the role of forest and for in rural transformation and food security. Just a minute. Does anyone from that group have anything else to add? What was that summary of what you? Okay, excellent. Does anyone have a quick question then? No? Wow. Thank you. Efficient as usual. So now we should be probably a little more. Well, we'll take group three. Oh, this is the report from group number three. So we formulated the mission statement as being a natural actor and being honest broker in pursuing inclusive and sustainable rural transformation. And the red dots, it was focused on how to get into action. It was a lot about how to make action. Sion is promoting a lot of good discussions and dialogues but how to come into next step. And also it was about involving more actors and we gave priority to the private sector, civil society and youth. And then we came into the innovative part of it. And then we want to promote pop-ups events like seminars at innovative places like Sergels Torrj, Arlanda, Rosengård, Ike, et cetera. And to develop good practices in creating partnerships, contribute with partner websites, and analysis of Sion member, members by sectors. We want to get information about how is the membership? Is it mostly from research students or is it also from private sector NGOs to get some, you know, overview? And we also wanted to promote links between people in rural and urban areas in developing countries. Okay. Does anyone? Comments? Yeah. Okay. That's my question. Okay. Does anyone from group three have anything to add to that? No? Okay. Well summed up. Comments or questions on the floor? You're allowed to speak, you know. I think I scared everyone. Yeah, Madeline? Yes. We actually try to assess the memberships and how it looks like. So in participation in our, we do statistics after most of our seminars and it's like, it's quite normal that you see around 20 to 30 percent academia and that's the young people. How many percent? 20 to 30. Okay. And then you have 25, 25. But this is so topic related. We had one coffee seminar, it was only private sector actors. So it depends on the topic actually. But try to be as broad as possible, attract as many as possible, but we can be much better to engage. We just have to work. And spread the information about it, how it looks like and so, yeah. I think some of our statistics are on the website. So you can go ahead. We have been reading the web page. There's a lot of our website. Tune in to wwcani.org. Another hour to spend there. Okay, thank you. We have limited time. All right, group six. Makeup, group six. Okay, this is group six report. So our mission statement is to influence and facilitate inclusive and transparent policies through evidence-based knowledge for rural transformation. Our red dots were one, information to decision makers and public in Sweden to influence Swedish policy. Two, a bridge between grassroots organizations or evidence-based knowledge and practitioners and decision makers. And another one, a collector, Siani as a collector of good examples of working with issues such as gender, anti-corruption, equality, fairness and sustainability and more. And our blue dots develop a diversified network on site in the countries to promote common points of view and share experiences. And another one, engage with more students such as SLU and provide international contacts for rural development. Okay, very good. Does anyone from that group have anything to add? I think everyone's terrified here of speaking. I'm not used to people taking me so seriously. Okay, questions or comments. We seem to be noticing some very different mission statements for the same organization that all of you know fairly well. That's fascinating actually for those of us who work with it. And I think it'll be very useful. The most use we get from these groups is back at the secretariat and then we send it out for comments and suggestions from members. When we get these different viewpoints. And we also seem to be coming in at different levels. Some people are very action on the ground oriented. Some people are policy oriented. And then there's the bridge. There was also drawing of the bridge. Yeah, good, very good. Okay, thank you very much. That was group six. Okay, group one. Where is group one? Wake up group one. The smallest group by far. But very diverse in our views anyway. Our mission statement is to promote hard. That is infrastructure and inputs and soft. That is education, action research and working conditions measures for increased profits, status and health in rural communities. And our red dots were status and farm work and condition. Linking to decent work in agriculture. Which we think could be a theme for an expert group. And another theme for an expert group can be supporting infrastructure for rural development. That is energy, communication, access to markets and so on. And the third red dot was research and link to community development. Multidisciplinary linked to intervenance on the field. The blue dots were no transformation without health and nutrition in rural communities. And enable access to best seeds. And enabling not just fiscal but also in terms of legal access and patents and affordability aspects. And the third blue dot was new ways of linking farmers to investors and markets. Okay. Does anyone from group one have anything to add to that? No? Everyone's so happy with these summaries. I don't know. Something strange here. Okay. But I think that you, many of you have done this methodology before. So you understand how it's supposed to be carried out. Okay. Any comments or questions from the floor? This is going way too fast. Okay. Well, there you go. That's what I get for being efficient. Thank you very much. Group one. Okay. Now we're on to group five. Okay. So group number five. Our mission statement was basically inclusive and sustainable rural transformation. Though it can be said that we argued quite a bit about what that actually means. So that's a discussion I think is welcome and needed. On to the red dots. They focus quite a bit on the core aspects of Agenda 2030, which means inclusiveness, holistic thinking, long-term planning. And our, for example, can be to don't split people into different groups like youth, women, vulnerable people. And to don't like one aspect of sustainability take, be more important than the others. And for the blue dots, it was basically natural resource management, thinking like nutrient recycling, use of power in rural areas and promote long-term benefits of practicing sustainable agricultural activities. Okay. There. Group five. Any additions to that? No? No. Yeah. Don't forget that. Thank you. Okay. That's good, David. Always practical. That's what, appreciate that. And any questions or comments from the floor? Alrighty. We'll be very interested to continue the discussion of what that really means, the transformation inclusive and transparent and everything else we're supposed to be and what it really means we have to do. Okay. Thank you, Myron. I guess we're up for group four. This is way too fast. Hello. I need a job too. So, to include all sorts of different sectors and to understand all the different players in a full sustainable food cycle. So, from restaurants to seeds to water, things like that. Our red dots was about Siani being an interdisciplinary neutral, although I prefer the term open platform for silo breaking, multi-sectoral knowledge, information exchange. We want to talk about challenging issues and really be provocative. We want to excite young people to want to be farmers and to want to be part of what Siani is doing. And our innovation blue dots was about mostly looking at how we can transform agriculture should not just be about food production, but also about the ecosystem benefits that farmers do. I mean, it's really critical work and it could excite a lot of young people to want to be farmers. If we figure out a way to measure and incentivize increasing water retention, sequestering carbon into the soil, increasing biodiversity, things like that. So, if we could combine that into the agenda, more climate change environment and food production that could really help make a rural transformation happen. We also talked about doing field visits to encourage young people to become farmers, how to maintain and develop good communication systems on the site, like we talked about microlinks or maybe having action tasks, like short time-bound tasks that could allow different people to try out different things and different organizations in different fields related to food development. Yeah, so, any questions? Again, that's my joke. Okay, any more comments from group four? Everyone seems to have caught the essence of what was discussed. It seems to be an incredible agreement and questions from the floor. Very interesting, I think the observation that you made about expanding the target group to mirror the food system, I think Kisiana has been trying to at least involve the food processors more, but the consumer side, I think that's the new area that's not just the production side on food security. I've been, started this Stockholm food movement and one of the things that we do is have different startups, for instance, Paradisids or Mintfarm or have them come and meet also with farmers and hopefully people from this room will also come. There's a lot of linkages to food innovators right now. They need help knowing what's actually being done already so that they don't just create redundancies in a system that actually solve problems that we have. Maybe you'd like to put a little information about that on our website. I would love to. So it would reach out to more people. Okay, thank you very much. Group four. Okay. I think now we only have the high numbers in the, I was gonna say alphabet, but anyway. Group seven. Okay, as we're one of the, maybe the last group, a lot of things have been set before so it's kind of... But it's important for you to say your things because then we get a confirmation that that's something that a lot of people think about. Exactly, yeah. So our mission statement is in order to drive solutions, Siani should stimulate active, inclusive dialogues within the priorities that I'm going to present later. So that means that we want to adapt to different stakeholders so these dialogues have to be well inclusive adapting to who we're actually talking to. Siani could be a broker, we've heard that before. So then our red dots, so what our most important aspects are is to highlight farm economics for the rural dwellers, making agriculture sector more attractive again to the youth. So we took more the economic part of it, but I think like linking it more to biodiversity and environmental issues that we've just seen before is also a very innovative way of making agriculture interesting again to use. Then our second point of red dots is rural transformation cannot include everything so otherwise or we have to define what it actually means otherwise it will lose its meaning and purpose so we have to focus on a target like the 2030 goals. So then the blue dots, the most innovative aspects were changing the consumption patterns, what we eat and how we eat and take care of the food waste. And our last point was then connecting rural dwellers with internet and energy to connect them with a digitalization age. Okay. Any add-ons on that? That's all right, good job. Everybody wants to have my job. Okay, yeah, but that's okay. Any comments from the group? That's something that she forgot to add or no? This is wonderful. We have the best people who present just a minute and comments from the floor or questions or remarks. How is the only going to change consumption patterns? Good. Yeah. That's a good question but we were thinking of, yeah? Yeah, okay. Wait, wait, wait, you need a mic. Yeah. Is it more like, is it on or yeah, it's okay. Maybe more like closing the nutrient cycle, not only food waste. We have a lot of waste from the production as well so it's more like closing the loop or what it would, how do we call it? In terms of nutrient recycling and so on. So it's not on the food waste. Okay. Yeah. People's behavior, how we treat, how we deal with all the. Yeah. So basically we. All the waste, not all the food waste. We just get rid of the word waste. Everything is an input to something else. Yeah. Okay. I'm all for that. Sounds good. Okay. Any other questions? Two of them. Thank you very much. Good presentation. Awesome. Very good. Do we have a group eight? Good. I just had some water and that's dangerous. And I thought, so we've heard all these mission statements but what is Siany's mission? Well, we have one for the next, but I don't think we want to preempt your. Go ahead. It's the same for food security and what is it this year? Ah, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I can't worry about. I'm not about the exact wording. But we are working promoting dialogue at understanding collaboration between sectors, working towards the sustainable goal. Yeah. Focusing on a number two, which is the sustainable development goals. I can't say, but I can look it up very quickly if you want to have it. I will do that. I come in the end and I will read it wordly. But that's what it is all about. It's a collaboration towards enhancement of the sustainable development agenda with focus on goal number two. Yes, sorry. I didn't want to get you into trouble or something. I just thought it was interesting after hearing all these missions here. So anyway, so I was that we came up with is enable local communities to connect and gain knowledge necessary for their own transformation. And now comes the diplomatic bit, including through market mechanisms. So in a way, we're putting the focus on the communities. It's their transformation, but then, you know, Siani is very much focusing on market mechanisms. So, well. Well, we focus on a lot of things, but we do include value chains and market, yes. So we thought we put us in there as well. So we do realize that, you know, markets are very important and commercialization value chains.   And what sort of, you know, what do people actually want to transform into? So that would be a good starting point for kind of engaging with this discussion rather than us sitting here and saying, well, you know, you people in Africa, you should be transforming in this and this way. Yeah, so it's about this kind of, you know, promoting the bottom up about transformation. And I suppose, you know, we hear from Cedar about, you know, doing development differently and bottom up and listening to the people, embedding in the systems and all of these sort of things. Yeah, so that this is something which is, you know, being taken up more by Siani. It might already be there, but just to kind of re-emphasize this fact, yeah, or our opinion on this. So, and then, so a lot of people spoke about knowledge transfer and the brokering capacity and mandate of Siani. We do think that's really, really important. And we also very much liked, you know, Steven being here. And we thought, again, there might be incomplete knowledge about Siani, but we thought that probably a lot of knowledge is being generated in Sweden, which is important, but actually for rural transformations, it's got to be generated in whether transformations are supposed to happen. So really, we would Siani like to see, to put more resources into capacity building and kind of enabling people in Africa to whatever activities happen, to have more local focus through, you know, for example, African-led expert groups, and then, you know, extending the fellowship process, for example. Yeah, focus on building local capacities, you know, farmer groups were really important aspect that was brought up in our discussion, but then also, you know, extending the work with universities. And that really then links to the kind of bridging the sectors, which was mentioned before. Importantly, so it's, you know, we've got Siani, we've got the development organizations, we've got policy, you know, we've got to get the private sector more into. It's about the market mechanisms that are important really, get those people in and tackle things in a holistic way. And so then the final things, the final thing I want to talk about is the market mechanism. So we spoke about the value chains and all of these things, but we do want to, we thought it's important to extend it to look at like an incentive scheme. Yeah, so I mean, using market, a kind of a capitalist idea or framework really to promote the best ideas. Where, you know, where transformation, how does transformation happen through innovation, possibly? But then, you know, how do these innovations actually emerge unless there's some sort of incentive structure in place? Like if you look at the, I think it's the Rockefeller Foundation that gives a million dollars to, you know, per-innovative idea for resilience, for example, yeah? So, you know, if Siani is serious about promoting transformation, how is that transformation supposed to happen? To do more thinking on these things. And then we thought, you know, something if the outreach is more towards the, you know, if you like the African farmer, how do you reach them? And this is, you know, it's all about kind of knowledge transfer and these sort of things. And we thought it'd be amazing if Siani could open a radio station.  And I have to apologize. I mean, there's, we had blue and red dots, but I confused them. And then when I was writing things down, I certainly confused them on this page. So, but they're all important and all very innovative, aren't they? So, thanks a lot. Okay, thank you. Very good, but wait, wait, wait. Anyone from group eight, who would like to go over there? I think, Bjorn, you probably mentioned it, but we really laid a lot of emphasis on membership farmers organizations. I think this is an area Siani can, in phase three. And I don't, when you talk about private sector, if you look at the Swedish case, most of the farmers are actually business entities. And this would be sort of provide very good examples when it comes to transformation in the South. When Stephen mentioned that there is a lot of lack of data, some of these farmers organizations in the North have got a lot of data on membership growth, economies, you know, from small to the large scale. And that's something that really we could work on in phase three. So that was, we felt that was an important new thing for going to phase three. But also Bjorn, you mentioned an innovation fund. Probably see that might not be interested to provide direct money for that, but some of the members within Siani network could have this kind of innovation fund where, you know, good initiatives like the junior expert groups could actually, you know, bid for and have innovations. And something I didn't hear very, very well about that Melinda you mentioned, you could share in the website, in the Siani website. That'd be an interesting innovation too that people could bid for in coming in the new phase. Other comments or questions? Okay, just would like to say about this, who's transformation that, sorry. That was not me, I'm sorry. Okay, who's playing game factor? All right. We've thought a lot about who's transformation and not that it doesn't merit mentioning every time we meet. I'm not saying that what I think the overall approach that many of our membership promote is that you create an enabling environment because you can't transform someone else. So someone else that hasn't decided that they're going to transform themselves or doesn't know of the possibility. A lot of our work in gender is with making women aware of the possibilities that they have and the opportunities in the value chain or their special needs that they can be met somewhere. And so we're always thinking that we don't or our members don't transform. We create the environment and then we try to see what people and ask them. That's the easiest, quickest way. What do you need? And then sometimes people don't know 100% what's available. So they don't name it as a need. So sometimes you have to bring information, these evidence-based or the innovative results of research or whatever that you can bring out to the actual, but we do have our eye on the people out who are actually contributing to food security. We do that. Thank you very much. Philosophers in group eight. Okay. Now as keeping with our theme of the hope for the future, our next input is from these students at SLU. I hope that David, Maria, Maya, Eileen and Rebecca are all here. Okay, good. And I think you should come forward. You are apparently the guardians of the 2030 agenda. It sounds like one of those Superhero things. Yeah, nice. Okay.  Have we choreographed it now? Whoever does that has got to stop. Okay. I think it would be nice if you introduced yourselves individually and said what you're studying, perhaps. Okay? Thank you. Yeah, hi. First of all, we want to thank you for inviting us to this meeting. It has been a very interesting day and we think it will keep on the same way. And we are, as you said, five students from SLU, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and all of us are agronomy students but with different expertise. And for those of you who doesn't know what an agronomist is, I'm going to give you a very simplified, yeah. You can see that an agronomist has a competence throughout the whole food chain with knowledge about economical as well as social and environmental sustainability with focus on agriculture. And four of these, we have five different, especially Shaysons. And they are economy, animal science, rural development, food science, and soil and plant science. And four of these five specializations are included in this group. And my name is Maria and I'm, yeah, my major field is animal science. And my name is David and my major field is economy and business management. My name is Maya and my major field is animal science. My name is Elin and my major field is food science. And my name is Rebecca and my major field is rural development. And the reason we are here today is to present our project, our student project, in which we have investigated to what extent, again, the 2030 and sustainable development is included in the different agronomy programs as SLU. And this project was made in collaboration with Tiani. We feel this project was relevant for us agronomy students because we have specialized knowledge within the whole food chain, including the different aspects of food production and sustainability. And as you all know, a sustainable food production is essential to achieve these 17 sustainability goals. And we have limited our project to, as you can see, number 2, 12, 13 and 15. And we chose these goals because we felt they were the most relevant to our different specialties at SLU. So in order to evaluate agronomy students' interest and knowledge about sustainable development and Agenda 2030, we made a web survey where all agronomy students that had entered the agronomy programs between 2011 and 2016 could enter the web survey. We also did some semi-structured interviews with four of the directors of studies in each agronomy programs except for the World Development Agronomy Program where we interviewed a lecturer instead. We also talked to the Deputy President to SLU's Deputy President and SLU Global. We thought it was very interesting to include SLU Global in our project since they coordinate and support SLU's research and education aiming at developing the agriculture sector in low-income countries. Yes, so now we're going to move from the method to the result. And since sustainable development is the main core of Agenda 2030 as you're probably aware of, we thought that we needed to define sustainable development. So we all in the group but also throughout the project had a common definition. So we decided to use the definition from the Bruntlands report and you're probably also aware or you are familiar with that definition. But I'll share it with you anyway. So sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. So since all of the agronomy students originate from different backgrounds and study different disciplines we were very curious and very interested to know what their definition of sustainable development was. So we asked that exact question in the survey and this was the result or as an example. So the first one was a were not word but quite good word for environmental friendly and efficient resource use. The second one was responsible use and consideration of environmental, social and economical aspects. Long-term collaboration, joy and new ways of thinking and then overuse, concept, few people understand the definition. So as you can see they are different from one another quite a lot but what we also noticed and saw in the result was that there are a lot of similarities in the definitions from the students which is interesting and it shows that even though we come from different backgrounds and study different disciplines we still have a common idea of what sustainable development means and is. So we invited approximately 900 students to participate in our survey and about 170 students did participate. That gives us an answer frequency of 18% which indicates that our result ain't representative for all agronomy students at SLU but it gives us a good idea of how the situation are among the students that answered. In the survey we asked the questions about how our four selected goals are included in the agronomy programs. We asked the students to rate at which level they think each global goal are implemented in their education. So for goal number two as our first diagram shows answers regarding to goal number two. It's about 50% answer that the goal are implemented in the education at a high grade and about 30% choose the alternative at a very high grade. For goal number 12 more than half of the students says that goal 12 is supported in the education at a high grade and about 20% answer at a very high grade or a low grade. For goal number 13 almost 60% of the participants answered that their education touches climate changes issues and its consequences at a high grade and 30% answered low grade. And for goal 15 the answers are pretty much comparable to the three questions before 50% answered high grade and 25% answered low grade. And our interpretation of the results of the students that participated in our survey are experiencing that SLU really takes these goals very seriously and are working hard with these kind of sustainable development questions. So one of the questions in the survey sent to the students question whether an interest in sustainable development had affected their choice in education. And 70% of the students answered that it had affected them to a very high degree or a high degree. Even though many students believe that the focus goal we chose to have in our reports goals to 12, 13 and 15 in the agenda 2030 already are implemented in the agronomic programs. Do we as a group interpret some of the answers to this? There is a need for further implementation of sustainable development and the agenda 2030 in the agronomic programs. So here are two quotes from the survey indicating the need for this. So students A said that sustainable development should be a recurrent element in all courses. It is often discussed in the overview courses but really in the program specific courses. The overview courses are studied by all agronomy students from the different disciplines while their program specific courses are only held to each specific agronomy program. Quote number two, students B said that most courses are based on traditional economic theory which to a large extent has proved to be unsustainable. So the previous quotes are the previous slides which Maya just showed us show the response from the survey regarding whether or not agronomy students believe that sustainable development is implemented in their education. So that was about the students. And what I'm going to show you now are quotes from interviews with program directors of studies. So we did the, from the interviews then. And so we asked the program directors whether or not Agenda 2030 is implemented in their education. And the first director replied or director A replied the implementation of Agenda 2030 is a long process. However, I imagine it's just a matter of time before we see it as an explicit assignment in which the concept of Agenda 2030 emerges. And then director B said I do not believe Agenda 2030 is part of any curriculum yet. However, sustainable development is currently included in the educational plans at SLU. So we're hoping that Agenda 2030 is going to be part of the education eventually. Yes. And this takes us to the conclusion because we could see that there is potential for further inclusion of Agenda 2030 into the different programs of agronomy programs. But we could also see that the students has a very big knowledge about these questions and that they sometimes know more about sustainability than they believe that they do. And right now the agronomy programs are going through changes, changes in course plans, etc. And these changes potentially also makes it possible to include Agenda 2030 into the different courses. However, the collected material indicated that course plans as well as public documents from SLU has some interpretation which makes it hard sometimes to know how well these questions reaches out to the students. And this also means that course managers as well as lecturers has a quite big influence on the courses. And the last point here says that interdisciplinary work in between the different agronomy programs potentially could make the students get broader and better knowledge of sustainability issues and be able to look at these questions from a more objective perspective. Thank you. Yes, we have time for a few questions or comments. Yes, please. Thank you very much, Cecilia from Narin's Department. I was just very interested in the work that you've done because of course one of the things that might not yet have sunk in in most people's minds is that Agenda 2030 is also a national Swedish commitment. We have to look at Agenda 2030 just as every other country. So it will obviously impact on the way we work in Sweden as well. And if you read the first report from the Commission on Agenda 2030 they talk about really transformational changes in our country as well if we want to fulfill the whole agenda. So I found this very interesting. I have a few follow-up questions on your group. Have you heard about Agenda 2030 in 2018? Is that something that reflects the situation at SLU or how did that come about? And what has the response been from those who formulate your curriculum at SLU? Because I imagine that this is an input in the discussion that you have with your teachers in the direction. Thank you. I think that's a media enough question that you need to answer the question about the 2080. I'm not I'm not, I'm pretty sure. Four women and one man. Okay. Oh, okay. No, we did not no, it was the course representatives the people in the course decided they divided us into groups. So we did not choose the group formation. Was that, did I answer your first if you self-selected? But the second was do you represent the, is the SLU student body 20% men, 80% women? Ah, yes. I would say so. Okay. There you go. And then the second question could you What are you going to use your findings for? How do you use it? Well, the Well, Siani Madeleine mentioned that she's given the report to some people Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Okay. Well, so we've done the reports and I don't think we're going to be much with the reports now. But we're hoping that maybe while we would be doing interviews and making the survey would make a difference. So we have made the program directors and the students at least think about it and we've at least made them aware of the agenda because few people are aware that SLU at the moment. We had Yeah. I don't want to add, I just want to comment that we were really interested to, as we are working with youth and this is a very important group of the youth to see how the agenda is perceived. So when I came out to SLU before, I think how many hands were up when I asked how many knew about the agenda? Was it hardly no hand was up in the air. So sometimes we talk about this agenda and we are in a little bubble. So it's good to reach out and see what's happening and because honestly these are the people who are going to be there 2030, not me probably but someone else. So we are agitating here for the agenda but these are the people who will, and these are the people who has the knowledge has broad scope and that comes right here. Now what's happened at SLU with the report? I don't know. Well I know a little bit that it's red and then we'll see what's happened, maybe Thank you. Anders Malmer is SLU Global. We had the first question about the agenda 30, 2030, like 86 other government agencies how we relate to agenda 30 2030 and we have answered that from SLU but we are not there yet us to actually saying agenda 2030 with every researcher, with every student and this remains to be done and I think this work by you is very helpful in that sense of looking how would we go further with this and it's still on the table very much and it's from SLU Global it's very appreciated if the students activate themselves also in this issue. Thank you. Did Matthew, did you want to make a comment? Hi, Matthew Feuring from Siani. Maybe you've already answered this by the fact that you're here but now some people call a post-expert arena how much should you be looking to experts in SLU for guidance in this or how much should you as students take the leadership in implementing and making these changes. By the fact that you're here I guess it's clear you already have been answering that but it would be nice to hear your reflections about we're looking at what the course leaders can do but what action can the students actually take. This was part of a course so maybe and the course was completed in December. In my opinion I think that students they have a big I mean because course leaders and the program directors they're bound to certain curriculums etc so it takes time to implement the agenda and all that so I think it is up to the students to be interested and to push this question forward. So it's a difficult question but in my opinion it's a lot up to us but I don't know if you agree or not. I think I agree and also we had an interview with the deputy director and she said there is so many seminars out there that the students can go to and they are very good but there are very few students going to this and that's very sad so I think there are opportunities for students to learn more about sustainability questions but maybe the seminars doesn't reach out or they don't feel like they won't attend I don't know. Maybe it would be good to involve the student union more in those kind of questions I think because they have a very good connection with the course leaders and so on so that could be one way I think. Go ahead. Also in my opinion again the interdisciplinary work at SUU is not very good because we are from different disciplines here we have all these expertise like I mentioned but we have very few courses in which we work together so this is actually like Madeleine mentioned this is the first course in the fall, the previous fall in which we actually collaborate and I think we've all noticed is when we collaborate and work interdisciplinary we learn a lot from one another and I think that's the key in all of this so I guess I think we need more of these collaboration between the different programs at SUU. Okay, I think Ola you had a comment Okay, just a minute wait I just wanted to say I'm taking my job seriously here that if you are going to go out into the workforce in the world or in Sweden where it's a national commitment it might be helpful if your course instructors had you know about Agenda 2030 so that you don't fumble at some job interview and say oh yeah isn't that some resolution about yeah what is it now which might not look too good no, okay right Hello, thank you for this very interesting piece of research that you have done maybe I'm coming from a slightly different perspective but I'm completely shocked that you that in your courses and in your lectures that they are not addressing sustainability and Agenda 2030 and you said that in overview courses they do but not in the specific subject courses so I think that's really important because that's where you get down to the nitty gritty of you know how do we actually implement this in practice and a solution to be leading in this I would have thought because you're working with these important topics so I don't know go to your supervisors your directors and ask maybe demand more you know how can we think about these things what does sustainability mean in practice for what we are working with that's just a comment okay one last comment and then we have to go on to the oh okay we can't hop over SLU okay they have to they have to have time to respond to it yeah all of first and then you get the last word okay slightly different comment then I'm from CEDA and I just want to say that at CEDA when I talk with my colleagues who are working with these programs for where CEDA is supporting young professionals giving an opportunity to work abroad in these junior professional officer or associate expert programs as I hope most of you know about where we fund postings with different organizations companies and so on embassies we have quite a lot of difficulties finding young professionals applying for these posts when it comes to environment and climate natural resources rural development no problem at all when it comes to health education human rights and so on and democracy but when it comes to natural resources it's much more much more difficult to find a few applications some even no applications at all and we are quite concerned about that and we are very much looking forward to finding ways and working with universities and how to promote these posts more just a short comment on this I think you should notice like your presentation that the students feel that they learn about sustainability at SLU this is what the education is about but it's not tagged as Agenda 2030 yet I mean the course plans are not changed overnight this is one year old since the decision together with we had produced a manual or an idea report for students how to make an international career in global development for example that is one way of sort of promoting this and of course it will be labeled properly in sort of the global process eventually but I would stress that it's all about sustainability of course all the programs we have okay now thank you very much Guardians of 2030 okay our next presentation is professor Oath who will be discussing that internationally hot topic of antimicrobial resistance and while he's coming to the podium I'd like to remind you that there's an evaluation sheet on your table please fill it out it's okay if you're critical or negative whatever that's okay but we really need a good response rate so we can see how to improve the meeting to next year because we have one of these every year and so we need your input on that too please fill that out and Mr. Animal, help thank you madam moderator former neighbor good afternoon everyone thank you so much for this invitation I'm very honored for that I'm going to talk about rural transformation and antimicrobial resistance as you all know is antimicrobial resistance in the core of rural transformation yes it is at least within the livestock sector and so yes I just want to say it's a small ask that I'm what I'm doing is totally public funded, your tax money some of you are paying tax here and so I'm not funded by the pharmaceutical industry not the daily federations no activist group NGO or certification or farmers organization and I think that is when we are discussing policy issues before starting this I want to tell you a little bit what we were doing last year I and some of you here in the room was on a never ending tour with our vice minister of agriculture madam and talking about livestock in low income countries and use of antimicrobials and we we had a show in Almedalen on the island of Gotland on the World Water Week here in Stockholm and then also the grand final was on the committee for food security at FAO in was it in October September, October and also this meeting was shared by our former ambassador to the FAO Gunilla Cecilia Nordin Fangansberg sitting there and also Ula Möller from CIDA was involved in that and Kristina Furistan from the Farmer's Federation so I just want to say that we have promoted this over the last year very much so and one person not on these slides but who was doing the backstage job and organizing everything and who I want really to acknowledge for all of your hard work is Madeline Fogde and you I'm not okay I'll get an echo that was great that was just the kind of background so well the livestock sector as most of you know here in this room is a very large part of agriculture in Sweden it contributes to more than 50% of the incomes from the livestock sector globally it's between 30 and 40% in some countries in Sahel for instance it's over 50% it contributes and it's extremely diverse it's extremely diverse it's mixed with crops it's pastoralism it's grazing based it's intensive like pigs and poultry and this is the distribution of there's no point to here now here are the distribution of cows or cattle in the world pigs and poultry this is ducks so this just to get you an idea of the distribution of animals over the world and it contributes to the incomes for almost one billion people that are really poor that are living less than two dollar a day so what is happening with the livestock sector the transformation because it's important part of the rural landscape well in general there is increased demand and followed by the increased production and this is particularly true for poultry and pigs and poultry one of the drivers there is of course that there are no religious or cultural limitations or so hang ups and the largest expansion is seen in East Asia and South East Asia East Asia read please read China and the drivers here are the increased incomes and also urbanization per se you know that there's a lot of transformation rural transformation in the sense of more and more people moving to cities and here is the GDP per capita here is the meat consumption Sweden is here I think we're eating about 82 kilos of meat every year and there are cultural differences you see India, a lot of vegetarians Japan a lot of fish New Zealand and the US and Brazil but in general richer people are the more meat they do eat and of course we who are in this segment of the curve we are eating unnecessarily too much meat both for the environment and likely also for our health however it's the opposite situation we have today about 165 million children that are stunted that are there too short to their age and also their cognitive development is hampered and animal source foods are excellent to mitigate that or overcome that so it's a very diverse situation as you see the short crash course about antimicrobial resistance or those of you who are Swedish speaking you can listen to the Swedish radio program Mini from yesterday and it's my classmate Kristina Greco from the vet school I'm a veterinarian who are saying a lot of wise things there so antimicrobial resistance is spread by the microbes the bacteria or their genes and antimicrobial resistance occurs naturally it happens through gene rearrangement and metagenesis in the wild so to say so this is a natural process however the use of antibiotics or misuse of too much antibiotics that drives this change or drives the emergence of antimicrobial resistance so as more antimicrobials we are using or antibiotics as more antimicrobial resistance we do get and if these antimicrobial resistance happen in a microbe or in a bacteria that is pathogenic pathogenic are bugs that are creating disease if it happens in a pathogenic microbe then we have a problem because then you cannot cure that person or that animal from the disease so that's what we fear and that is these very alarmistic reports coming up that 10 million people will die by 2030 if we are not stopping this development so and there is an interchange between immunomedicine, veterinary medicine and the environment so these do not respect species barriers and they behave like some flu disease for instance they could move easily between countries as well but the relative importance of the different routes of transmissions are unknown, we cannot quantify that but they are there so to say please keep this in mind so the use of antimicrobials in the livestock sector this is a paper from 2015 by Thomas van Bökel and my other colleagues published in the journal PLNOS which is those of you who are in science which is a very high profile journal but still this is a very rough estimate but that is the best we do have and they also write here that in some decades they think if the development continues it will be more than half of all antibiotics in the world are used in the livestock sector in China in the fantastic nice bubble within the European Union we have quite good records on this and maybe some of you have seen this beforehand Sweden we have the lowest use of antimicrobials in the whole European Union the worst ones are Spain, Italy and Cyprus and Germany France Belgium Portugal, Poland and so and there are also data about the resistance situation and Sweden is very well off when it comes to the resistance also but the good thing is that in Sweden also we have good productivity when it comes in the pig sector for instance then in relation to human medicine as I said 100% here is all antibiotics in the world or in all sectors both human medicine and veterinary medicine in the world it is estimated to be about 50 US this is data from the FDA so that should be true it is 70% of all antibiotics in the US are used in the livestock sector in Sweden it's 15% that's quite impressive just 15% of all antibiotics in Sweden are within the livestock sector so how could this be we had a ban on antimicrobials as feed additives in 1986 and it's on the farmers initiative it's not the government it was the farmers and they felt the pressure or fear from the consumer side that this should be some unnatural stuff in the animals so it was not really antimicrobial resistance it was the use of antimicrobials as such in the animal sector cause some countries use antimicrobial in the feed for the growing animals and they grow better if they have some small amount of antibiotics in the feed in 1995 we joined the European Union and there was a governmental report on antimicrobial and feed additives in 1997 and this is one of the very few Swedish SOUs that I think it's the only one that is only in English so it was a way otherwise these surveys are done in Swedish but it was a way to put forward within the European Union the lobbying work to get the whole European Union on board for this concept to ban antimicrobials as feed additives and it took some years in 2006 that happens and the success factors in Sweden I think we had well organized farmers and a well developed and present public sector it's tight cooperation there SDG number 17 partnership okay I thought you were about to throw me out now so I think this was very important this kind of cooperation without any further political assessments but if you compare the situation in many other countries it's quite different I would say so and this was the ideal situation in our bubble here in the north of Europe but in low and middle income countries then we have to acknowledge that antimicrobials are good for animal health I mean antimicrobials are not perceived bad to cure sick animals and sick humans and it promotes then or helps the animal source food production which is good for a large proportion of the global population human nutrition that's the key element here and also for livelihood and economic development and there we come back to the rural transformation because agriculture production is one of the easiest and quickest way for rural people if they could access markets that's the fastest way to get cash really together with fruits and some legumes and so and as you know or some of you know there are action plans and regulations and there is this tremendous force or activity around this since September last year when on the UN General Assembly gave a task to the word health organizations, the word animal health organization and the FAO cheaper type activity to come up with suggestions how to move forward it was getting one year for this and so there is a lot of political activities and awareness on the political levels now around the world but when institutions and governments are weak as they unfortunately often are in low income countries also middle income countries with emerging economies and so our other alternatives or alternative incentives needed for the livestock to change the use of antimicrobials in Sweden we can make laws and force laws and so and we can subsidize and so but if you don't have strong institutions if you don't have tax money to modulate with this is very difficult it will be just another declaration and then put in the shelf in some governmental office somewhere so here I try to do this conceptually I hope it will work the red circle here is animal production consider a number of eggs or something like that or some kilos of beef animal health management the yellow dot is a part to achieve this animal this kilos of eggs or so and then to microbial use is a part of the animal health management so this is business as usual continued emergence of the antimicrobial resistance and maintained production after a while the production will go down because we have so much resistance so we cannot cure the sick animals and they produce less but at large it looks like this then if we have a systems where we could enforce regulations and we just enforce regulations if we have a perfect totalitarian government they might be able to do this we have a healthy AMR emergency but at the same time we have a lower production and a threatened food security nutrition and livelihood for performance but if we have enforce regulations and combine this with improved or effective animal health management we have a healthy AMR emergency we have a maintained or even increased production in some cause you can compensate there are a lot of shortcomings in many countries when it comes to the animal health management so this is conceptually how we could deal with this and if we look into to this blue dot how do we deal with that how do we we lower the antimicrobial use of antimicrobials from a non-rational use to what we call an effective use so this is the antimicrobial use firstly we don't use antimicrobials as we call prophylactic that is preventive that when an animal this applies for humans as well if you're not sick we give you in the case of but just to use it for therapeutic treatment if you're really sick that is number one this is not really priorities but number two don't use antibiotics critical for humans I think that makes sense there is certain groups of antibiotics that we should really really reserve for human use only because I have my personal standpoint is that human life is more important than animal life I know that there are people out there in the society that are thinking that we're equal but I don't think so and then also use quality assured drugs in many countries as you know there are fake drugs there are weak drugs they're saying so and seeing so many milligrams on the box but that is not true it's fake ones so that is also you have a quality assurance system in your country so you could purchase real drugs not fake drugs and use correct kind of antibiotics I mean many also Swedish physicians sometimes and Swedish veterinarians if you have a viral infection for instance antibiotics don't help for viruses if you get a cold antibiotics doesn't help for that and then also there are different kind of bacteria that are sensitive to different kind of antibiotics so it's important to use it in a correct way and another part of that is to have the right length of treatment and not just one day you have to have maybe five days of treatment and also the correct dosing and not just playing around with this and this is a lot of shortcomings in many environments that people are behaving like that and finally not only the flock treatment you identify instead the sick animal and take that aside and treat that one and not treating the whole herd because then you reduce the amount and the building so and I think the priority here is very contextualized you have to think one model doesn't fit all but and also these the shrinking I was showing here is purely conceptual I cannot and I think the amount how much you reduce for each of these steps it's also very contextualized so that is just the principle so we deal with with the concept that prevention is better than cure and also I think when as we here are interested in development in change one constraint is often costs of course and if there are costs involved and you have a project or a proof of concept thing and then you take away the money supporting money then it collapses I think that's why I'm at the university I believe very much in skills and capacity in humans so if you can educate people on this and learning that is also often a lower cost and it will be sustainable since these skills will be lasting so this is also very conceptual but it's effective use of antimicrobial so I discussed the last three minutes about biosecurity that you have taking all out all in all out animals quarantines and so lower stocking then it is age sectioning of animals etc. more use of vaccines better diagnostics better sanitation and a little bit of genetics as well but there is and there are more things to do some are mainly skills and some are mainly costs and I favor this skill thing because I think that is far more sustainable than putting in money so dear friends the key message is here effective use of antimicrobials antimicrobials improve animal productivity and protects animal welfare so a non-rational use of antimicrobials contributes to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance it is possible to maintain good lives of productivity with low use of antimicrobial Sweden has shown that of course I know that the conditions are very different here from a pig herd in Cambodia or wherever but the proof of concept is there regulations of antimicrobial use are important but not enough particularly in a global and the mitigation of antimicrobial resistance is a public goods since it is not the farmer or the producer that are getting hurt it is the society and it is a true one world one health issue between human medicine, environment veterinary medicine cross borders and so on and I forgot to say one thing about these fundamentals and that is that you are not afraid as a consumer you should not be afraid of the residues that you are getting antibiotics into your system and there you get resistance it is the way how we rear and keep animals and antimiotics that is what is the fear that is what is driving the emergency of antimicrobial resistance and this is a very tough or pedagogic challenging message to put forward but those of you who are Swedish speaking I think that was very well sorted out in this radio program I was referring to in the very beginning and those of you who are very interesting in this you could find it is one chapter on this in this booklet from the Swedish FAO committee and you can find it at Swedish governmental offices website I have some five copies for those of you who are extra interested and this is just to get the field experience here this is from the periphery of Pnom Pen in Cambodia where mine and Elizabeth Lindahl's colleague is just conducting a study she started on Monday our second antimicrobial resistance study in Cambodia so it's not just only this it's on the ground I can assure you so thank you very much for your attention we're running a little close to the time if there's an urgent to burning question and let me thank you for using all those big words but explaining them in a way that even I could understand I appreciate it you're so humble I just wanted to add that for instance for David it might be interesting to look at the World Bank's report about drug resistant infections where it is said that working to reduce and mitigate AMR is one of the absolutely best investments you can do it's not just a good thing to do it's actually very beneficial economically as well for those of you who are extremely interested go to the O'Neill commission report because they have a very full treatment of the whole problem thank you here first then over there thank you very much professor it was a really nice presentation and I can just add it one thing more like even in the developing country to produce more meat also they're using beef and they're using like more urea it's a fertilizer to make it more producing of meat so do you think that how could you actually reduce this decrease or like make it people more less use of antibiotic because the antibiotic using is not restricted like here as a human you cannot buy antibiotic here but if you go in developing country you can buy antibiotic from any pharmacy and I read a news that even the people they're already using fifth generation antibiotic in the developing country even human being are more resistant nowadays so what your suggestion actually maybe the I went too much into details here but what I I when I'm working in the CDR system with the World Bank and FAO and so what what I'm trying to convince producers because you have the you cannot have regular even if you have regulations it's just a piece of paper in some instances is that by improving animal health in general these things that I listed you could increase your productivity and the gains for the farmers because I mean the farmers if they lose a lot of money and that's what they fear when I talk to Canadian the Canadian pork industry for instance just as an example they fear these regulations very much so but you have to convince them and show them that you can really get more money out of it by compensating in other ways by antibiotics it doesn't work because this I mean this livestock revolution as it's called it's such a powerful economically powerful thing that going on and people want to eat poor people want to eat more meat thank you there very much that was an excellent presentation and I'm so happy that I remember I always forget what the word pathogen means a bad bug that causes you to be sick how easy is that I'm really really happy that you gave me that okay on for our last input here we're going to have a summing up by our esteemed program director and excellent team leader at Siani and I'm not saying this because I need a promotion because I'm as high up as I can get so Madeleine Fogde and so I'm here actually to thank all of you because I think Siani as it has been presented today is really the team effort that counts not the individual and I think that has been proved throughout all the presentations and panel discussions and what you have heard today and we really like these meetings I considered maybe the most important meeting we have throughout the year because you are here you're helping us to steer our way we cannot do everything we have a very limited mandate we have also limited resources of course but together we can do much more and we can actually reach out and we can make some impact but it's very difficult to to harvest the impact and put them in the report to the ones that really are interested in impacts but we know that we do and I think you have we can see that also through the day it was very nice to hear that both Sida and our mother our institution consider us as an investment now that's something to look forward to because it's much better than an initiative an initiative can end up tomorrow now we're talking about investments so hopefully we together we can keep this spirit up continue to work in the spirit of the network that was so also stimulated transmitted by our younger colleagues and how important it is and what kind of outreach we have and yes I have been told that we are actually in the morning we had 60 viewers and most of them of course from Sweden but we had also Katja's family in Russia watching us we have Russian viewers and then Steven's families and colleagues in Kenya were probably watching Steven and so there was a lot of the viewers from from Kenya and you know I was really surprised but I thought the American viewers had other things to view but they are up there watching us as well I think they should be sleeping they cannot sleep in this week so they have sleepless nights in Africa in America so they watch Siani now what about that that's really nice okay now we wanted also to show that we are really trying to expand our network getting closer to the ground and we're extremely grateful that our very strong intelligent colleague from Africa is here with us Steven you know these people didn't know what you did before preparing that excellent presentation but you actually managed to get a passport and a visa from Kenya to Sweden in less than two weeks now ladies and gentlemen give him an applause that is really for for anyone living in an African country a long time a period of time know that that requires talents and the stubbornness so that was really great now not to talk about the interesting insights on the value chain and what we should look at and how much more maybe we can contribute to the transformation when we have knowledge so let's catch up the knowledge from these interesting reports and see how we can proceed with that and then of course we try to introduce you what Siani 3 is and what we do and what we're going to work with and I hope you grasp that but it is about network it is about collaboration it is about knowledge transfer and the emphasis on evidence space communication is very important and I think that is even more important this week because we have to really fight for that we are presenting evidence and I think we have to fight very hard to do that in the future and we will continue to do so Anneli could you put up the picture on the rule of transformation the green picture where is Anneli let me see if I can get that one we had a very interesting brainstorming session before our dialogue and it was about what is actually the rule of transformation it was very nice okay yeah you know we ask you for guidance guidance and ideas so that we can develop our program and I think one of the most successful that you see immediate impact on this meeting is how we took up the thematics of youth you have seen throughout the day the younger generations you have heard and speak and you have heard that they are ready to grasp the future agenda they are ready to even go and speak to their superiors about it that they want to know more so this was an input from the members meeting in terms of rule of transformation something that we will continue to work with so we will read your contributions and I think when we look at here this was the brainstorming rule of transformation is linked to the way we see food security and it is in a changing world and there are some key words here I guess that are really important and the ones that you know these are the brainstorming around it I would like to highlight you know rule of transformation is really important to know it's so interlinked with what's happening in the cities interlinked to what's happening with our climate and it's very interlinked to what's happening with our youth and we see it also in another level of interaction it's more before it was or even national level or local level production but now we see more regional approach to this and see the the linkages in between the cities and the rule now we have to go further down and it's not for us to do but we can identify with the networks what's happening we can share lessons learned and we can also extend our activities to a certain extent we can extend it to developing countries but we are limited but we can in the collaboration extend it further and yes there are important words here I think the cross sector the bottom up you have mentioned it all income security livelihoods it's extremely important for the inclusive transformation of the rural areas and in the rural transformation of course forestry is incorporated and we would work a lot with that yes so thank you all for that and as you see we take your suggestions seriously next year I hope we come back and we can tell you a little bit more what we learned from the network on rural transformation we will have organized Agri4D conference in this thematic so we will get knowledge out from the networks and from our researchers and the conference will also be very much more inclusive to business and civil society also we have to work on that but it's going to be an exciting conference I hope to meet many of you then okay thank you students for your excellent research on what's going on at SLU we don't want to make a new revolution at SLU but we wanted to know what is perception is agenda getting out there and it's really I think it's very important that they know that they are working with sustainability that is the key now labeling it but it could be opportune to labeling it it could be good you can make business of labeling it to be more agenda 2030 so it gives us some indication for working further and in a very short time you have already made impact because people of that are interested in your work and will bring it further and I heard that it will be posted on SLU global's web page and Siany's web page in short so you can read it there okay now yes of course we always also provide a little bit of knowledge that we think are very important and very important of course is to look at what put the sustainable development in risk what put rural transformation in risk also it's not only that we can work together and solve everything but there are risk and there are challenges and one of them is AMR now right now and so we had this really interesting insights and I think we can bring it with us because we can all advocate for this agenda and we see it's a very good agenda to advocate for thank you I come to the end and then I start to thank you all members for coming here thank you all members viewing us if you have any questions you have a chance to send them now but otherwise I guess we are going out to the mingles it would be difficult to catch us thank you so much our donors and supporters and everyone that contributes to the Siany network thank you all Siany team all SEI supporting team then sometimes come here and moderate on their time and we are really grateful for that in the groups and yeah with that I just want to say that we are on track we are working heavily and we are working towards a sustainable future with focus on zero hunger that's our mission okay thank you very much we have now a mingle and I hope that this spirit in the network spirit for a little bit more and talk to your colleagues and enjoy the time that you can connect and do new productive connections and friendships that can lead to something in the future thank you very much and thank you Melinda yes also yeah microphone


This study investigated the effectiveness of a parenteral form of chondroitin sulfate, CS, in treating knee osteoarthritis, OA. It found that CS had beneficial effects on the morphology of the knee joints, reducing inflammation and improving the structural integrity of the joints. This suggests that CS may be useful for treating knee OA. This article was authored by TB Minasov, AM Lila, AG Nazarenko, and others.


Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines. Palestinian factions begin reconciliation talks in Turkey. Teachers set to boycott work as schools reopen in Zimbabwe. Brazil's former president Dula comes out with the letter defending Assange. Constitutional referendum passes in Italy with the support of establishment parties. And in our infocus section, we look at why India's farmers are opposing new agricultural laws. In our first story on Tuesday, representatives of the two major factions of the Palestinian movement, the Hamas and Fateh, met and began unity talks in Turkey's capital, Ankara. The meeting is a follow-up of another one where the general secretaries met early this month. The meeting is expected to finalize the implementation of the reconciliation plan agreed upon earlier. According to reports, both Hamas and Fateh have agreed to adhere to a peaceful transition of power on the basis of fresh elections in Palestine. The proposed elections will be based on the principle of proportional representation. Both Hamas and Fateh have been at odds since 2007 when Hamas took over control of Gaza expelling forces loyal to Fateh after disagreements over the formation of government after 2006 elections. After several failed attempts at reconciliation, the two factions came together recently after the announcement of Israel's plan to formally annex parts of the occupied West Bank in May. Meanwhile, Palestinian foreign minister Riyadh Maliki announced on Tuesday that Palestine would not take up the presidency of the Arab League. The decision comes as a mark of protest against the UAE and Bahrain, signing normalization deals with Israel last week. In our next story on Monday, the Zimbabwe Teacher Association said in a circular that its teachers will not be reporting to work once schools reopen on the 28th of September. The union, or ZIMTA, is the largest in the country, representing 42,000 educators. With the continuing freefall of Zimbabwe's official currency, the average salary of a teacher has now been reduced to equivalent of US dollars 30 to 35 per month. At this level of earning, the union complains. Teachers cannot afford to pay the school fees of their own children or spend on traveling to school and back. Hence they have declared incapacitation. Unless they get a salary of US dollars 50 at purchasing power parity, educators remain incapacitated and hence willing but unable to report a duty, ZIMTA stated. This was roughly the earning of a teacher until October 2018, when the RTGS was introduced as a currency in which payments were made. Until then, the Zimbabwe government paid salaries in US dollars, which was adopted in 2009 after the value of the Zimbabwe dollar was reduced next to nothing due to inflation. ZIMTA demands that the WHO's guidelines should also be strictly implemented regarding COVID-19 in schools and teachers must be paid a COVID-19 allowance in addition to their salaries. Last week, unsexual negotiations were held to prevent the strike by the teachers as the schools are set to reopen. Public Services Minister Paul Mavima has expressed willingness to hold further negotiation talks earlier this coming week. In our next story, on Monday, Brazil's former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, published a letter defending Julian Assange as an international newspaper for the Guardian. In the letter, he argued that the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, should not be extradited to the United States. Julian Assange is currently undergoing hearings in the United Kingdom. The document shared by the British press warns about the risks surrounding the extradition of Assange to the US. In the letter, Lula accuses the US of, to quote, taking vengeance against Assange because he revealed the atrocities and war crimes committed by the US during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture to which the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were subjected. In the letter, the leader of the Workers' Party, Pete, also affirmed that Brazilians are particularly indebted to Assange due to his work in making publics, documents and information about meetings. These were to do with the privatization of the pre-salt layer in Brazil. He added that it was through reading the documents revealed by Assange that Brazilians learned the relationship between the Tamil administration and executives in the North American oil giants Exxonmobil in Chevron. Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon, was also president this meeting. He later became a secretary of state in the Donald Trump administration. Lula characterizes the accusation made by the US president against Assange as dangerous and false. The US has argued that Assange had helped Ilse manning a former member of the military and a source for the documents to hack government computers. Now, next story, earlier this week, the Constitutional referendum in Italy to reduce the size of parliament was ratified in a national vote with 69% support. The proposal was moved by the incumbent Democratic Party five-star movement coalition. It was also backed by other institutional parties ranging from the center to the far right. On the other hand, the proposal is opposed by the Italian left, mainly the communist parties. The referendum proposed to cut down the number of MPs in the chamber of deputies from 630 to 400 and from 350 to 200 in the Senate. According to reports, 51% of the country's total electorate participated in the two-day vote. The vote was initially scheduled to be held in March but was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The changes mandated by the referendum will be in effect from the next general elections. The establishment parties have justified the reduction in the number of MPs arguing that the expenses during the elections will come down. However, amending article 56 and 57 has ensured that the minor anti-establishment parties required an increased number of votes to win the seat. The opponents of the referendum slammed the reduction in the number of lawmakers as a means to decrease democratic representation. After the reduction, the number of lawmakers per 100,000 inhabitants in Italy decreased from 1.6 to 1. Communist groups including the Communist Refoundation Party, Italian Communist Party, the Partido Communista and Potelepol Popolo opposed the reduction in the number of MPs and called on people to vote no against the changes proposed in the referendum. And finally, in our in-focus section, we took, take a look at a controversy that has been brewing in India over the past couple of days. Two bills were passed in India's parliament over the weekend. These had to do with the agricultural sector but these bills were very strongly opposed by farmers and farmers movements. We take a look at why farmers and farmers movements are opposing these laws. During this pandemic, the Narendra Modi-led Bhartya Chanta Party government in India has pushed through multiple legislations that are a direct assault on people's rights. The latest among these are three bills on agriculture. The government passed these three bills brazenly flouting parliamentary rules and ignoring the protesting farmers across the country. Two of these were passed on Sunday, September 20th. The farmers and produce trade and commerce, promotion and facilities bill 2020 and farmers empowerment and protection agreement on price assurance and farm services bill 2020. Members from opposition parties walked out of the parliament and protest of the manner in which these bills were pushed through. However, the BJP government remained underturbed. On Tuesday, September 22nd, the third bill, Essential Commodities Amendment Bill 2020 was passed in the upper house of the parliament along with six other bills in the absence of opposition parliament members. What are these farm bills and why are farmers opposing them? The first bill is the farmers produce trade and commerce, promotion and facilitation bill 2020 which analysts have dubbed as the APMC bypass bill 2020. APMCs or agricultural produce market committees are essentially government regulated market places for agricultural produce. These markets are places where farmers can sell certain crops such as wheat and rice at minimum support prices which are fixed. The MSPs and the APMCs were introduced as a way of providing remunerative prices and assured procurement of crops to farmers. While the implementation of these policies has been far from perfect, the APMC bypass bill as it's being called is set to further weaken these provisions. This bill will set up a new unregulated market space called the trade area which will have no oversight. While the government is trying to present this as a way for farmers to access new markets, farmers have always been free to sell their produce to private players. However, this move will incentivize traders to move out of the regulated markets and farmers will find it increasingly difficult to get guaranteed prices for their crops. What is going to happen is, the big agribusinesses so-called aggregators, sponsors and processors and so on, they are going to dictate the prices. There is not going to be any control over them. The earlier system had a price support mechanism and also a mechanism of price support mechanism for the farmers and a price control for the consumers. These are being totally dismantled by these ordinances. Any kind of protection that the farmers would have had as far as price support is concerned, that is not going to be any longer there. The APMC's also have other advantages. They provide collective bargaining power to farmers and they also provide information to government to determine the prices of crops. With the government gradually pulling out of crop procurement it will have no way of gauging prices and intervening in the market in the interest of farmers if needed. The farmers will be left at the mercy of big capital. Linked closely to this is the Essential Commodities Amendment Bill 2020 which is also being called the Food Holding Freedom for Corporates Bill 2020. With the passing of this bill, various items such as cereals, pulses, oil seeds, edible oils, onions and potatoes have been removed from the list of essential commodities. This bill also essentially legitimizes holding of produce by private companies as it removes any limits on stock holding. They can thus take advantage of high prices with the government having no knowledge of what stocks exist with who, when and where. This is being done in the name of attracting private investment in post-harvest infrastructure. By the Essential Commodities Act amendment earlier this was actually brought in to ensure that there is no hoarding and so on so the consumers would also get the agricultural produce whether it is cereals, pulses, oils, oil seeds and so on at affordable prices. Now those controls have been removed and even foreign players as well as big agree businesses it promotes hoarding in a way and also there is no control there is no limits on how much they can keep. Finally the Farmers Empowerment and Protection Agreement of Price Assurance and Farb Services Bill 2020 which is also being called the Contract Farming Bill 2020. This bill basically allows the system of contract farming in India. However, 86% of the farming community in the country owns less than 2 hectares of land. The policy of contract farming shifts the power balance away from the farmer to the company especially when the land holdings are so small. The farmer will in effect become a land owning tenant acting in the interest of corporates. Three ordinances which have been brought will in effect lead to freedom for the agree businesses to exploit the farmers and push the farmers into a situation of slavery. That is what will happen. India has been going through an unrelenting agrarian crisis for the past many years now with rising number of farmers who are sites every year. Farmers have led many major movements reminding an improvement in conditions. However, these moves by the BGP government are in the opposite direction from what farmers want. With these changes which are happening where they are trying to paint a rosy picture that these big agree businesses will pay higher prices to the farmers and that kind of a campaign is being done that is not going to actually translate on the field. The small farmer would not have the bargaining power with these big companies and once they establish their monopolies they totally dictate the terms. Farmers have been demanding for the remunerated prices to be a legal right and for maximum procurement at these prices through the regulated market places. Farmers want freedom from debt. Instead, the government is dismantling whatever protection mechanisms exist and so farmer organizations have been leading protest actions for the past few months against these anti-farmer legislations. They have burned these bills they have sent Maranda to the prime minister and they have held rallies. Now 25th has been declared National Resistance Day to continue these protest actions. The All India Kisan Sabha that is the All India Farmers Organization which is leading the struggle has issued the slogan what the parliament can do the streets can undo. That's all we have time for today. We will be back tomorrow with more news from the world. Until then keep watching People's Dispatch. The All India Farmers Organization