On January 27, farmers’ representatives whose organisations are partners in the Transitional Agriculture project met in a digital Advisory Board meeting to exchange about 2020 achievements of the project and brainstorm about 2021 activities.

WFO was represented by President Theo De Jager and Secretary General Arianna Giuliodori, while other participants included Werner Schwarz, Vice President, German Farmers‘ Association (DBV); Vladimir Plotnikov, President, Russian Association of rural and farm enterprises and agricultural cooperatives (AKKOR); Betty Chinyamunyamu, CEO, National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM); Oswald Tuyisenge on behalf of the Rwandan Farmers’ Union (INGABO); Paul Zakariya, Executive Director, Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU); Nelson Godfried Agyemang, CEO, Coalition of Farmers Ghana (COFAG).

Andreas Quiring, Managing Director, Andreas Hermes Akademie (AHA)  and Falk Kullen, Managing Director, AgrarKontakte International (AKI),  opened the Advisory Board meeting as implementers of the project.

The meeting provided an excellent venue for all the participants to share their opinions and feedback on what has been done and explore the opportunities for the months to come to make sure the 3-year exchange program delivers the expected results, reiterating that the most effective way of agricultural exchange is the communication among farmers.

President De Jager greeted the participants setting the scene for the meeting. He highlighted one of the greatest achievement of the project: the creation of a network of Farmers’ Organisation from different Countries willing to learn from each other how obstacles can be overcome and strategies implemented for the farmers’ community because “farmers learn more from other farmers than from anyone else”.

During the meeting, WFO Secretary General took the chance to stress the importance of the project during 2021 “super year”, with the potentiality to contribute with its results and feed into global discussions about Food Systems (UNFSS)  and Climate Change (COP26).