 First of all, could we have all mics muted as we commence the afternoon's activity. Okay, so good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We are about to commence this afternoon's event which forms part of the 2021 World Food Day Program of Activities. The World Food theme this year is our actions are our future. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life. My name is Colville King, I'm the agricultural diversification officer in the Ministry of Agriculture and Chairman for today's proceeding. Let me acknowledge members of the virtual head table, Honorable Subbar, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labor. Honorable Orando Brewster, Minister of National Mobilization, Social Development, Local Government, Gender Affairs, Family Affairs, Housing and Informal Settlement. Mr. Wanshares, Lead Technical Officer in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Ms. Anthony Duncan, Youth Assistant Youth Officer, Youth Affairs Department, Ms. Kenelia Stow and Mr. Azakai Edwards, Youth Representative, Primary Beneficiaries of this project. I also wish to acknowledge the other officials and representatives in the audience, staff of the FAO sub-regional office for the Caribbean, the National Correspondent in Symponson, Dr. Phillips, the Permanent Secretary, Chief Agricultural Officer and Colleagues of the Ministry of Agriculture, Permanent Secretary, Youth Officer and other colleagues in the Ministry of National Mobilization, Representative of other collaborating agencies, members of the Youth in Agriculture groups, Chateau Passion, Youth in Agriculture Multipurpose Cooperative in Baibu, and the Innovative Youth in Every Business Multipurpose Cooperative in Leu and Inverance. Media representatives, we also acknowledge you, and it is my pleasure to welcome you, one and all, to the suspicious event. It is quite fitting to commemorate this year's World Food theme by officially launching the Youth Agri Entrepreneurship for Rural Development project. This project will be jointly implemented between the Ministries of Agriculture and the Ministry, and that the Ministry of National Mobilization, and it is funded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Accordingly, it is only fair and fitting to have representative of these key agencies address you at today's launch. They would provide the context, the project outcomes and aspirations, and the next step for you this afternoon. However, to set the stage, I now call on Ms. Kenelia Stope to bless us this afternoon's proceeding with a word of prayer, and this will be followed by a rendition of the National Anthem. Ms. Stope. Bow our heads and close our eyes as we look to God in prayer. Almighty and loving Father, Creator of heaven and earth, we praise you and adore you. You are the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We humbly ask your forgiveness for sins. We are gathered here today for the launching of the Youth Agri Entrepreneurship for Rural Development. Send us your Holy Spirit to be our guide and give us the wisdom to understand everything that would be discussed. Enlighten our minds and let your love be upon us. May this launch bring success and good to our teams. Thank you, Father, for this precious time that you have given us. This we pray to our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, Amen. Amen. So, thank you, Ms. Stope, and the seed of blessing that you have with the seed and the strength of the people. So, as you proceed, just to ask for mute your... Okay, so thank you very much, Ms. Stope, for that wonderful prayer and for the Anthem. Thank you very much. Now as we proceed, speedily along, we'd like to, I'd like to invite to address us Ms. Antonette Duncan, Assistant Youth Officer in the Youth Affairs Department to brief you with some comments regarding the project and which would provide you with some backdrop as to the basis for this project intervention. Thank you, Ms. Antonette. Thank you, Carlville. The Youth and Agriculture Program started on the 10th of February 2018 at Overland as a pilot project through the Youth Affairs Division and headed by former KSG Ito's Macmillan, where she played a pivotal role and still doing so along with my minister, Dr. Booster, cabinet secretary, Ms. De Freitas and my supervisor, Ms. Anthony, in getting where the program is today. The program mantra is to choose our culture as a viable economic choice for sustainable development. The program then expanded throughout St. Vincent's Grenadines in six different communities, namely Biobu, Chateau-Belaire, Laew, Kittles, North Union, and Beckway. The program ended at the first 2020 Overland and Biobu merged into a cooperative, while the other groups are in the process. Presently, the three beneficiary groups involved in green-seasoning and land cultivation, while making and also in the process of provision vacuum packaging. In the program, some of the benefits are, one, for youth to see our culture as a business and not just farming. Two, economic development of youth, group, and cooperative. Three, improvement of livelihood, and four, provision of livelihood for other youth. The way forward for the program aims to develop small businesses for sustainability at community level and to seek external markets. One may ask about sustainability. The plan is to utilize existing farm practices and by product development and also use of available spaces by community and government for youth program expansion. In closing, on behalf of the Youth Affairs Division and the Ministry of Health, I want to thank the FUNA Arroculture Organization, the FAO, through the Ministry of Arroculture Fisheries for a new world rural transformation for the opportunity provided for the youth and continued commitment for program expansion and sustainability. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I'm now pleased to invite the lead technical officer for the business marketing and the FUNA Arroculture Organization. Mr. Juan shares his to deliver, to describe or to the technical details of this particular project. Juan. Mr. Chair call weekend. And good afternoon to everyone. Welcome to Cesar Minister of Agriculture Fisheries Forestry Industry and Labor. Honorable Honorable Orlando Brewster Minister of National Mobilization social development, local government gender affairs, family affairs, housing and informal settlement. There is a gift tense. Assistant youth officer from the Ministry of National Mobilization Miss Antoinette, you've represented this from the different cooperative and groups, colleagues. Good afternoon to you. I'm jumping right into the specifics of the project that we have at hand. I have the honor to bring you greetings on behalf of our sub regional coordinator, Dr. Renata Clark on our special appreciation from our director general Mr. shoe don't you on the occasion of World Food Day 2021. And with the theme of our actions are our future better production, better nutrition, better environment, better livelihoods, special word of appreciation to members for the support and the wishes of our director general that learning and working together is the reason that he wants to continue to be in our organization. He wishes you a very happy World Food Day. What a better occasion to talk about youth in agriculture. I will share with you this the details of this project and we are launching considering the specifics of youth in our food systems as a matter of a of a general background. The number of youth between 15 and 24 years old have reached the unprecedented figure of 1.2 billion that is 1545% of the global population and 47% of the working age population with 85% residing in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The youth vulnerability and unfulfilled potential is three times higher, and it is more likely in adults. It is more likely that you be unemployed, mostly work in the informal sector, and with vulnerable jobs. 22% of that you are neither in education, not have employment, or have access to training. The panel of experts report on promoting youth engagement and implementing agriculture and food systems indicate that it is crucial that we bring youth to this debate on more sustainable and resilient food system. That's as a matter of background, going right into the project that we are launching, which is youth-eyed entrepreneurship for rural development project. The analysis leading to the design of this project identifies that the youth group's concern are, have challenges related to weak business capacity, to weak crop production capacity, lack of access to mitigation, short-term or no access to lands. The inadequacies of facilities used for processing, lack of equipment, or use of viral kitchen-scale equipment, limited financial capacity to contribute to or raise funds. So the project objective is very in line with these assessments and in line with the context element that I have just shared with you. The project goal is to contribute to decreasing youth unemployment, under-employment and poverty related to SDG too. We managed to do this by enhancing three areas, production capacity and competitiveness of young agri-entrepreneurs, by having better access to lands, facilities and equipment and capital, and by enhancing the capacity of project partners to actually deliver and multiply support to these youth groups. At the end of the project, we expect the country to have improved capacity to design policies and mechanisms for access of youth agribusinesses to land facilities and business development tools, young entrepreneurs that are trained to produce competitive commodities and products, to improve capacity of implementation agencies to facilitate upgrading of youth-based farms and agri-processing ventures to meet basic market standards. At the end, we have designed and will be implementing a suite of capacity-developing actions, including in the areas of value-sharing development, business planning, marketing with emphasis on digital marketing, food safety and standards and climate smart agriculture. We are adopting an integrated approach to developing the capacity of the youth groups by simultaneously addressing these different aspects. There will be different activities being implemented in the next two years. And starting today, or a working day after this initial ceremony for the launch of the project, we will start with an introductory training on market-driven value chain development with participation of some youth representatives and some of the key project stakeholders. With that said, I give you thanks for the opportunity and I wish you a very happy World Food Day. Thank you, Juan. So there we have it, an indication of what the context was from the youth department and an overview of the technical frame of this project. Now, so thank you, Juan, for that. I would like now to invite Miss Arunik Balanti, the representative of the beneficiary groups to present synopsis of expectations from the youth communities regarding this project. Arunik. Okay, so Kimberly, are you going to present? Do you see me? Yes, continue. Yes, we're going to go ahead. My name is, my name is Kimberly Francis. I am the president of IAMCO, one of the six agribusiness groups from the Windward to the Leeward side of the island. And in the Grande Island of Becky, we strive to create an agricultural business providing unique goods and services to the people of St. Vincent and possibly worldwide. This grant will create a foundation for us to make this venture possible. We will be able to have our starting assets while we work hard to create a business that will create opportunities for others. Some of our products include vacuum packaging of provisions, seasoning, and wines, etc. Today I would like to speak on what I would like to see as a result of the youth community. I hope that I all speak for my fellow members as well. Oftentimes, youths are connected to their community in more authentic and unhindered ways than adults. I would like to see more activities in the community where youths can be more engaged and open with themselves and others around them. This helps to interact with adults and have guidance as they develop skills needed to make decisions and solve complex issues. Youth who are engaged in community activities at a younger age shows better problem solving and decision making skills compared to those who are not engaged. A sense of belonging and purposes created when youth realize that their ideas and their opinions are being heard and considered. Youths develop a great effective leadership skills. Youth will also come together instead of fighting amongst each other. I would like to see less drug and alcohol use and criminal behavior in the communities. The more engaged they become, the less time they'll have to turn to these things as a way of relief or a way to pass time. As they be more occupied, this benefits the community with higher academic performances, lower rates of pregnancies, lower marijuana use. I would like to see more entrepreneurs emerging from the community as this creates job opportunity and decreases unemployment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Francis. Just to explain, the original speaker had on for Miss Francis stepped in, Miss Kimberly Francis stepped in to present that heartfelt sentiment on behalf of those groups. Okay, so thank you again, Miss Francis. And now we have the honor of inviting the policy makers to address us and essentially to provide a sense of comfort and confidence that this project would be supported. First, I would invite the Honorable Miranda Brewster, Minister of National Mobilization, Social Development, Local Government, Gender Affairs, Family Affairs, Housing, an informal settlement to address us. Mr Brewster. Yes, good afternoon. And thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Carl Wilking for that warm introduction. Let me acknowledge the presence and of my cabinet colleague, the Honorable Suboto Caesar, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, Rural Transformation. I would like to acknowledge Mr. Juan Giaz, who is the technical officer of trade and marketing for the FEO Caribbean. Also, the two PSs from the ministries involved, P.S. Catherine De Freitas and P.S. Narisa Getins Macmillan. I would like to acknowledge the media who is here. My staff member, Miss Antoinette Duncan, also the Assistant Youth Officer, I saw Mrs. Antony also the Director of Youth Affairs in my ministry. Other well wishers who are here to witness the launch of the Youth and Agriculture Entrepreneurs, a warm and pleasant evening to you. First, let me apologize for not turning my camera on. I am on a bit of leave medically, but still I saw it fit to be a part of this wonderful initiative as we launch the Youth Agriculture Entrepreneurship for Rural Development Project. I am here this afternoon in the capacity as the Minister of Mobilization. And through my ministry, we have initiated a program that Miss Duncan explained a bit earlier. And I've been integrally involved with this program and making my various checks to make sure that we are on track and I can say that they have been doing an excellent job thus far with this initiative. And I'm happy to see a lot of the young persons here this evening as we witness this launch of this project. And from the Ministry of Mobilization, I have been briefed and advised of three budding and successful groups in the rural communities, namely Shatibulae, Bayobu, and my hometown, Leyu. And I'm happy to know that the rural areas are being served when it comes to the youth and their involvement in agriculture. And the government and this ministry, we are eager and ready to run with this project. And we know that we are going to give it our full support. And I know it's a joint between the Ministry of Agriculture, my fellow cabinet colleague and Minister Cesar is also a hard worker when it comes to the Ministry of Agriculture. And I'm sure once we can put our heads together with under the leadership of the FAO, who's a part who's carrying this program, we are sure that the outcomes will be something that we will talk about for many years to come. As a minister with a responsibility for youth, I heard Mr. Chiaz mentioned that there is a high level of unemployment globally amongst the youth. And I'm happy that we are embarking on such a program that would help, not only here in our country, but it would help to decrease the unemployment of youth across the globe. And agriculture, as I've heard before by persons, it is not one of the more upscale profession in our country here, but I have news for some, because based on the statistics from some of the banks, the local banks here, some of the biggest savers in our banks or persons were involved in agriculture and I usually take time and mention this to the youth. And being an entrepreneur, it is not an easy task, but it is one that once you are determined and focused to make it work, it would come to fruition. Now, again, I would like to thank the FAO for being a very crucial part, for playing a crucial part in this project. And we are happy, the government of St. Vincent happy that we can partner with the FAO to make sure that our youth are meaningfully engaged. I would also like to thank the Ministry of Agriculture for carrying this program and also my ministry, the Ministry of National Mobilization through our youth division. I would like to thank them very much for making this program and what they have accomplished thus far to be a success. And I don't want to leave out anyone because I am here just basically to pledge my support and making sure that the FAO is aware that we are going to work hand in hand and heart and heart, but in our hearts together as we make sure that we help our youth across this country. So again, I would like to just wrap it up by saying that the Ministry of National Mobilization and the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We are happy to be a part of this program, and we are going to try our very best to make sure that we, this program is a success, not only initially, but we are looking for success in the future as well. So thank you for having me and thank you for allowing me to brief you on what we're doing here and our involvement from the Ministry of National Mobilization. Thanks much. Much obliged. Thank you Minister Brewster and the fact that you are not well, but I hear you're here today indicates or demonstrates in no uncertain terms, your commitment, your commitment to this project and to your development. Thank you for those remarks and assurances. As we move along, I'd like to now invite the Honorable Minister of Agriculture. Minister Subbato Caesar, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry Fisheries, Rural Transformation Industry and Labor, to provide us with a feature address, essentially marking the launch of this program. A champion in his own right for youth development and agriculture development as part of his portfolio specifically. So Minister Caesar, welcome. Thank you very much, Chair. I want to recognize the presence of my cabinet colleague, Dr. Brewster, Permanent Secretary from my ministry. Different representatives here from ministries. I want to also recognize the presence of the representative from the FAO one. I want to welcome you to this discussion. The organizers, the media, a blessed afternoon to all. Today is Friday, 15th. Tomorrow is Saturday, the 16th, World Food Day. And it's very important that in every discussion. We have a great appreciation of the role played by citizens, farmers, food producers, fishers, agro processors stakeholders throughout the food production value chain. As it pertains to two very important issues, food security and food sovereignty. When you address the dynamics of our population and the makeup and the composition of our population, you will recognize that there are some persons who are too young to work. There are some persons who are too old to work. And between these two groups, you have what is termed as the economically active age group. And within that you have to divide it between the workforce which is used for the public sector, primarily the government, and the workforce for the private sector. And in the private sector you should have to divide it. The persons who are into tourism, persons who are into construction, and there are many who are engaged in different services. The fashion designers, the man on the road who is making the baskets. And we have a percentage remaining as food producers and basically participated in the private sector aspects of the value chain for food production. Again from the private sector standpoint, so if we have a national pie of 110,000 persons and we subdivide it into those groups. Then we see the percentage of persons who are involved and engaged in agriculture and ancillary areas. And someone may hazard a guess that it is between persons who are directly participating, maybe under 15,000 persons actively engaged in some form of enterprise. The question is, what percentage of that group are young, and there is a definition which is used in my village as to how do you describe someone who is young. And if I ask that question in my village, someone will say at the back of the room, you're as young as you feel. Well, the United Nations has formalized it, and they have placed youth as anyone under the age of 35. And that being said, I want to use that as the point of departure. The theme for World Food Day has different areas that it is focusing on our actions, our future. And we have to do better at production, at nutrition environment for a better life. And we have to focus on the youth and the role that they have played and continue to continue to play. In 2005, when I returned to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And I started to do some work in the community, working with youth groups. We developed a mantra, and we noted that in order for St. Vincent and the Grenadines to develop and to move forward. As a country, as a nation, as a people, that there was a need for an exceptional cadre of multi talented and multifaceted young persons who are not distracted by a pure inward gaze at developing self only. But have a constant reflection on enhancing the life and livelihoods of the people in the communities. Because with stronger communities, we have stronger parishes and with stronger parishes we have a better nation. And with a better nation, we have a better sub region and region, and that is one of the shortest way that we can bring meaningful changes to our world. So I'm very happy today to participate in this launch. I want to thank Agri entrepreneurship for rural development, and I want to thank all the drafters and I want to single out Dr. Phillips for her hard work and dedication in ensuring that we don't only have concepts, but that she is labored throughout several weeks and months with different groups and organizations and I want to recognize here the hard working staff at the Department of Labor. In my ministry and the Department of Youth, because this is conducted across the ministries is agriculture and and youth. I want to encourage all the young persons who will benefit from this program to take it as something that is serious. We are training that cadre that will form the next generation of producers and there are many who have gone before who have left a taboo. I want for you to be aware that from the policy standpoint from this government that we want to ensure that the youth in our country that you bring to bear your knowledge and your expertise that is cutting edge as we walk towards the commercialization of food production in our country. The chair in his capacity as the diversification officer has always noted that agriculture is a business and must always be treated as a business. And in St. Vincent Daniel's grenadines, we have many producers within the sector, but we have many traditional producers who are awaiting a marriage between many of the outdated methods of production and some of the methodologies that must be employed if we are to move into a commercial space. With that I want to rest. I want to wish everyone tomorrow a blessed World Food Day 2021. And definitely, I'm happy to know that this very important discussion about youth, agri entrepreneurship for rural development is taking place today. And I want to recognize also those who are in the meeting from the Department of Rural Transformation. May God bless us all. Thank you. Thank you, Minister Cesar for those for this address for those remarks. And yes. Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard from all the key stakeholders, the players from those who would, who are in need and who are looking forward to the support to those who would be providing technical and material assistance to those that are important for setting and enabling the policy framework incentive framework to ensure that this project is a success. You have heard about the project, you know, from the various players, and having heard that I think you can agree with me that this project embodies the World Food Day theme in its entirety. By addressing the issue of capacity building for production system, new sustainable production systems that can improve yields. And at the same time generate better livelihoods for young persons through those improve yields, but also by upgrading value chains and engaging in aspects of the private sector operation that traditionally our farmers have not addressed as was mentioned by Minister Cesar. The project will contribute in a very practical way as a platform for strengthening youth entrepreneurship to those young persons who have demonstrated some level of commitment and interest for having a career or livelihood in agriculture. Excuse me, there's a mic open. Okay, thank you. Right, so I was saying that the project provides that platform for supporting those young persons who embarked on a journey only a few months ago, or just over a couple years ago. And it serves as a springboard for vibrant youth every businesses throughout the country that multi skilled private sector oriented kind of business driven by young people. And it is worth acknowledging particularly for the youth that the journey that was started is now made easier because we have good company. In the form of the ministries of agriculture and national mobilization in the form of the food and agriculture organization and the other agencies that are collaborated on this project. Of course, central to this are those young persons that we wish to be meaningfully occupied and to have very high levels of livelihood and standard of living. I think this is those are the points that I picked up from the presentation presentations of the various speakers. And as we close this aspect of the activity. I'd like to welcome Mr. Asakai Edwards, again, another youth beneficiary to provide us with the vote of thanks. Mr. Edwards. Yes, go ahead. Could you check that your mic is not muted. We heard you initially so you can continue. Okay, see him after this launch would be the first inception workshop. And of course you're free to join these activities. This activity, sorry. Okay, so I'm looking for some guidance here but I think we're having difficulty connecting with Mr. Edwards to provide the vote of thanks. So, I would like to bring to an end. Thank you for this proceeding. And so thank, so let me thank you, thank all of you for participating for the speakers from the prayer, the prayer by Mr. Ms. Duncan who provided us a background as to the project context to one who explained the technical framework of the project, and then to Ms. Francis who provided an expectation from the youth to Minister Brewster, and particularly because he's well but he made that significant effort to be here as well, and to provide those remarks and of course to Minister Caesar for providing those words of encouragement as well. I'd like to thank as well the various officers and in the ministries of agriculture and the youth department. Dr. Phillips for doing a lot of the legwork because I was not as involved on the days leading up to this activity. Thank you to the lead technical officer one and the FAO team for providing the backstopping for this launch and for the media for carrying the mantle in terms of distributing the information, not just now, but in packaging the information and distributing as widely as possible. The young young people beneficiaries of this project your participation demonstrates as well that you are fully committed to this project. Thank you for participating. So, Godspeed, God bless him as we close this session and await the FAO to move into the next phase of the activity for this afternoon. Thank you very much. Thank you, call me. Shall we give a few minutes for the people to depart or shall I just jump into it. We can give a few maybe not to prolong it but maybe a five minutes, you know so people can stretch their legs and then we jump into it. Okay, I'll wait for your signal. Please, particularly for those are technical and technical agencies and for the participant. Just use the opportunity to stretch your legs but please don't leave this critical that we all participate in this next session. Thank you. Thank you very much. And once again, welcome to everyone to the project stakeholders in this real pressure to be today with you here. I think it is an excellent opportunity that we're using this launch, not only to speak about what we're going to do, but to actually do it to start doing it. I just thought that we should not let that opportunity escape. Let me go a little bit more in detail about a little bit of the background and go again on to the objective types of activities and plan in moving forward. Thank you very much Sean. Youth engagement in agriculture is a growing priority within FAO. Internally, we have created the youth committee, which was launched in 2019. It is a space where there are many resources related to youth engagement in agriculture practices, innovations, you know, networks dealing with a lot of a lot of good things that we can draw from. We are also internally a rural youth action plan. So I like to say this, just to note that we're not starting from zero that there are many resources that will be able to pull from externally. We're also participating in an interagency network on youth development. The context of the high level of the economic and social council, there is a new form that convenes to inform the high level panel forum in the context of the SDG agenda. There is also a decent jobs for youth global initiative. And of course, the recently created world food forum youth chapter. So just as a matter of background, we have all those resources at hand, going a little bit down into what you should expect in terms of resources and capacity supporting the implementation of the project from the FAO side. We support the by the trade and markets team, particularly in areas of agri business and value chain development and we have today here with us my colleague, Miss Bre Ramold, who is the international value chain and rural development expert. She's going to be after after this introduction, leading us into an initial training on market led value chain development would also be mobilizing national capacities and other international experts who will be counting with the support of a national business planning consultant that will help on the ground, you know, the national will be part of the national team to facilitate things moving on, we will engage also an international international business planning expert for a partial time to help us use and adapt existing tools on business planning, including financial planning that have been already developed in the context of a previous previous project called agriculture. We will mobilize experts to support us and guide us in areas that have been identified as key for the development of the project such as food safety and climate smart culture. And last but not least, we will be also engaging regional experts young young regional expert in this case on the area of branding and marketing to support you know the youth in that area of the products. So, so that's about the support that you should expect going back into the project objectives, as I mentioned, we would expect at the end of the project that they will be improved capacity to design policies and mechanism for access of views and businesses to land facilities and business development tools so we want to contribute to improving the, you know the policy the normative framework, you also want to work at the level of the capacities, you know, and the structures in terms of having a national team from the different from the different partner agencies, enhance the capacity for upgrading youth based funds and agri-processing ventures, some of which you know you are already engaged, some of which you will be developing, etc. Basically with the view of meeting certain basic and necessary business standards as well as market standards. And of course, the other aspect is working with with yourselves with the youth, young entrepreneurs to train them to produce competitive commodities and products. And my colleague, Brie Ramon, will talk a bit more about what we mean by you know being able to do that in a competitive way. We are hoping that immediately after these launch and introductory training we will follow up with the focal point of the project Mr. Colvin Kim and others, you know to define and identify a cross technical national team that will be supported by the FAO and national project partners to deliver on different sets of activities. Correspond to the objective that I just mentioned, you know activities related to the support provided to agri-business development from a policy perspective, access to land facilities and online marketing, young entrepreneurs, training value chain development, business skills, value addition, good agriculture and climate smart practices, and training of trainers for project counterparts to assist to facilitate the training and coaching of agri-entrepreneurs in the values agri-business development areas. So we would hope that that cross sectional team at the national level would have people that are not necessarily experts but do have some experience in working in these different areas that aim to contribute to each of the types, each of the three objectives of the project. The training structure, we should expect a training program that will involve a combination of international and national support. The approach, it will be a blended delivery approach, you know, including virtual and in-person training sessions, COVID-19 dependent, of course. The program will involve a number of components and some tentative timelines have been suggested in the concept note that was probably shared with you. We will seek to discuss with a focal point and with an internal team to fine-tune that work plan in moving forward. We're basically, we're looking at a number of steps involving analyzing, you know, the existing and prospective agri-business policy and incentive framework and marketing possibilities, starting, you know, for November until the first quarter of 2022. We are starting as soon as we will be starting on rapid value sharing analysis and upgrading plan. We should be concluded by February 2022. We're looking at business skills trading from project counterparts. As I mentioned, we will try to adjust and update, you know, existing tools and materials developed previously. And we will identify and bring on board the experts that will be leading on that. We will do actual skills, business skills training for the youth groups that would start in the second quarter of 2022. We will do the technical training in good agricultural practices for safety and climate-smarterly culture in the second part of next year. Once we see that there is a consolidation of the groups that we have adjusted the materials that we have, you know, all the inputs that we need to actually, you know, deliver on those other technical areas. And we will have, once we have tested that training, you know, we hope to have a second round of business skills training for youth groups in 2023. So we'll seek to develop a detailed plan for the first year, you know, from now on, and then we'll take it from there. Of course, all training activities, you know, will be targeted, but of course will be open to other interested staff within the Ministry of Agriculture and other partner agencies or the private sector. The concept now is there. It has been or will be distributed to all stakeholders and those interested. And with that introduction, I would like to invite my colleague, Ms. Bre Roomall to lead us into this initial training session on value market oriented value chain development. Over to you, Bre. Okay, thank you very much, Juan. Thank you everyone. In particular, the Honorable Ministers, the permanent secretaries who are still here and of course our ministry counterparts. Mr. King and Dr. Phillips lovely to see you this afternoon. As Juan said my name is Bre Rommelt, I am working for the FAO in the area of developing competitive and resilient value chains with a particular emphasis on agribusiness and finding the right opportunities for our farmers in the region. It's my pleasure to be here working with you in particularly for youth focus projects, I think it's a great opportunity and I'm looking forward to to working with the whole team moving ahead. And as Juan mentioned, we're opening of making the use this afternoon of this time together to actually get on into it. And to move to take the opportunity to discuss and start some initial or introductory trainings that will least give you an overview of what you can expect in the process moving forward. So I encourage everybody here today, particularly the representatives from the youth who are really here for is to get involved we I really want this to be an interactive session as much as possible to show you and give you a feel for our hands on the applied approach that we really want to work together with you, as much as possible on the ground to find the market find the products, and, and, and get going. Just before I begin or commence the training I'm just going to hand back over to Juan, who I imagine has one more aspect to address. Thank you, I emphasize about you know the diversity of players and capacities that will be behind this project. And I'd like to recognize, you know, some important players that are today we're here with us. They're representing from the Center for Enterprise and Business Development, the Bureau of Standards, and the Community College are present there would be key partners you know, in helping us you know implement the project and also in ensuring that whatever we develop you know, can potentially be expanded beyond the duration of the project. Over to you again. Okay, thank you, Juan, and I too would like to extend my welcome and thanks to the representatives at Center of Business Development, the Bureau of Standards, of course, and the college which extremely important partners. Okay, so as mentioned I'm, I'm a value chain expert so the focus today's training is really going to be on value chains and how to identify those products with the greatest market potential. This isn't we will do it with the youth groups more hands on it and together but this is just to get you give your feel for what we are going to do today. As I was mentioning, I'm hoping it can be an interactive session. So where possible. Please do make use of the chat function, because I'll be asking you a number of quiz questions to get your feedback and thoughts on on the way forward so please be generous with the use of the chat functions as well and if you would like to make some comments or respond directly I have no problems with you jumping in on my king and sharing your opinions. After all, this is an interactive session and we're here to to learn together. So, bear with me as I open up my presentation and we shall begin. Okay. As mentioned, there's a number of different components. As one of Mr King actually mentioned there's a number of different components for this value for this project from online marketing business planning production and whatnot. But to start with we're working on value chains because because before you narrow down and develop all the marketing tools you need for your product. So it's a good opportunity to first take a step back and work out what value chains are most advantageous for you to participate in to be involved in which ones have the best market opportunities, which ones have space and unfilled markets. And then also, once you've figured out your product to better understand your supply chain, what are the weaknesses in your supply chain. How can you strengthen them to make sure that you're delivering the right product to the right market at the right time. But with that, and I'm going to move us in and I was very pleased and very happy to hear the minister speaking about agriculture as a business. It absolutely is. There's good revenues to be made in agriculture and so many opportunities to interesting business models interesting innovation, whether it's in the field online or in processing goods so I'm very much supportive of the idea that we need to to sell agriculture as a really interesting and viable employment opportunity for our youth. Okay, so just to walk you through a little bit what we're going to do and this is largely going to follow will be the flow of my the training today. Now we tend how FAO approaches really identifying good business orientation to towards agriculture. First step one choose your value chain wisely. Okay, which agricultural products have the best market opportunities for the country for a cooperative or for you as an individual farmer, if you can identify that half the hard work is done. After you know which products and which value chains you are you're going to focus on, we then want to understand and assess your supply chain or the nation's value chain to better understand where the current weaknesses are where the critical constraints are that are the bottlenecks in the chain because we want to focus our time and attention on releasing or alleviating those bottlenecks or those problems so that your business or the value chain the national value chain can run more smoothly and move products much more easily to market. After we've identified some preliminary problems we can then work towards more of the business planning and this is where my expert colleagues in the business planning field will join. We'll start in the project later on once we've established the first two steps. And of course, with every good business plan, we need to assess both the technical components so how well to produce your yield rates your production techniques, alongside the finance how much is it going to cost you what is the establishment cost, and what is the markets, what's the market price and what revenues are we talking about the money is king and the money is important and it can be done so we're going to show you and work with these companies on how to develop useful business plans to help them strategize better. And then finally is actually actually implementing your business plan, your supply chain plan. And this is where the project will be lending a number of integrated support to our young every printers to help them in getting their businesses up and running. Alright, so let's start with a quiz and again I remind you please use the chat function I don't want to be the only one speaking. But just to loosen us up a little bit on a Friday afternoon before the weekend, and to get you thinking along value chain lines. How would you best describe an agricultural value chain that is the first question. Number one farm to farm gate to farm to fridge or three farm to fork, please I'm going to give you a minute to put your answers in the chat box. So we can get a bit of dialogue I can see what everybody's thinking, or if you want to call out directly I also welcome that answer one two or three. We shy we are a big, we're a big group of people farm to fridge I see one response. Number two does everyone agree on to someone here farm to farm gates okay number one. Two, we've got that's a popular three three. Good I like the interaction. It's a bit of a it's a bit of a tricky question or try to skip you up but I can see now in the chat box. Number three is three and that is correct we are moving from farm right through to fork. fork of course is the consumer representing the farm product going all the way down to eating farm to farm gate is just looking at the farm level and doesn't take into consideration all the processing and value addition and money that can be earned from transporting products value, putting value added to them marketing them in strategic ways before they even get to the consumer farm to fridge isn't too bad. It's not too tough, but really the colloquial term for value chains is farm to fork. Alright, it's question number two. Who in your opinion is the most important actor in the value chain. Is it a the processor a the farmer be the processor. The consumer again go ahead. Throw it out there what do you think who is the most important actor in a value chain is it the farmer producing the goods. Is it the processor cleaning processing adding value to it. Is it the supermarket that's how you're going to get your goods if you're not visiting the supermarket. We've got a mixed bag I've got a lot of a's I see some D's anybody else want to throw in some last minute thinking a is very popular. In fact, it's a bit of a trick question everybody's important but really at the end of the day the most important actor in a value chain is the consumer. Because if there is no what happens if you produce all your oranges and there is no one there to buy them or consume them right without a consumer to purchase and take your production there is no point producing so while the farmer is very very important. There is no point producing unless you are producing for the market. So that really underscores our emphasis in this project is we are really market orientated. If there is a market let us produce if there is not a market let's look elsewhere for production okay we produce based on the market. So the answer is D. Really skip that one. Question three and this is the last question for this quiz. Which value chains do you think tend to be the most successful. Now number a is a production push a production push value chain means when young farmers. They go forward and they produce a crop maybe it's lettuce maybe it's yeah maybe it's a fruit crop. And then once they have produced it they then go and try and find a market to sell to that's what we call production push you produce first and then you try and push it off the farm. Other answer possible answer is B and that is a market pool. A market pool means when a young father farmer first goes to the market first he talks to his supermarket or down down the road and ask what products are they missing what products do you need more of what products are interested in selling. Based on that information they come back and they then produce what they can but based on the market. So, I see now I'm looking in the chat box and I see some very strong results for be yes it is clearly market pool. This is the best way to produce if you know your market it's very easy to sell your produce it's much harder to produce products, agricultural products and then be really challenged on where to sell them to because it's stressful. You may as a farmer may not be so great at marketing so it's harder to find where the markets are and then you can end in wastage. So really we need to do our homework first find our markets and then help our youth groups help our ministry guide our youth groups to to working on how to then produce the products that the local or international market want. All right, thank you for joining in on our first quiz. We have some more. Not so much quizzes but exercises later on a little bit more challenging, but I think that gives you a flavor and I can see there's a good understanding of what a value chain is which is great. So a value chain approach means that instead of looking just at production and just at farming, because as we've heard from all the speakers prior to me there are so many more other functions involved in agriculture than just farming. There's a whole lot of different activities so that the value chain approach wants to look at the whole chain right from production right through to the consumer and look at every stage in between. To work out whether a there are some agribusiness opportunities here at the processing level or maybe even at the distribution level in addition to the farm level because farming is so much more than just product agriculture is so much more than just farming. So we like to look at the whole chain and each chain is very dependent on the next as the product flows from production to harvest to transport to processing and so along so they're all interlinked steps. And a value chain or a supply chain a business supply chain will only ever be as strong as its weakest link. All right, so if you have one weak link here say your production is weak you're not producing using the right good agricultural practices you have a disease spread or something happens to your fields, or everybody's fields in the country. Then it is going to impact your entire chain, the processes won't have oranges to source for their juices. The markets won't have any fresh oranges to sell in the market. So it will have ricochet effect across the value chain. So if you have a problem at harvesting transport you can have a great field a great bumper crop. But then there's some problems with harvesting or transport that for some reason, transport isn't moving around the island to collect, collect crop at the right time. Then this is going to have problems for everybody, it is going to have problems for your farmers, it is also going to impact your processes and your markets. All right, so everything is interlinked. Finally, and coming back to the first quiz question or the second quiz question is, if you have no markets if for some reason suddenly everybody stops buying oranges. They the market drops out the buyer no longer wants to stack oranges because he's not selling them for whatever reasons if the markets fall out, or a competitor comes in and supplies oranges to the supermarket at a much cheaper price than you can. Then it is going to affect your whole chain the whole chain will go down. All right, that is why we take a market led approach because this is very important. If you know this well, you can coordinate your whole supply to meet the market optimize your market and your revenues, but if you don't keep an eye on the market it's going to affect everyone and everybody's profit along the chain. So, right. Now, how do we build this, this value chain approach has a similar impact similar approach as to building a strong value strong supply chain so if you're an agri business, a youth cooperative. There's many, many things you need to take into consideration just like a national value chain. At the farming level, are you using the best production techniques, where are you getting your set planting material is it good quality what is your cost of production how much does it actually cost you to do a cycle of oranges right do you know these. Moreover, when you want to harvest, are you applying good post harvest techniques so that you're not losing parts of your yield, simply to do to bad mistakes and then losing out on revenues that you could be from selling those that those oranges. Are you harvesting based on the schedule that the market wants, or are you just harvesting willy nilly as you see fit and then finding the markets. All right, when you think about your business, you could also think doesn't make business sense to you as an agripreneur to add value to your product before you sell it to make it into a powder to an oil to do something beyond just selling it as a raw material. Does it make financial sense because it will also cost you more to start converting your product into a secondary product so have you run the numbers. And how is the best processing and storage methods to get your product through the value chain have you thought about that. If you sell your product to a processor, how do you negotiate good terms with your processor and how do you how do you negotiate a long term relationship so they're a reliable supplier. What food safety requirements do you need to adhere to how you package your product doesn't look good and what does what sort of packaging does your buyer want when does he want the package to arrive at the store. And what type of what different buyers are there in the market, which ones are likely to give you the best returns. And, and what are their requirements how much volume do they want what price do they want how do they want it arriving in store when do they want it arriving store. All of these questions are challenging and what every Pena is really sort of have to think through step by step. At the national level we also look at this for the for the national value chain, but it is also very much applicable to every AgriPena. So once we do this kind of value chain thinking you think through your whole supply chain we can then start working out where you're having your biggest challenges. All right, is it food safety you really don't know what the food safety requirements are your processing facilities aren't in good Nick, we need to work on that part of the chain otherwise everything is moving. Okay, or is your do you have major issues at the production level, no matter how you apply the techniques, it's not quite working so we need to look at different sides of where you're having issues to understand we don't need to work on all of these areas some of them are working well. Let's focus on the areas that just struggling with the most. And then, and come up with a strategy to build a business a stronger business plan around the week areas. All right, so again similar to that national value chain for an entrepreneur supply chain. If you have if you have a problem here with your buyers it's going to affect every stage of production and likely the way back so the value chain approach we think is a very useful way to start looking at a youth the youth to start thinking of. And as the speaker earlier today said, yes, there's some complexity we need to help work with our young entrepreneurs on how to think through these steps to put all the pieces together to come up with great business plans. Okay, so the final thing I would say about the value chain approach and why we do value chain assessments is because we all have our area of specialty and our technical technical area, or our areas of interest for for young people as well if you're interested in farming in particular or you're more interested in the marketing side we always tend to have our technical preferences. As a result when we look at national value chains, or when we look at our own supply chain perhaps, we tend to be a little bit blink it. We tend to see, see things from where we stand if I'm an expert in irrigation I'll tend to look at farming practices and I visit our farmers, and I see them just how they're managing their irrigation. I tend to be much more understanding the bigger regulations and policies and planning initiatives of the government, for example, or if I'm if an export promotions agency I'm really looking at the markets but with an export orientation. So what actually often happens is that we all tend to be working in our own offices or in our own farms without much a bigger site of the bigger picture. Which aims us as we work together to realize that we are all looking at the same thing. And unless we work at this, we all work together and look at the same thing together, we aren't going to be able to move the sector alone. So irrigation itself will not improve the cassava sector. And a great policy and regulation won't move or change the export potential of certain crops. Okay, so we need to bring our expertise together, whether that's at the ministry level or also at the, at the, at the planning level so at the business level so with our different entrepreneurs, bringing together their different areas of expertise in the cooperative to work together to build a great plan. So that approach when we start seeing the bigger picture together as well as the details that is where we really get something running so we need to move away from this ad hoc planning and move towards a more holistic systems approach. Okay, so let us get now about that bit more back to some questions and some challenges. But now we value chain selection I said we had a four step process but I want to start back at the very first one which to me is the most important. If you choose the rice product, everything else becomes much easier. So you can see four products on your screen in front of you. And I want you to add in the chat box, albeit I forgot to put ABC and D, but let's say this is ABC and D. So please let me know which one of these products you think has the greatest market potential and let's say instant Vincent. Is it cassava I see someone saying honey, does anyone think honey strawberries, tomatoes, honey, honey is popular that's good. Which one do you think has the biggest market potential now we, when we talk about potential. How many tomatoes does the local population want to eat how much cassava fresh cassava does the country want to eat was the export markets want to eat or how much processed cassava flower as well does the country want to eat so it's not just fresh products but we also want to think about the value added potential. What you see here in the chat box B is tomatoes is quite popular honey and the tomatoes, people haven't really said much about cassava or strawberries that's okay. All right. All right. There's no, if let's take to the next question, if I give you this information, which of these products has the greatest market potential does this change your opinion about the about the answer. Do you shift your opinion right by this I've added here, we actually sought data. All right to actually know, find out the sales of each product, and we're able to quantify it so we're able to bring some proper evidence to the table and this is the backbone of the value chain approach we want to work with the real numbers and the real data to make our decisions, not just on anecdote and opinion. So, now let's see the size of the market obviously cassava is a much larger market. Tomatoes is a bit smaller, honey is a bit smaller again and strawberries is a bit small. Tomatoes someone saying tomato now. Do you have you changed your opinion to what you originally thought for those who said honey, are you still going to stand by honey, you still think that's got the biggest market potential would you get into honey production based off these data. All right, so for the final sheet on this exercise, I'm going to show you another graph, we're going to add even more data or more information to help you choose your crop in a more informed way. All right. Now you'll see two circles around each. Okay, I like that. I see two circles here now, now where the circle is solid, that is basically the size of the market the farmers are currently supplying. So, farmers say for example this is hypothetical but tomatoes in say tomato farmers able to fill and sell 50 metric tons. However the full market annual market wants 100 metric tons. Okay, so that means there's all this space here that the farmers that local farmers have not been able to fill this is empty demand so supply doesn't equal to mark. So instead here we're not just looking at how much of a one crop. The country is producing, but we're also trying to understand how much is the country demanding and what is the difference between what we currently supply plus what we the market wants supplied. All right. So, this final sheet now when you see two circles and you see more information in front of you does your decision change do you still think honey has the biggest potential market potential for you to get into honey production, for example. I would love to see some comments or just to let me know if you changed your mind in the chat box because this is what I'm curious as we add more information to your decision. Does it help you change your decision or not. Okay, so what we can see here is that we have a number of different, a number of different products. I see some people have changed and some people have switched back to honey that's great. What we can see here is that although there may be say strawberries might be the smallest overall demand. It's currently the least filled. So there's a lot of consumers wanting to buy strawberries in the country they just can't find them. So to me this represents an excellent market opportunity. Okay. Similarly, here we honey also has great market potential that's unfilled. Okay, and tomatoes is not too bad because you could also get in there's unfilled market here cassava, we can see the country is managing to supply more most almost most of its demand for cassava. So when we talk about selecting markets, it's not simply what you can grow in your fields it's not simply does this inventions, eat more cassava than strawberries, and therefore I'll make a grow cassava. For market assessments we really want to understand what is the difference between what is demand and supply is the country other farmers in the country producing enough to meet demand. And if not, how big is the gap, because the gap there is the opportunity. That's when you can go to the market and say I have here a basket full of honey. Do you want to buy it, and the consumers like yes, I've been looking for honey for ages. Yes, I will buy it and I'll pay a good price for it. I really want to find those products where the demand or the market opportunity is significantly high. Okay, thank you for participating. We have FAO has a developed a new tool is one was mentioning we have a number of different tools that we can and will roll out in this project to help our agripreneurs and to help our ministry counterparts in identifying which products are the best. The best demand conditions, and by demand we're really assessing whether there's local demand what the export demand is is the market growing. You know, there's, there's big markets now for CMOS and Moringa and all these like high coconut and these products are getting like health fads. Is the market growing or is it shrinking, or is it staying the same, because this is important for the future. If you look at the profitability look at the farm the cost of production and the farm gate price, is it a profitable crop, because that's also important for farmers to consider when they choose their products. And what about value added profitability, you know, can you make products additional value added products that can earn you more money so we're going to we look we have a tool that looks at all of these components. The best demand, we also need to look at supply, because of course you can't grow everything on your farm because of the agro ecological conditions. So we also want to look at whether it's possible to grow whether you're going to get good yield rates or kind of technology you would need to do to use to be able to get good returns on your investment. What sort of support is available in terms of extension support. Is it supposed to much risk is it a risky crop to grow in terms of pest and disease or climate change, and how much coordination is going on between the farmers and the sector so value chain selection we hope is going to be a little bit easier. And what we would like to embark on with you to better assess it and I have these pictures here in the corner to show you that this is we have to do this together. It's not just data that you can put through a machine and it calculates which chain or which products are the best for different farmers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. But really we need to work through it we need to look at the different factors we need to discuss and we need to consider so it's a very applied and participatory process. Then the results and this is hypothetical okay so we've done this for a few countries now we have yet to do it with St Vincent we look forward to it. But I've not showing you the other countries data just yet because it's not finalized but this is a hypothetical. So once we go through this step one of selecting which products have good opportunities. We can start working out where there might be better crops to select over others. We look at two things first of course the market opportunities which is very important so the higher the market opportunities and by opportunities. Meaning the gap between what the market what is currently supplied to market and the gap between how much gap between supply and demand. If there's a big gap between supply and demand, we have excellent high market opportunities. If the country is largely farmers are currently already supplying what the market wants then the market opportunities are low. All right. Alongside the market opportunities we're also looking at supply side readiness so it's the intersection of supply and demand. If if the supply side is ready to go this it's good soils good climatic conditions, good yield rates good ministry support, then this is an excellent gives us an indication that this the supply side or the production side is ready to go. So ideally we want to kind of find the crops that lie somewhere high and high for both the market and the supply side readiness. Not to give up on all the others but for various reasons for pests and disease issues for low market opportunities for example, the different crops are scattered at different segments. So really, particularly for young entrepreneurs we want to hit part in the pun but get the lowest hanging fruit and help them get into market profitably as soon as possible. All right. So just to wrap up this part. We have a few steps for those who'll be involved in working with us in the process and hopefully working with us to do a number of these activities. We can figure out which markets have the greatest potential by using this market survey that we FAO Caribbean has developed to identify the high potential value chains we mostly do that with the ministries. We also like to identify good market partners so that's buyers particularly for youth groups is to figure out which buyers nearby them could be excellent partners in developing a more long term and stable linkage. And this would differ from youth group to youth group depending on where you are in the islands or where who your closest markets are and of course different aspects in terms of cost of production and and all those sort of things. We also will run by a survey so how to interview buyers to really understand what it is they want from a farming community so that you can make sure that youth group is able to produce as best as possible to what the buyer wants. And then of course we're going to look at all of these aspects together so it's really the intersection between market opportunity and supply side feasibility. So that is a quick summary on step one after we do a bit more work and help select great markets to get into. We also want to look at supply value chain assessments. And this is where things get interesting as well how strong is your value chain and where exactly the weaknesses. So some questions and this I want you to respond to in chat box again please based. What is the answer what is the biggest problem in the cassava value chain we have four problems listed out here that have been identified. Number a well letter a poor farming practices which is decreasing yields that has been identified as a critical issue in the cassava value chain. This profiteering of the middle man who is charging higher prices low prices from farmers and selling at a higher price so this is reducing what the farmer is earning from his crop. See an outbreak of a cassava virus that is devastating some of the farmer fields or D wasted to the product on market shells because no one is buying the product. What is your opinion. Put it in the chat. What do you think which one of these do you think is the biggest problem that these value chain change that faces. Okay, I see some bees the profiteering. I see some days these again. All right, I see that's good. So we can see a bit of a combination, the profit middleman is definitely a problem wastage is an issue I can see the outbreak of the virus. No one saying a. It's interesting. The. Yes, that's a good comment lack of creativity for the use of the product so we're not being creative enough in terms of adding value. Yes, I think you might have found a Colleen an additional problem in the chain which is good. Okay, so let me answer this question by telling you that there are all problems. If we do value chain analysis or supply chain analysis we treat really trying to identify which is the most critical problem that if we do not solve this problem immediately. Then the whole value chain is going to suffer. All right. So in that reason it's not a because poor farmer practices is a problem. But it's if if we don't fix this problem tomorrow the fact that value chain will still continue farmers will still produce and sell but it just not as effectively as efficiently as they can so it is a problem. But it's not a major binding problem is what we like the terms we used to say. All right. I think there's profiteering at the middle man we don't like it we understand that but the value chain continues, even if farmers are not earning as much as they can, they're a bit angry and frustrated, but the value chain continues. Outbreak of the virus is a little bit more problematic because if it touches enough fields, then the whole supply base will collapse and if the supply collapse the chain will collapse. So that is a little bit more concerning, but only if it's touching on 80 to 90% of farmers because if some farmers have got the virus but other farmers are managing to produce okay. That means the value chain will continue to stand because they'll be they'll produce less, but they'll be still product flowing from the farms to the markets. D to me is the most concerning because if you see wastage on the shelves of products. That means the demand is not there. No matter how much you produce of the cassava, if people are not buying it or you're not finding alternative uses for it, like a value added products out of cassava or you're not finding export markets to take up the additional produce. There is no, then we have a problem for production. All right, the value chain will really falter because if farmers can't sell their product. If they're selling it at a very low price, what happens. If they lose money, they become less interested in producing and as businessmen they get out of the sector so that the problem of the virus and the low demand or demand issues is the biggest concern for this value chain. So if this was, if this was the assessment we did, we know that for our work ahead we really want to focus as much as possible on these two issues. So all problems, the chain can still manage with these, it's still alive but with here it's really under threat. So this is the, these would be the areas that we work on. All right, so that was an example of sometimes we have a tendency to see just what lies beneath above the surface. All right. We know we would have seen that there was problems with the middle man we would have seen that there's problems on the markets, but we didn't really have the time to investigate what it is that's really the root cause. Okay, so the value chain analysis allows us to see the symptoms. So we can also take a greater look and really look at what are the root problems of this value chain, which areas do we really need to focus our limited resources on and address and this could also be with the supply chain. All right, so a cluster supply chain to really figure out what the main problems of the supply chain is. So I put this cartoon up here because I think it illuminates the point quite well that sometimes if you don't look at the patient properly. And in this case it's a value chain. If you're not looking at the patient as you're diagnosing it you may get the wrong diagnosis and then your surgery or your intervention will be focused on the wrong part of the system. So for example, this man here does have high cholesterol. However, his high cholesterol is not going to kill him right now, like his arrows are. Okay, so while we do need to address his cholesterol at some point, our real focus should be on healing these immediate wounds right now so that he can live another day, so we can then tackle the cholesterol. All right, so it's like understanding your value chain prioritizing the main constraints and really attending to the most urgent issues straight away. All right, I'm going to give you a bit more of a complicated question. So have a go. All right. I'll explain this slowly. Sometimes I use the analogy that a value chain is kind of like a river. It's like floating down the river on a boat from one side to the other. Because when we produce products, we really want them to flow we want them to flow through through production out to the transport guys to the to the agro processing businesses and through the processing business to the supermarkets. And then finally the consumer right and like any good river the more consistent and the more open and wide it is the means the more product we can push through the value chain. The more product that goes through a value chain, the more people can earn the more farmers can sell the more earnings they can take home. So we like that our stream so to say is running smoothly as possible with as little problems as as they as possible. However, as you can see on this river, it's not exactly smooth sailing. So I'm going to ask people can you tell me where are the constraints or where are the challenges in this value chain in this river. What do you think are a problem that this value chain group needs to take into consideration as they float down the river. Type it into the chat box, which what where can you see a problem that this boat boat in group will experience as they float down the river. Everyone's a bit shy now not as it's not as easy. Okay, so sweet. There we go. Thank you. Yes, we have a few coming in now. That's good. Thank you. Yes, someone's identified the sweepers and the strainers. Yes, this doesn't look nice. I wouldn't want to run into this in a boat undercut bank. Yes. Thank you. That's also that's also an issue here. Absolutely. That's a concern I'd be a bit worried about if I was going down this river anybody else any other thoughts the sandbar. Yes, sandbar. Where is the sandbar. There it is over here. Exactly the Eddie. Thank you. None of these this actually looks like a bit more dangerous river than I'd imagined when I set sail on it. And the stump field as well. Excellent. This doesn't look friendly either. Okay, good. What you've essentially done is identified the constraints in this value chain. We have them here. We have boulders you have to be aware of this the undercut banks there's the Eddie there's the stump field there is a lot of constraints. Yep. My question to you now is which of these constraints that you can see in this chain is the absolute binding constraint is the most problem the most critical the most challenging constraint that you can see. A lot of challenges and that's often with the value chain we can often see a lot of challenges. The question though which is the binding challenge which is the binding constraint. Have a go have a look to really think that if. So for example, I'm going to give you an example here. If we thought it was the wing dance right, we could still spend a lot of time and money removing the wing dance. But then our boat would set stale and it would hit straight into the sweepers anyway. Alright, so it doesn't matter if we remove this we're still going to hit another problem. Alright, and then we'll keep going through so which of these is the binding constraints I see the rapids. Few people have said the rapids is anybody else want to have a guess. Rapids is not correct. There's another more concerning constraint. There we go. The damn. Absolutely. Colville has identified it. That is it. And dare I ask to put Colville on the spot and tell us why. Why you think the damn is the most pressing constraint here why is this one concern you the most. I'm an expert on rivers. Essentially, those are blockages. So no matter if you get away from the wing dams, the holders, etc. When you get to that point you cannot proceed. And so, you know, if you so damn for example is a pretty high thing if you drop over there probably go to die. It would block you from moving forward and so on. So I think that provides a binding constraint. You absolutely can't get by based on the design of those things. That's absolutely correct Colville and I think you said it very well as a non river expert that we can spend a lot of time and money trying to get rid of these different aspects or constraints, but still when we float down we're going to hit the damn. So no matter what improvements and great impact we have here the value chain is still blocked. All right. So the question that I have to the group is where do we focus what should we what is our leverage point what is the key area of this chain that we should be focusing on having identified the binding constraint. Do you think we should be focusing on the wing dams do you think we should be focusing on the Eddie do you think we should be focusing on the damn. Everyone's going to be nervous to answer that's okay. Yes, the damn. Well, the dam is a difficult part to intervene in but it is the point there is no point fixing other parts of this value chain unless we fix this so what we'd like to say is this exercise of identifying a constraints, and then binding constraints or to find the most urgent critical constraint is it's very useful because we know exactly where we need to intervene or spend most of our time it helps us really. Yeah, it makes us really focus on the area that is really the biggest problem. Yeah, and I agree thank you to everyone who's added comments now yes we need to focus on the damn. This has been removed and the and the river is flowing nicely, then we can take our time and start improving here and all the different rapids and boulders and that wing dams alright. So it's the same with any value chain you don't there's no point focusing on the wrong end of the chain but actually the bigger problems down at the market end. We want to find out where the biggest problem is and spend our time on that alleviate that or improve it and then we can start and shift our focus in other places. So thank you very much for participating that was a bit more of a complicated one, even I'm taking you to a water analogy there. Let me give you let's put into practice one more time alright so here is another diagram this is more about a diagram of a value chain, you can see inputs then to production to aggregation to processing to distribution to consumption alright so the product is the potatoes for a sample of flowing through here through here. We have a number of constraints here the constraints here are represented by this. Alright, this is dense in the in the supply chain because here we've got good volume flowing through here then suddenly it's like a jam through the river. There's a backlog and a bottleneck here because the side down is wide anymore. So this slows the flow down. Alright, then it comes back up and then it goes down further through the value chain but hits another constraint here and it slows the flow again. This isn't good because ideally we'd be working we'd be flowing nice and evenly across the whole way no problem so the farmers can sell and get enough as much as their produce through the chain as possible. So my question to you, which is a bigger which is the binding constraints in example number one is it a or is it be answers in the chat be someone straight off the punch there. Do you think the binding constraints are the biggest the most urgent constraint in this value chain is at a or is that be okay I've got a bit of both bit of both yeah that's good. Okay, alright consensus I can see now is leading to be. And you're correct. This is the bigger constraints. Okay, and that is really because simply this such it's a bigger size. Yeah, it's much, much larger which means as product goes through here it slows the flow a little bit by the time it gets to hear the flow is slowed significantly. Alright, so this is a really big bottleneck. So these the area we wanted. We want to take a look at and figure out how to come up with solution more closely. Alright, next one. Example two is a bit more complicated bit more challenging here. We can see it looks a bit different. What do you reckon which is the biggest binding constraint here is at C or D. You might want to take into consideration the different sizes. And give you example that sometimes this is just a group of farmers on one side of the island for example producing together. And they produce produce aggregate and process separately, but then it comes in and joins together with the other farmers who producing their produce on the other side of the island and rejoins again at distribution to finally get to the market. Okay, we've got some interesting okay system D so far. So I'd love to ask you why does anybody is anyone brave enough to unmute and explain a little bit of your thinking as to why D might be the bigger constraint. Okay, that will there's an answer the D that flow is narrowing the process. Yes. Okay. All right. Well sorry to admit that it's actually C. Because while if you can see closely that the constraints are about the same size. However, the constraint here is on a value chain or a production where there's much less production. So this is, it's a constraint, it's a problem, but it's having much less impact, because there's less product flowing through here. This is our bigger value chain, and you can see here that a lot more is flowing through here so when we hit an obstacle. The obstacle is having a much bigger impact on the overall change simply because there's more tomatoes or potatoes flowing through this value chain. Right. So, which one would we want to work on first if we are the ministry for example or this is our supply chain which area should take our focus first of all should we be focusing on D, or should we focus on C to improve. And I will say that see if sees our biggest problem, let's address C. Yeah, thank you very much. So see, because if this is my business, and this is one flow of my one one business see this is my potato business going up here my and my tomato business going down here, and I can see that C is a small constraint but it's on my main chain or my main product, then this will be on me as a business woman. Alright, so I want to tackle this one first to make sure my potatoes are flowing smoothly to the market. And then once this is looking better I will then shift here to address the issues at tomatoes. Alright, good. I can see that everyone agrees with me on C. I appreciate that so lucky last. I want to give you a bit more of a challenge to tweak your head a bit more. Which of these constraints. E or F is the binding constraints in this value chain which is the bigger problem for your business, or for the national industry is it at E, or is it at F. It's challenging because you can see again similar to the top we have a smaller value chain here maybe one product smaller product moving along here. And then we have much more product moving on this chain, but we can see that one is going US selling to the local market, and one product is being sold to the export market. Okay, F seems very popular. There's one E good I like a bit of. Okay good. Does anyone want to explain why, either by unmuting or typing in the chat Thank you very much the chain is completely cut off at S. The chain, the chain stops. In fact it doesn't flow so my if this is my potato line it's not actually even making it to the market because there's a big gap here. Yes. Okay. So, the question I have now is which one of these if this is my business. This is the national value chain, which one should we be focusing on improving E or F E F I see a few different opinions. Europe anybody else want to have a have a go before I tell you what the answer is. Okay, local market first okay I see that he there's a lot of support for either F E. Okay, good. Well, truth is, neither of them we don't know we don't really know whether we should be focusing on E or F first. And that's because of some simple reasoning, we don't know what the problem is. Alright, so this as someone correctly identified this value chain is completely cut off right so product is not actually even making it into the export market. The question is, why, why has the chain broken here. Is it a problem with export customs, is it that the product does not meet the required EU legislation regulation to get into the market. Is it because freight is down and they can't we can't move right, or is it because your processor is suddenly out of business and can no longer process what you need to process and we don't actually know what the problem is. If we know once we know what the problem is we can figure out, can we solve that or is that unsolvable. Like, we can't really affect. You know, if it's a bigger problem of ships, no longer docking. I mean, that's a bit more challenging for us to solve right so the choice about where to intervene also matters on what actually the problem is. And that's the beauty of value chain analysis will sit down take a very close look at your supply chain, figure out where the problems are, and then work out okay what solutions could we do. Could we improve this is it feasible. Is it going to take us a week a month a year. What sort of resources do we need and then let's focus in on the most feasible areas that we can have impact as quickly as possible. Okay, so that was constraints binding constraints and leverage points for value chains. Okay, now let's switch gears a little bit. So once, once we've looked at a value chain and understand where the weakness are we're in a much better position to design an upgrading strategy or a strategy a business plan, for example for an individual. Agripreneur. Now the question is which markets I'm going to give you which market should I focus on I take us back to remember our quiz before which said we everyone agreed the market pool be was much more important. The question now is, we have identified that your product has three markets it can sell into. You know, for example, a could be the local wet market around the corner, be could be the supermarket, you know, down in the capital city. It could be the big hotels, opening up around the corner. All right, a B or C so your product has interest from multiple markets. Which market should you focus on a B or C. Let me change that question. Tell me which one you think looks like the bigger market, the better market. I gave it away. C. Thank you we've got one bit of a C. Do people agree do they people agree that C looks a bit bigger. A we have an A there. Okay. Good. Well from this simple diagram we probably look at C because it's a large market. All right and it's got a big pool so it's ready to take a lot of produce. So if you can provide or produce a lot of produce this looks like a very interesting market, albeit we need to take a little bit of a deeper look. Make sure you can meet the requirements. Once we identify markets, which markets we want to focus on whether that's for an agri business or for a value chain or for a national value chain, we then want to focus on the areas in the supply chain. So which area do you think we should focus on here a BC or D this value chain looks a little bit broken and disfigured. And that's often the case. A lot of our supply chains don't work as optimally as they can. They need a bit of love and attention improvement in different areas, not just at one area. So we just need to figure out where to put it. Anyone want to put some ideas for on which might be the, where do we need to focus our attention on. Basically, we have multiple areas to focus on. All of the above. However, things such as D I take your point there processing D and B. Yeah, multiple areas. So this is good. We can figure out where we've got say maybe some bigger areas to work here because this link is completely missing. So we need to help build out the link. Find a transporting option to move from production to processing we're not quite sure what the problem is probably figure it out. And of course markets, here we could see that there's a good opportunity to go into export market but we need to to build it out. So really strengthening strengthening strategy needs to look at multiple areas at once, not just one areas and not just look at production but also look at the businesses processing challenges as well as marketing challenges but just to figure out which are the most important. This kind of value chain approach helps us intervene a little bit better so instead of doing surgery because sometimes I make the analogy that intervening in your building a supply chain or intervening in an existing national value chain is kind of like surgery you have a system like a body. It has many systems that has the respiratory system it has the, it has the blood, it has all these different systems operating the muscles, the organs. So you don't need to intervene everywhere. You just need to intervene where the problem is because you don't want to kill your patient, so to say. So when we don't do the intervention when we don't do the analysis. Sometimes we can go a little bit bluntly and intervene a little bit heavily in areas that we shouldn't. And then we just want to go in nice and neatly and just acts address the area where we see that there's a real problem, small incision, get in get out quickly. So to just give you an example of how we would do this for a youth group, for example, is once we've understood the value chain or the supply chain we can then work out whether we need to build a new components whether we need to start working in a nursery into their business operations or to do the production or where they've got small issues. For an example we would have to establish this is for industry but we would establish a private nursery we can run gap training to the farmers to help them improve their yields. We can help connect the aggregate the young, the youth to processes and get rid of the middleman do some direct sourcing to the buyers. We can do R&D trials on processing simultaneously to help them get better yields for their process goods. We can look and approach local supermarkets to stop the value at a product so we can help develop a marketing strategy, and then of course doing a whole lot of coordination of all these different things so this is how we do transformation of value chain step by step. We select the right chat, the value chain to begin with, we then analyze it to better understand where the problems are where the problems are we know then how to intervene. And we can come up with a range of integrated activities that Juan mentioned some business planning some marketing some production support that can really when brought together on the same business or the same value chain at the same time can really move mountains so to say. So just to give you an example that we've actually got this sort of thing in operation in the region. In a year we've built, we've been building out the Jamaica's turmeric value chain because we did it market analysis and so it had great market potential. So in in the space of well yeah a year we have established two private nurseries so we've done the build cost of production and business plans for nurseries. We've organized the transport to get to a number of different pilot farmers. So I'm done a whole lot of training for farmers who are not used to producing turmeric and needed to improve their practices. And then have linked these guys these farmers to processes so that there's direct sale and now for the first time, some of the local manufacturers in Jamaica actually sourcing local turmeric for their curry powder. Of course, a lot of trainings left right and center to help everybody get up to speed and a lot of coordination to make sure they're all working together so this value chain approach beyond just being theory is a way we intervene on the grounds. And whether this is for a full national value chain or for a youth group. This project where we really start linking understanding the business side at each start part of the chain we start linking them all together and get something really actionable on the ground. So we changed to do to move from something that's been fragmented like this as you can see here sort of a value chain nursery to farmers process to exporters. It looked like this to begin with everybody sort of doing their own thing farmers here and there a couple of processes here they don't really know who the farmers are the exporters having contact the farmers it's all a bit disorganized. And do this kind of work we try to bring it all together so it runs more smoothly. So that's, I think towards the end of this short presentation, just to reiterate the different steps we take selection assessment business planning and then integrated training. So, that reminds me just in order not to leave this just a one off training and that's it we wanted to give you a homework, particularly ministry of agriculture to help us set this train off so to say on the on the right footing. And that's really got to do with helping us identify some of those products with the best market opportunities. So we put it as a challenge to the ministry team that one mentioned to do a three step market assessment survey because this will get us at least a good step forward in identifying which crops, or might also have great potential for our young group in earth, and can help inform them. The steps are quite simple. The first one is to come up with a list up to you. I've just given you an example here, you can develop it as you wish as many crops or commodities as you wish, but you list them all out. So take that same list, and we will send you a survey monkey survey, which you can go through quite quickly, and you put you do each, each commodity into the survey one by one each commodity takes about two minutes to fill out the survey answer a few questions really about the market side so we can better understand the market potential. Once we FAO gets the results of all that screening surveys a 10 or 20 different commodities, we will then analyze the results and then we would welcome a discussion with the ministry team to just refine to understand the survey to discuss to really knuckle down on understanding which commodities do and don't have potential based on your local knowledge and your understanding of how the markets work. So that will allow us to refine your list, and then figure out which are the top say 506 that really have great market potential, which can then be shared with the agripreneurs and other sector stakeholders who are interested in really better understanding the market opportunities. So, to keep us moving forward in this project, this is what we propose is the next step is the homework to be done in the next, you know, month or so. So that we can get going on a strong foot and help work with the young teams on how to, to then take the next step forward with developing their business plans and strategies for their supply chain. That's, I'd like to thank you for your time and energies and interacting with me today I really appreciate it I know it's a Friday afternoon the weekend is calling. My pleasure. I really enjoyed I'm welcome any questions or comments you have. And I would like of course to, to thank very much the ministry for having us today, with big of course, very special acknowledgement of the ministers who have opened so ceremoniously this project and to say that we are looking forward to a wonderful and very productive collaboration for the youth. So, thank you very much and and thank you I have to acknowledge thank you for staying so long, and actually joining the training that is quite remarkable so. Thank you, and let me know if you have any questions or I'll hand the floor back over to one who may facilitate a Q&A. I agree. That was very clear that very engaging and illustrative I hope that all the others felt that way. I think that that gives you a very good flavor of what we have in store for you in terms of the value chain training, there would be more, you know, on that, but this is just the initial step. We have some minutes we have gone a little bit over time. But I think it was necessary, we understand like recently it's Friday, it is almost four o'clock for you so I like just to give some space for burning questions you may have, or from observations that Colville, other ministry staff or from the members, would have, you know, regarding the project, what it is intending to do, and what has been proposed specifically as the homework, following up this this initial train. The floor is open. You can use the raise hand application. If you like, or you can ask questions on the chat box. Okay, not much coming at this time of the day from the general participants. I would ask the partner institutions, and Colville if they are burning questions and clarifications that they would like to be made at this point. I don't really have much of a comment except to say I think that that training was very clear. And the concept of the value chain process, the upgrading process from analysis right through to upgrading I think was done really really well. I think what this is bringing home in terms of the assignment is that although, and I could anticipate on the youth entrepreneurs side that they have particular interest. But perhaps, you know, you need to be a bit more open minded in terms of assessing really actually what these opportunities are before settling on, you know, an upgrading plan and investment. So just to ensure that there's viability and sustainability. Okay, so I think that what Colville is suggesting is it's very relevant. It's just not, you know, let's give the opportunity to put to the test some of the assumptions that the groups may have about you know, the market potential profitability, you know, the growth, etc. elements that we would have shared with you in terms of the change that you have been producing so in terms of next steps, we will be sending this very simple table with very simple instructions. And we can be following up with you Colville and all the colleagues to convene for just just as the follow up to for any questions you may have on the listing of what you think are the priority products, either fresh or value added. I know that some work would have been done on the existing analysis would have been done on the existing crops that the youth groups have been engaging with I mean there's mentioned in the project document about sweet potato peanut vegetables. I was mentioning this morning about seasonings and wines, etc. So what we want you, we may want you may want to include this, you know, in list to undergone the market screening exercise, and you may want to bring forward information and analysis that you would have done. You know that illustrates clearly and that provides evidence that these are sectors with high potential, and you may also add others that are not being dealt but that may represent good prospects for these for the youth groups, you know, based on information that you have. So, in terms of the next steps will be sending this, this, this, what would be projected this this template for and will be discussing with you on how you could organize a consultation. Before you proceed and trying to set a date by which you could send that list back to us and we can start processing information. Are there any other questions and call and if not call me does that sounds like like the plan like the next step. Yes, yes, clearly. And we initially when we, when we started conceptualizing the project, we had established a value team. So, we may want to add or augment that team. But yeah, I think we can we can respond to that that first assignment pretty quickly. So I'll be in touch with my colleagues in the affairs department in national mobilization, as well as those on our side in the ministry here, and the colleagues from the other agencies, as mentioned, the college CD and the Bureau of Standards. Okay. Okay, so then we will be sending you that that document, and then you can discuss internally, you know, how to proceed with it and if you have any questions, we're right here to get back at you. If they're not further comments or questions I like to thank you for the organization and for your participation. I have seen that the number of participants have remained consistent around 40 plus participants, which demonstrates you know both the interest and the commitment to this process. And we're very happy about that. And I wish you a good rest of your day and an excellent weekend weekend. This has been a very good start and very timely anticipation of your celebrations of World Food Day tomorrow. Thank you for that. I thank you. Thank you, Brie, for your presentation. Thanks to my colleagues in Barbados for the IT arrangements and other that are invisible, but who might be behind the whole organization. Thanks a lot. And have a great weekend. Thank you as well. Thank you. Everyone. Have a nice weekend. Thank you. Thank you. You too. We can speak maybe just afterwards just to determine how best we can get a registration of the participants list. Yes, of course. No problem at all. Okay, thanks.