Agenda extended version -

Regional Forum for e-agriculture

13-15th of November, Novi Sad, Serbia

Agenda extended version

Day 1

13 November 2017, Monday

9:00 – 14:00	Arrival and Registration

	Arrival of international participants and registration of conference participants. Company registration and setting up exhibition stands

14:00 – 14:30	Opening ceremony

	High official’s speech of the hosting country on the importance of e-agriculture. FAO speech on e-agriculture and the aim of the Forum. GGP representative speech on e-agriculture and what will be happening in the next 2 days of the Forum.

Speakers	Representative of Vojvodina government Vladimir Rakhmanin, FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia Aleksandar Cherepnalkoski, President of Green Growth Platform, Macedonia

14:30 – 16:00	High-level officials’ round table

	High governmental officials, institutional representatives and representatives of the business sector will discuss issues in the area of policy, institutional capacity, infrastructure, business environment and academia as key aspects for holistic approach in more dynamic introduction of e-agriculture on the central, regional and farm level. Specific aspect of the discussion is how a national e-agriculture strategy can contribute to achieving national agricultural goals that include development of sustainable food systems, climate change mitigation and adaptation and improving the livelihoods of rural communities, including smallholders and family farmers, men and women. A background paper aiming at assisting the countries to prepare their statements is prepared and distributed prior the session.

Speakers	Representatives of the ministries of agriculture from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, TFYR Macedonia, UNMIK Kosovo; Representatives of the ministries of telecommunications from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, TFYR Macedonia, UNMIK Kosovo Darko Konjevic, Ministry for Agriculture, Government of Montenegro Vladimir Rakhmanin, FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia; TBD Goran Popovski, President of the Managing board of the Macedonia ICT Chamber – MASIT Representatives of the Banking sector of WBC TBD Darko Gebaei, CTO, Agrivi István Harmati, CEO, Krivaja DOO Dimitar Trajanov Ph.D., Head of Departments for Information Systems and Network Technologies (former Dean), Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Macedonia Grigoris Chatzikostas M.Sc., Head of business development department, Biosense Milan Solaja, ICT Claster Vojvodina, Serbia Sanja Bugarski, General secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Serbia Deputy Secretary for Agriculture, Vojvodina Government, Serbia

Moderator	Nevena Alexandrova-Stefanova FAO Agricultural Innovation Systems and Knowledge Sharing Officer and Sophie Treinen, FAO Information and Knowledge Management Officer

16:00 – 16:30	Press Conference

	Local and international media will be present to cover the introduction of the event and take statements from high-level officials and key experts.

16:30 – 18:00

Reception cocktail and networking

Day 2

14 November 2017, Tuesday

STREAM I – Conference sessions

9:00 – 9:30

Conference registration

9:30 – 10:30	Panel discussion: The status of e-agriculture in the region and the needs for improved enabling environment

	E-agriculture offer the unprecedented opportunities for accelerating agricultural development, however appropriate enabling environment is needed to realize the technology potential. The panel will raise awareness on good practices at policy level existing in the region with particular focus on business sector and smallholder and family farms in Western Balkans.

Presentation topic	Status on e-Agriculture in Western Balkans
Speakers	Nevena Alexandrova-Stefanova FAO Agricultural Innovation Systems and Knowledge Sharing Officer

Presentation topic	E-Agricultural technological potentials in Central and South-East Europe
Speakers	Blagoja Mukanov M.Sc., Chief consultant, AgFutura Technologies, TFYR Macedonia

Presentation topic	Hungarian digitalization strategy including agricultural sector
Speakers	Aniko Juhasz

Presentation topic	Making farmers’ cooperative stronger based on ICTs
Speaker	Daniel Azevedo COPA-COGECA representative

Presentation topic	What ICTs in Agriculture bring for the future agriculture
Speaker	Davide Guariento M.Sc., Project Manager, Biosense, Serbia

Presentation topic	The perspective of EU research: Reflections from the EURAGRI workshop “Big data in agriculture: consequences for research and research organizations”
Speaker	Pascal Bergeret, EURAGRI

Moderator	Sophie Treinen, FAO Information and Knowledge Management Officer

10:30 – 10:45

Coffee break

10:45 – 16:30	Thematic sessions

	Thematic sessions include presentation and discussion on specific agricultural topics with an e-agriculture perspective. In this part of the event four thematic sessions in two parallel streams will be performed. Participants should choose the sessions that they prefer to participate in during the registration process. The sessions will be composed by short presentations aiming at catalyzing the discussions. The audience will be divided in working groups that will work on identifying challenges, opportunities and recommendations.

10:45 – 12:15	Sustainable intensification of agricultural production

	If global population and food consumption trends continue, by 2050 the world will need 60 percent more food than it is available today. Because arable land is limited, most of this additional production will have to come from sustainable agricultural intensification. FAO has shown that 80% of the needed production increase should come from the advancement of agricultural research, education and extension aligned with the innovation ecosystem. The objective of the session is to demonstrate e-agricultural solutions contributing to sustainable intensification of production; discuss challenges and propose recommendations for improved access and adoption of ICTs in agricultural sector in WBCs.

Presentation topic	The use of drones in the agricultural production – global and regional perspective
Speaker	Bojan Micovic, Director, Livona, Serbia

Presentation topic	Site specific Crop Management (SSM)
Speakers	Vince Lang Ph.D., CEO, Agridron, Hungary

Presentation topic	Digital technologies in Pest Management
Speaker Presentation topic Speaker	Stakic Davor, HOYA, Slovenia “The Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) used as an effective monitoring service for the agricultural production” Rudy Favaro, Business development department, Abaco SpA, Italy


Moderator	Blagoja Mukanov FAO consultant, M.Sc., CEO, AgFutura, TFYR Macedonia

10:45 – 12:15	ICTs assisted Food Systems

	With increasing globalization, agriculture as an independent sector is becoming increasingly just one part of an integrated value chain. The value chain exits both upstream and downstream, or from production through processing and sales to consumption and food waste and loss management and form an integrated food system. The session will explore e-agriculture solutions, platforms and applications that go beyond simply contributing to production increase and help market inclusion, nutrition, food loss and waste management, food safety and traceability along value chain. It will discuss challenges and propose recommendations for improved access and adoption of ICTs in agricultural sector in WBCs.

Presentation topic 1	Food waste in WBC Food systems
Speaker	Cameron Bertel, US Peace Corps

Presentation topic 2	“ABACO’s integrated Platform for the supply chain. A single view on all data for traceability and quality production”
Speaker	Doriana Gajda, Business development department, Abaco SpA, Italy

Presentation topic 3	Traceability on Food System and integration of small farmers
Speaker Presentation topic 4	Ziga Drev, Origin trail, Slovenia Development of an individual identification and traceability system for meat processing of indigenous bovine animals
Speaker	Laszlo Papocsi, GAK, Hungary

Moderator	Nikola Trendov M.Sc. Assistant professor at Faculty of Agriculture, University Szent Istvan, Hungary

13:00 – 14:00

Lunch break

14:00 – 15:30	ICT assisted Climate smart agriculture

	Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach that helps produce sustainably under the pressure of climate change, build resilience to disasters and reduce green gas emissions. Open data are playing an increasing role in providing weather and climate data as public good. The session will embark on examples of e-agriculture solutions and discuss challenges and recommendations.

Presentation topic 1	The impact of Climate Change on the WBC Agriculture and South East Europe
Speakers	UNDP expert- TBD

Presentation topic 2	Climate smart Agriculture – Solutions and impact
Speakers	Senka Gajinov M.Sc., Product Manager, DUNAV NET, Serbia

Presentation topic 3	Green gas reduction and meteorological data
Speaker Presentation topic 4	Institute for meteorology Serbia Online tool to monitor the increase of soil carbon through improved tillage practices according to Gold Standard requirement
Speaker	Laszlo Papocsi, GAK, Hungary
Moderator	Sophie Treinen, FAO Information and Knowledge Management Officer

15:30 – 16:30	Empowerment of smallholders and family farmers through ICTs

	ICTs can help smallholder and family farmers (FAO, 2014) coordinate their planning and monitoring of production and marketing systems by virtually aggregating data, without cooperatives having to take over the land or do the decision making for their farms. Access to credit, financial and insurance services for smallholders and family farmers has been a major constraint to improving their farming and incomes. With the increasing availability of mobile phones and the internet, smallholder farmers can now access financial services much more easily. The World Development Report 2016 found that these ‘digital dividends’ are not automatic and that not everyone benefits equally. This is because the analogue capacities which are needed to enable these benefits – adequate policies and regulations, newly required skills and accountable institutions – are not equally present everywhere. On top of that, a lack of infrastructure (electricity, connectivity) still prevents a large number of people of being digitally connected to the rest of the world. The session will explore e-agriculture initiatives and solutions serving the needs of smallholders and family farms in WBCs and discuss challenges and possible recommendations.

Presentation topic 1	Single window project –Albania
Speakers	Petrit Dobi Ph.D., Rural association support program


Presentation topic 2	Agriteach 4.0 – Working with smallholder farmers though the VET system by using ICTs ERAMUS Project (Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Macedonia)

Speakers	Aranka Köblös, Galamb Jozsef Agricultural Secondary School

Presentation topic 3	Farmers’ cooperatives development based on ICTs – The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Speakers	Jovana Sabljic M.Sc. Advisor for project development and implementation, Ministry of Economy County 10, BiH


Moderator	Nevena Alexandrova-Stefanova FAO Agricultural Innovation Systems and Knowledge Sharing Officer

15:30 – 16:00

Coffee break

16:00 – 17:00	Reports from parallel sessions

	Working group results from each of the parallel sessions in the previous agenda will be presented by the moderators of each workshop. The presentations will be done in the main conference room.

17:00 – 18:00	Networking

STREAM II – Side events from companies and project presentations

11:00 – 13:00 17:00 – 18:00	Companies and project presentations

	Companies’ exhibitors and project representatives will perform 30min presentation for the ICT solutions/projects that they represent. Each presentation session should include a discussion as a feedback from the potential users. Separate conference hall will be dedicated for companies’/projects’ presentation for the ICT solutions /projects for farm management, pest management, weather monitoring, technology management, machinery management etc. Each company/project will have the opportunity to conduct 30minutes presentation.

Entire day	Companies exhibition
	Companies’ exhibitors will have exhibition stands where they can present their companies during the entire day.

Day 3

15 November 2017, Wednesday

STREAM III – On-farm exhibition (for subsidized participants)

9:00

Departure from Hotel Park

10:30 – 16/17:00	Field workshop – Farm Krivaja DOO

	Subsidies participants will have the chance to visit the farm Krivaja DOO where they will have the opportunity to see and experience different digital technologies and technologies in the area of precision agriculture. The exhibition is consisted of number of presentations of each production phase consisted of showing the use of the technology and equipment for each separate phase.

13:00 – 14:00

Lunch break

10:30 – 16/17:00	Field workshop – Focus groups

	Conference organizers will perform a so called focus group analysis with the subsidized participants. The focus groups will have the purpose to resolve a concrete farmer’s challenge and a part of the solution shall include e-agriculture.