemic has demonstrated the importance of space-based observations to compensate for the reduction in ground information to provide insights on the state and challenges of producing crops in near real-time. And importantly, technology in G.O.Glam's response has been responsible for managing the human dimension. Because G.O.Glam has established resilience and committed expert networks, it has been able to rally the community to continue to deliver vetted consensus information to support food commodity markets without missing a step. So to conclude here, G.O.Glam participates in providing a price prediction mechanism which reduces market volatility by the use or the production of its crop monitors, as you can see here on the left. That in combination with products provided by Amos, such as the supply and demand and commodity price index, provides market stability through the provision of information based on independent collaboration and real near-time assessment. So with those comments, I conclude my presentation back to you, Victor. Thank you. Great, Douglas, specifically, you made it even shorter than your assigned time slot was. Thank you so much. And of course, all those mechanisms what you described, crop monitoring and price prediction, specifically in those challenging times were at now. On that note, let me give the floor for our next speaker, Dominic Berot, head of Perth System Monitoring Division at the World Meteorological Organization. Thank you very much, Victor. Thank you for having me here to give you an overview on Dobby Emerald's activity in hydrological monitoring specifically during that COVID situation. So Dobby Emerald, that's the World Meteorological Organization dealing with the UN agency for climate weather on the water, almost specifically hydrological monitoring on the operational hydrology. That's quite important. So I do not have to convince you how important water is, not only for agriculture, but as well for hydropower, for navigation, for systems on the road. So we have to act. And SDG number six on water is absolutely clear on this. But it's so difficult to act, to take the right decision in terms of operation, irrigation schemes, in terms of infrastructure, because the system is still very much unknown. So the whole hydrological cycle, as we'll see at the bottom of this picture, is still unknown. So we just cannot probably understand the system and we cannot model the system properly. And we need more monitoring. And that's the key. Having observations of the system can allow you to build that value chain and to take the right decision. And we know for a long time that we need to increase the monitoring system of water all around the world. I'm talking about surface water, groundwater, and without forgetting the ocean, by the way. And you see from that picture, there is only a few countries that have a proper water observing system and that are not sharing that system to all the stakeholders. And that was an issue even before the COVID situation. And it was clear to us that we have to improve that situation. And the COVID situation for more than a year now has pretty much shown that there are strong limitations and that we have to improve the situation. And you see this result from a survey that in many cases, hydro-metological services dealing with climate wither on water are facing huge challenges due to COVID-19 and have severe restriction of all the services they provide to the population due to COVID. And you see all colors, but gray are where you have issues from mild, moderate, and too strong issues. And especially numerical predictions that allow for weather predictions are very much restricted due to COVID. So it was clear we have to act and to accelerate all we are doing in terms of digitalization to ensure that we are stronger on more robust for the next pandemic or whatever natural hazard that can happen. And that's even more true for specifically hydrology and specifically true for the region we are here also in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. On that short survey from last year showed that most of the countries are facing difficulty in delivering hydrological services and data products, forecasts, rolling systems on one of the reasons being that the fieldwork is not possible and fieldwork is important for getting to the stations, because still many stations are not automatized. It's on paper, you need observers to go on the site to take the measure, and that's not only expensive and consuming, but in case of a crisis, including a pandemic, you just cannot go in the field. And that's an issue we have to solve. On the other issue being that for most of the countries there is huge uncertainties in terms of budgeting for operational maintenance of the network. So it's a clear sign we have to be more efficient and to provide more support in terms of digitized solutions and thematic solutions. And that's actually what the WMRO is trying to do for years now, especially building a new generation of water monitoring. And we started that long before the COVID, but the COVID was a clear sign we have to accelerate that. So you saw some presentation building this hub. So we also have a hub on, it's called the hydro hub, building the new generation of water monitoring and with an innovation hub aiming at finding additional solution to the say standard measurements thanks to a new technology, low cost technology, citizen observations, a satellite information as shown by Doug Cribe just before me. And we have to make sure that we can improve the whole information flux on the water thanks to that new generation of devices and monitoring approaches. And we're working much more currently in different African regions, but very much open to discuss as well with partner for power Asia on the Eastern Europe. You will see some examples in a few minutes. And a concrete example is when we're talking about data sharing, we are building what we call the HOOS, the WMO hydrological observing system which is an automatization of data transmission. So as soon as you have the data that are collected on the database, you can be sure that you can transmit all the data to any kind of user stakeholders who are in your region, in your country all around the world thanks to that HOOS system without any burden on question, on data formatting on any kind of data quality, whatever, we can deal with this and making sure we have that value chain from the data to the applications including from private sector or universities or other national agencies, agriculture, natural hazard and so on and so forth. And that's what I call a success of digitalizations not having any burden anymore of getting in the field for getting paper or whatever solutions to have all the solutions here in one hand on that provided by the WMO. And more than that we are developing based on those data that are collected what we call the hydrological status and outlook system, hydro SOS which is producing information for the current situation of all the world and as well for a kind of outlook or what could be coming in the next days or weeks or even months are they expected somewhere in the world are they flood situation expected and that the hydro SOS provide that it's by the National HydroMate Services for the National HydroMate Services with all possible stakeholders around the world. So on that thanks to digitalizations you can reach that kind of services. It's not only useful for the users but it's useful as well to gain visibility to ministries and so on to show that what we can do for hydrology in terms of services for any kind of stakeholders. And a few examples on what we are doing with partners all around the region starting with starting years ago a multi hazard early warning system in Southeast Europe with at least 10 countries on the hopefully some of the countries that are here at that webinar. We started together with the USID modernization of the Afghan HydroMate Service including forecast system on digitalization of all the measurement networks. A Swiss consortium called IMO developed a new type of water level monitoring system for Kyrgyzstan that was conceived and built in Kyrgyzstan and especially for measuring irrigation channels water level velocity and then conveying that kind of information into a database then for decision makers. And it's a good news for me having an institute in Kyrgyzstan able to build that kind of devices. And we are right now working with Caritas a Swiss NGO to build local climate services for farmers in Tajikistan. So it just has been funded by the Swiss government and that will help local farmers to take better decisions thanks to weather, water and climate services at the local scales and link to what the national authorities are doing. And so my final slide just to tell that we need to build that value chain and digitalizations from the data collections to the decisions and to the final users being populations, being farmers being decision makers can help these WMO working with many different partners is a happy to support all these efforts and I think that's my last slide. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Dominic that's great to know. I mean no need to persuade us that what is so important for agriculture and it's great to have you on board in this area in this sector and delivering all those great services to different public stakeholders including farmers and making it available to them. I can see that all those questions variety and the multiple questions we have in coming from audience are well answered and well handled by speakers and by our team members and I invite all the questions to still come in and we will try to answer them and I invite speakers also just to try to contribute to that actively and like to give the floor to Sophie Train and who will be leading the discussion panel with other representatives coming from this very important and very relevant and very timely sector such as digitalization of agriculture in the region. Thank you very much Victor. So we will have now a panel discussion and we have invited some colleagues from FAO we have Névena Alexandreva who will with a agriculture extension officer in age quarter and she knows very well the region because she worked in Europe and Central Asia for many years. We also will have with us Mark Ovarie who is an animal health preparedness expert and he will tell us more about capacity development and what was needed to be done during this COVID time. Then we have people representing the public sector and this will be the case of Leila Agazada and she is working in Azerbaijan and she will present us a presentation that is being developed and has been accelerated during the COVID time. Then we have another representative from a country, Vito Gucica who is representing the academia sector as he is a professor at the University of Sarajevo and then we have a representative from the private sector from Russia. This is Ilya Skabara the vice president of cognitive technologies so we will discover how artificial intelligence is being applied to agriculture. So without any further due I will invite Névena to join us and I would be pleased to actually discover a little bit more what has been done during this pandemic because the extension unit of FAO has run a series of webinars and I know that digitalization was one aspect of it so what are the lessons learned, Névena? Thank you, thank you very much Sophie for inviting me to share some experiences from research and extension unit of the Office of Innovation and headquarters in Rome. So since the beginning of the pandemic extension and advisory services have been a major contributor to the COVID-19 response bridging much needed information from and to the field and yet extension and advisory services around the world are very seriously challenged to transform themselves and adapt to remote and digital delivery. So in the period May-June 2020 our unit produced some policy briefs related to extension and also research and innovation systems that I will share in a moment and also have conducted series of regional webinars in Asia, Europe and Central Asia and Africa and with the aim to understand how different extension and advisory services providers and the pluralistic systems at national level are coping with the new normal and how they are innovating under different circumstances lockdowns or recovery scenarios and in a very uneven and also specific regional context. The webinar is aimed at identifying and advocating for such innovations in extension within the regions and also to act as a platform for rapid knowledge and exchange between those regions. So as you said, we have analyzed several aspects coming out of this knowledge brought by the webinars and additional research, in particular in the case of the remote and digital delivery of advisory services. So most of the countries including and then reported an increased application of digital tools in extension however, those tools were not precision agriculture. So those were primarily used as an alternative to face-to-face communication to maintain the contact with the clients and provide services and learning through mobile phone chats and video exchange applications through SMS and voice recording and social media online platforms but also traditional ICTs like radio and TV channels. And although the remote delivery was not the unique mode of service provision and advisors also went to the field but it is surprising that the communication flow between the farmers and advisors that was mainly again a remote increased up to 50%. So a large part of this increase was due to the use of digital tools on the ICTs. And to cope with the challenge of closing the farmer markets, there were many emerging trends like digital tools like developing of commercial online platforms in many countries including in the region for instance North Macedonia, Hungary, Greece that were not only linked to selling of the agriculture produced but also helping employment information. Also it was noted that advisory services had a great contribution to these online platforms to help farmers provide data on the platforms but also to engage them to collaborate and form clusters. In the recovery period what has been noticed is an increased demand for social and financial instruments and also more knowledge through online platforms. But so we have analysed the champions examples. We also noted that in a great number of cases the advisory services just stopped working in the lockdown period especially in the first three to four months in some countries. So a great number of farmers did not have an access to services in this period and this is due to infrastructure and also policy issues. So our key message would be that policies and investments related to extension and advisory services digitalisation and maybe framed in the overall policy of agriculture innovation are pertinent to continue to capitalise on digitalisation and cope with Covid pandemic. Thank you. And Levena, I know that during the pandemic there was also this publication so very shortly because we are running out of time could you explain what is this publication from space to farm and how the small orders can really benefit from that even in the Covid time? Thank you Sophie. So we know that Covid 19 brought an uncertainty for supply chains but we also know from experience especially in this part of the world during the economic transition to market economies that small farmers and family farms were very instrumental pertinent to cope with the economic crisis. So there is a potential here unutilised potential for small farmers to contribute to the response and decrease the uncertainty for the supply chains but there is a problem in many countries small farms often out of the rather of the official records and statistics so this potential could not be evaluated and capitalised therefore on. So the project is a Horizon 2020 project which FAU contributed and I had the pleasure to lead this effort from FAU site had developed an innovative methodology to identify and characterise small farms using open source, free of charge satellite data from the Copernicus programme and satellite Sentinel 1 and 2 emissions data have been used to assess the crop types and link them to distribution and acreage of the farms and of course different spectrum when were analysed machine learning was used and also farmer survey and official statistics to verify the data and this is how this methodology was then used for policy purposes policy recommendations in several European regions and also to African regions were produced that's indeed very interesting how this what we can learn from this how to apply this methodology and indeed what we can have is to have more data and understanding on the ecological landscape on the crop distribution on the yield expectations on how to do better decision making on the field how extension services could be more efficient in their advices also for policy making to empower for the small holders and this data again that is very it's cost efficient to use because we have the methodology and it's free of charge data saves a lot of time of normally data collection that would be done through surveys etc. and this is why we believe it's very instrumental in the COVID-19 recovery thank you thank you very much Nevena this is really useful because this is really showing also the diversity of approaches from simple use of social media SMS to something which is more sophisticated like a satellite information and data so now I would like to show another aspect is related to capacity development in FAU we are doing a lot of training workshop capacity development is a very important aspect of our work and most of the time we are doing this face-to-face however during the pandemic our team e-trade team the animal health team they face the same issue we had to find another solution so I am inviting Mark who is from our animal health unit to explain how they responded to the pandemic in changing their strategy Mark the floor is yours thank you Sophie thank you for your invitation to be on this panel and the opportunity to share our experience on this four week long all night training on Africans find fever so to summarize probably what is the main difference in term of preparation compared to a face-to-face training and an online training interestingly many aspects are quite similar there are some key differences I would like to highlight so just as it face-to-face trainings we define an aim and learning objectives which guide us throughout the course now when it comes to the creation of the content the time spent on the training material is much longer compared to face-to-face events it is on one hand to ensure we have optimal standardization of the material and as we are talking about interactive modules where people click on the various slides the sequencing of self-test questions and proper writing style because in case of online learning we use four sentences rather than bullet points because we don't have an audio component when we interact with the participants and of course once all the technical aspects have been set then it takes time for an instructional designer to create modules and we still sort out the last clutches buttons working and these sorts and of course we set everything in a training environment it means that participants enter the web page where they find the training modules but it is more than that we provide and have created webinars at the beginning of the course and at the end of the course we have created short video material on subjects where they wanted to have a better understanding and also we maintain a discussion forum which is our main platform to interact with the participants they can ask questions on the subject matter in our case was African swine fever and we also engage them with various smaller exercises to ensure them to learn the material in a more deeper way then if we think about what are the benefits of digitization of a course as mentioned the standardization is a very important aspect but also it's the sheer scale while in case of a face-to-face training we would be able to train 20 to 30 participants in case of these tutored online trainings we can train between 350 and 400 participants and also because our course was tutored we still have maintained connection with them as mentioned through the discussion forum apart from the numbers the other benefits include adaptation to various languages adaptations to local needs so the course that we have developed for African swine fever for Europe has been adapted in other regions like the Caribbean and also one will be coming up for South Africa so we're rather proud about this achievement so this is also very nice because when it's well done then it can be replicated more easily and scaled up in other regions so this is a very good lesson learned and also what you said about being digital takes more time yes but in the long run it pays off because more can take advantage of it so I know that in some cases these tutored training they can also be converted into MOOCs this is what we will be doing with our course on experience capitalization and of course we should never underestimate this did you face any issues of connectivity with your participants Mark or was this okay? thank you for your question so based on our experience in Europe so we have run one course for Europe and also we had a local adaptation for the Balkan region connection we didn't experience major connection issues but to circumvent any issues all of our training modules so the learning content was also available in a handout downloadable format so for those who had maybe had a problem of running the interactive courses they could just download it in a PDF and study the material yes that's very good advice these are good tips to have the course available for students downloadable PDF and I was wondering did you need to have because you need a certain level of digital skills so was this an issue or most of your learners had the appropriate digital skills or you were having a support special support service right so thank you that this is a very important question so from from our side so from the platform side we collaborated with other partners to have our courses developed so I think that there are two ways to approach it either you build your infrastructure yourself you take small steps and after investing maybe a couple of years you would have to put infrastructure to capacity the other solution is to partner up with somebody who has already built out infrastructure has to know how and how to create these materials how to moderate an online course this is what we did so we partnered up with others we learned a lot through this experience and actually we want to engage more on our regional level to have more of this infrastructure know how built in this environment so we are more independent okay thank you very much Mark I think that this topic about capacity development and also how we should move from face to face to online but in a more interactive way is something that will be the focus of our next webinar specifically we will be devoted to that thank you so much so now let's move into the public sector and we have invited Leila Agaza from Azerbaijan Leila is working as a project manager on a very interesting initiative from the government so Leila could you please tell us a few words on this initiative first of all hello thank you for the speech great speech in our public sector government sector we are doing the electronic version of the agricultural system which was already started to improving from 2019 and now we are also improving this system with turning the physical processes to the electronic one yes and so because of the pandemic what you had started doing was accelerated and now you are analyzing what was done physically so that you can convert them electronically and what are the challenges that you have been facing during the pandemic to do this as I mentioned before we had this system before the pandemic like this is the electronic agricultural information system which is IAGROS was one of the goals that already existed before the pandemic and was to be improved in other words even before the pandemic we had to apply for the subsidies and we could carry out the processes through the system without physical contact however the pandemic has had a major impact on this digitalization process this process consists of the farmer entering the zone area into the system reporting the planting and also inspecting this area through the crop map by the operator after the farmers apply for the subsidy the field inspection process is carried out in this case if there is any problem and if the subsidies is approved then the farmer cards are ordered through the system again and each of these processes is carried out entirely through the IAGROS system in addition during the pandemic work permits were also issued through the system like about 400,000 farmers through the system get their work permits during the strict quarantine periods like in addition to this also a number of other improvements has been made to the system in order to increase the user friendliness in general such changes also have been made not only for farmers but also for panels for operators, veterinarians artificial insemination specialists these changes have helped accelerating the process of digitalization during the COVID-19 pandemic times during the pandemic also we faced some difficulties but the fact that the IAGROS system already exists before the pandemic is in working order has made most of the things easier for us these problems only arose during the physical processes such as sales deliveries also filled inspection processes I would like to also briefly inform you that access to the IAGROS system is carried out with ASAN login in which case the user must have registered in the ASAN login system before entering the IAGROS system during the pandemic farmers who registered in the ASAN login system had some problems connecting to the IAGROS this process also was organized by mobile buses of ASAN service another problem was the delivery of farmer cards to the farmers with as little contact as possible which was achieved by mobile buses delivering the cards even to their homes without contacting this also helped farmers to get their farmer card without having to go to the banks to the city or district centers this was all problems also in order to reduce the contact during the pandemic mobile sales and deliveries of fertilizers and similar sales also performed were organized by these buses and we decreased the reduce the contact during the pandemic with these processes so this is very interesting because you have found very innovative approaches to reply to all these challenges and difficulties in logging in you also have a call center where people can get advice on how to proceed on the platform is that correct yes we have contact call centers and support centers established within the Republic of Azerbaijan they try to help solve problems and answer questions that user face both before the pandemic and during the pandemic thank you very much for this example from Azerbaijan and from the region now let's move to the western Balkan we are now welcoming with a professor at the University of Sarajevo Vito is also working with FAO on the preparation of the digital agriculture strategy for the country and Vito is really traveling everywhere and he is the specialist on digitalization in agriculture so Vito with all this experience and with your view as a professor how your country has replied to the pandemic with digitalization thank you greetings from Bosnia thank you for the invitation the Bosnia is as you mentioned the Bosnia is one of the country where the FAO launched the activities focused on the agriculture development if we are looking for any positive impact of Covid-19 pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina in agriculture and of course rural areas we can find it in two sectors one of them is agritourism and digitalization from one side during the pandemic people were looking for destination in nature we had a fully locked down in April and May last year we had summer temperature in that time the borders were closed rural destination were the only solution for the people this was not the case before the pandemic today we have a lot of different initiatives projects focused on the rural tourism linking agriculture with the tourism sector it is direction where the small farmers in rural area can find their business strategies in addition on the other hand the pandemic has accelerated digitalization this is the case within almost all sectors both public and private like education like communication trade the phrase work from home was introduced in Bosnia and Herzegovina just last year hello hello go ahead thank you this phrase knows both younger and older people when we are talking for the digitalization in the agriculture sector I would like to highlight the e-commerce before the pandemic there are just a few general e-commerce platforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina but more new solutions were launched last year during the pandemic period for instance a few bigger retail chains introduced online platforms for ordering and also delivering new there are a few new specialized online platforms for the agricultural products and also food stuffs the small agriculture producers are using social networks like Facebook or Viber for instance there is a livestock market of Bosnia and Herzegovina growth on Facebook with at the moment more than 13,000 members it was launched in December last year from the other side the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the key limitations in the rural area in terms of digitalization on the first place I would like to mention ICP infrastructure we heard today at the beginning of the term digital villages I think the ICP infrastructure in rural areas is one of the key conditions for digital transformation in rural areas now we have some villages without the GSM network the second one is depopulation young people moving to the cities we know for diversification in rural area including agatourism and for digital transformation the key people is young people but we have less and less young people in rural areas I think the key limitations the constraints for additional digital transformation and it is few reasons why we started with national agriculture strategy yes and maybe you can just to finalize when is this strategy going to be live and how is it embedded in the strategies of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the moment Sophie at the moment we are finalizing our national strategy and in the future period from 2021 to 26 or 37 at the moment the government sector are creating the general agricultural strategy what can be the best solution the best solution I think will be if the government sector will include the priorities, the findings the recommendations from national agriculture strategy are embedded to agricultural strategies I fully agree with you things should be embedded and not only in one sector but in different sectors the strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture of the telecoms, rural development so it's a system approach as we like to say I have to tell you also good luck because 9 of June there will be a validation workshop with all the stakeholders so it's also a long process but that will produce good results thank you very much Witzo from showing this perspective and also the reconnection to nature and rural areas not only agriculture my last speaker is from the private sector and I'm very pleased to have Ilya with us because this is something different it is artificial intelligence and to see what does artificial intelligence do for us in the agriculture sector and how the private sector artificial intelligence was a reply to Covid-19 pandemic Ilya, the floor is yours I'm happy to represent here a company which started 25 years ago research and development and computer vision and cognitive technologies our company two years ago launched AgroPilot it was a new field for us before we work with Hyundai mobility and we take part as a builder for automotive autopilot and we produce co-pilots for railroads companies and we based on these solutions we build inexpensive and user friendly device for agriculture today we have 1000 AgroPilot in use in Russia in the European Union, North and South America as a transfer technology to AgroTech it was a very interesting situation when what we have seen during the pandemic the first one is a critical situation with seasonal workers and as a result huge demand on automatization in agriculture second one is a big problem with components even our company feels that but fortunately we found partners in Eastern Europe and now we can produce our AgroPilot as an international device what AgroPilot can how AgroPilot can help with a situation in a pandemic the first one is increase daily output to reduce labor cost modern combined harvester is bigger than the house where my grandmother was born 100 years ago it's expensive and difficult to manage asset in reality our solution AgroPilot can help farmers even that haven't any experience with harvester to manage it and use it and it's like a transfer technology from other sector like an automatic speed shift for auto industry it's creating new mobility same AgroPilot creating new opportunity for farmers as Sophie said before a lot of landlords in European Union have a small plot of land and for these farmers it doesn't make sense to buy expensive big but highly efficient equipment as a result AgroPilot give possibility to share this technique between the farmers and we in reality can use sharing model and sharing economy and even for one or two days use farmer can use it with AgroPilot the next one the main difference between our solution and well known solution which based on GPS AgroPilot use computer vision for recognition obstacles, people, animals and other techniques on the field as a result we increase safety in agro sector, we increase productivity and we reduce full consumption we reduce carbon footprint and of course it's a good impact to sustainable development I hope that the FAO will be our provider with our solution and of course I call all people who are interesting to use that, to cooperation I will put a link to our full presentation to the chat and thank you very much to invite us to this very interesting meeting just to see the pandemic for you then was for your business just confirmation that you should continue and this has increased demand pandemic showed us that we are on the right way because you are replying to specific needs that are there with this presentation we are looking from small to bigger farmers from private sector to public sector to the support of the industry to actually academia but also the different varieties of how digital technologies can be applied I will just do my summary of the panel in my closing words I will give the floor now to Victor of the webinar, and I will compliment you just after that. The floor is yours, Victor. Great, Sophie. What a great session, I must say. It's really, when we're planning, we're trying to, this event, we're trying to cover as many factors as possible. And I think we have succeeded in a certain way, because what we had heard from this was not only versatile and diverse impact of COVID on agriculture in different sectors, but also by different types of responses. We have heard about connectivity as a very important prerequisite of digitalization and may bring in those digital technologies from public sector and from private sector. And not only connectivity itself, but later we have heard many examples of making that connectivity meaningful coming from different regions, different parts of our region, European Union examples, and including other multiple examples from Central Asia, from Caucasus, from Balkans. We have heard diverse points and viewpoints from different stakeholders starting with public, international organizations, intergovernmental organizations, national institutions, governments, academia, and of course some more field-related examples what we have collected. We also learned about different technologies, how they can be used, starting with different certificates with, as was outlined by UNSA presentation with different global satellite technologies as it was outlined by WMO and by GeoSecretariat, etc. You've heard all those examples well. I don't want to spend time on this now. It was really great. And what I liked and enjoyed the most indeed was the discussion and your questions, reading your questions and reading your answers that was also great. And I learned a lot myself being in this field and working in the field and being really involved in this. I can't stop learning more and more things myself because of the beauty of technologies and how it's developing on a daily basis and evolving, and it's one of the beauty. And I learned myself a lot. I hope it was the same with everyone else. Sophie, it's yours. Thank you very much, Victor. I see that the interest is high because I see all the question and answers. I invite the speakers and the panelists who feel comfortable in replying to some of these questions because some of these questions are really addressed to you to do so so that we can really take this into account because I realize that we need to do a kind of little report after this webinar, taking into account the questions but also the answers provided. Digitalization is everywhere. Some people were asking, but what it is, it is the use of all these technologies. And we have seen that during the pandemic, it's not the most sophisticated technology that help people, but sometimes it was the most simple. Nevena, Vito, others have mentioned just the Viber, WhatsApp, social media. This was the first answer to the need to be connected. And also what is important is all the human dimension that we have heard today. Even if we have tried to replace the face-to-face interaction with digitalization, there are still things that require our physical contacts to really be engaged and be able to talk to each other and demonstrate each other. So maybe now after the pandemic, of course digitalization will be embedded more fully in what we are doing. Teleworking will be part of the new way of working, but we will also really identify that when we have face-to-face, we have to take advantage of that, that they are important. There are things that we don't need to do face-to-face, but we can then value and really share this important moment. What we realize is that this pandemic has accelerated the digital technologies, but also the disparities. Because even in places like rural areas where there was already connectivity, the increase of the demand didn't provide a good quality service. So these are still issues that need to be taken into consideration. And infrastructure is key, and so this is something that has to be done, but then it's also the availability of practical, simple tools, very important. And digital technologies are tools. They are not a magic stick. And this is why I really appreciated also the participation from Azerbaijan saying that we are looking at our process to see how we can digitalize them. So it's not digitalization that is going to solve all the issues. The issues have to be solved also in a systematic and a system approach, and the digital technologies are tools to resolve that. So the system approach in a sustainable way. This was also a comment that I have seen. We should... All the elements that are in these digital technologies, they are limited on earth. So we have to also make a sustainable use of these technologies. And the technologies are not always the solutions to all the problems. So it's really to select well which tool, whether digital or not to use for a specific problem. Because we have to look at the all the dimension of sustainability, environmental, social and financial, economic. So we had many examples. And we mentioned to you that FAU has three original initiatives in the region, which is about the small owners and family farming, then it's on the trade and the value chain, and then more about the natural resources environment and climate change. And we have tried to look at all these aspects today. And we have seen examples for small owners and family farming. And Nevena I think will also publish soon a document about really the learnings and digitalization in extension. We have seen what are the platform that can be done. I had question about, oh dude, you have a regional platform. There are plenty of different platforms. And you have to find the platforms that fit your needs, depending who you are. For farmers platform, this is more at the national level. They are international platform like the agriculture community of practice. I mentioned in some of the comments, the answers, the sheep platform for small order innovation. But you know, these platforms, they can work only if you do contribute. So I don't think that people should say, oh, I'm going to do that to find a solution. You are part of the solution and you have to contribute. And that's why it should be participative. And so this is also an invitation to really get engaged in these platforms. We have seen that artificial intelligence can be a reply. And one of the things I heard also is the importance of sharing machinery. It's not only in the individual use. It's something it's collective use. So I know that in the region, the cooperative connotation is not great. However, people can make good use of these technologies if there is more collaboration, if there is a sharing of these technologies. And there are plenty of solutions this way. Also, a farmer does not need to know everything. The extension agents, the advisory services are there. So solutions are there and they can be shared. So these are another thing which is important to know. We have seen everywhere the growing importance of e-commerce and what was nice, it was really to make the connection between producers and consumers. And then when you go further, when you want to have trade, the importance of having standards and all the work that is being done on this is quite useful. In FAO, iFITO is one of the standard that we are using for safety. So this is something that we will continue working. And then there is all this platform for monitoring weather, water, soil, to understand the climate change, to increasing resilience to react to other crisis. So you see, we have tackled all these things. And what I really liked also in what we heard, during the pandemic, people needed to reconnect to nature. And it also showed the digital divide in rural areas. So the importance to improve it. But then realize also, and these are other things that we are doing in FAO, it's the, in heritage in agriculture to make connection between rural development, gastronomy, and culture in heritage in agriculture. These will also support the work that we are doing in having smart villages, but linking smart cities and smart villages and to also promote more what is available. So you remember the few words, making accessible, connectivity affordable, the cost adaptable, the content and the context actionable, to have the capacity, the skills, the confidence, the trust. But this can be done only if it's people centered, being done in partnership, having specific process, and not being afraid of also sharing failures because we are learning from success and failure. So I have already invited you to collaborate. So do not hesitate to also use our digital agriculture email address. And I may ask Renault to put it back in the chat. And we will continue collaborating. Today, this presentation where more kind of appetizer, because we will have other more specific webinars on specific topics. So we will meet again. We continue the rendezvous, and the menu is a lot more than what we have at today. So we will have a lot more flavor. I would like also to say that with ITU, we have done this call on good practices on the digital excellence in agriculture. It was done during COVID time. We received many, many, many applications, about 200. So we are still screening them, because we will have 21 awardees. And we can already inform you that on the 23rd of September, we will have the award ceremony. This means that people who were asking, but what are these technologies, the use in agriculture, this stock-taking exercise that we have been doing will be available in the next months. And you will discover even more. So I need to thank you all for having participated. All the participants that have been with us today. But also the speakers, the panelists, the interpreters, the colleagues behind the screens, because to do this event, it requires many, many, many people. So I would like to extend all my thanks to the colleagues, to all the speakers. And I'm really glad that we have done this event today. So thank you very much to all of you. We will try to respond to the questions that have not immediately been answered. And we will do a follow-up with you. So thank you very much to all of you. And see you soon. Thank you.