In a panel discussion on agrifood innovation in the MENA region, three speakers explore how to revitalize agriculture by attracting young talent, leveraging scientific advances, and fostering collaborative innovation ecosystems. Speaker A expresses optimism that exciting new technologies can re‑engage youth in farming, highlighting his own company's success in drawing young professionals. Speaker B emphasizes confidence in science to solve future food‑system challenges, but stresses that effective deployment requires clear priorities, strong organization, and better communication from ministries. He cites successful mobile extension services in Tunisia and Morocco, and Egypt’s NARS “war‑room” that provides early‑warning pest and disease forecasts via SMS, noting these solutions are under‑publicized. Speaker C discusses the need for a defined continuum of roles among institutions such as FAO, ICBA, CGE, and universities, ensuring each contributes clearly—from farmer‑focused research to technology development and product delivery. He underscores the importance of simple, freely delivered solutions and farmer education, and highlights open innovation platforms like ICBA’s integrated desert farming initiative that bring together public, private, and research stakeholders to accelerate technology uptake.
re-engage young people. So I'd hope we are able to develop, and I'm seeing it in my own company, which I didn't mention at all, sorry, where you're able to attract in young people because what you're doing, frankly, is exciting and it's new. And so this is why I'm ultimately an optimist, not just a techno-optimist, but if you can re-engage young people into agriculture, I think there's a lot of hope for the future.
I'm also an optimist, and I think what I have seen In terms of the advancement in science, I am confident that science is able to provide us with the right solutions for the future problems, but only if it is deployed in the right way and only if the priorities are seen clearly by those who really have the upper hand in driving the entire transformation of the food system. So, you know, I, I'm very confident from a scientific perspective that we have the tools to find the solutions. I think it's It's really up to us to organize ourselves to make it happen. On the question of how do we get this knowledge to farmers, there's a lot that is happening. You know, I get to travel and talk to some of the ministries and countries, and I see a lot of success. But traditionally, the ministers of agriculture or ministries themselves, they're not good communicators. So I know in Tunisia, for example, this mobile extension services is very well established. In Morocco, same thing. In Egypt, you know, I was there, you know, the NARS head of NARS took me into something like a war room, monitors everywhere, young people. They're actually monitoring the weather all the way up to 10 kilometers in the sky, and they're able to forecast that because of certain conditions, a particular pest or disease may hit you in 2 weeks' time. So they quickly send you a message to apply a preemptive Treatment. So those kind of things are there, and they're actually being implemented at large scale, but they are not sufficiently known. And I think part of what we need to do is to make sure that those kind of innovations reach the public, so that at least there are some comfort and assurance on this space. My very quickly ten seconds: the innovation platforms that, for example, within the context of this integrated desert farming, I mean, Iqba is doing a great work on that, and. Recommendation to visit that booth is great. These innovation platforms are not going to be in the traditional sense where you only have limited people, but open more broadly to all the stakeholders across the entire value chain, including from the private sector, because that's the opportunity for them to be inspired about a business solution, and that already helps taking up technology in a very big way. Thank you. Thank you.
I would like to touch on a question that was asked in the panel, and unfortunately she left now, about when to stop science. You know, when do we stop science? And I would say we never stop to think about where science progress needs to go. What we need to do is to have the organizations that you see here, from FAO to ICBA, to the CGE and the university, this continuum has to be defined so that each organization has a role to play and that role needs to be clear. So for instance, as you mentioned, organizations like ICBA are in contact with farmers and are trying to understand from the farmer point of view what they require in order to continue to be sustainable, correct? University's role is to develop technology and improve You know, the path forward. So it's good to probably look into biotechnology for humans and for plants, but at the end of the day, we cannot go and talk to the farmers about genes and, you know, how good it's going to be, a drought-tolerant gene or something. What we need to do is to deliver products that carry all those solutions into that, and it has to be simple, it has to be delivered freely, and then we need to educate the farmers. And this is something that I think in every speech that we have here, we are amazed by the technology, right? When I went to Australia, just to take another big country, it was huge, the cotton belt. You can go to the satellite and see a white belt.
