A local business workshop took place on May 26, 2022 in Yerevan for presenting the Internet Platform for liaising the sustainable producers and promotion of the climate-smart agriculture in the Black Sea Basin.
42 representatives from difference target groups attended the meeting in presence: local/national/regional public authorities, interest groups including NGOs and international organizations, higher education and research institutions, business support organizations, SME, general public and media representative.
AGREEN Project coordinator Lilit Avdalyan made a welcoming speech. Then, Astghik Hayrapetyan, a representative from Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, made a short online speech. After that, AGREEN Project COP Coordinator Anna Hovhannisyan presented the AGREEN Internet Platform in detail and discussed with the participants the usability and technical aspects, functionality, interface, and content of the Platform.
The participants were very active asking many questions during the presentation, in particular related to selection criteria of the logistic centers to be represented on the website, involvement of the large companies, type of the exported products (in particular processed products instead of the raw material), the sustainability of the Platform, the roles of the Project Partners in the promotion activities of the website, access of the website for non-project-partner countries, experience exchange between countries, etc.
Related to website improvements the participants mentioned some technical, like alphabetical order of the map and the selection of city pictures and also functional aspects. The participants also asked about presentation of standard legislation each country to be represented on the Platform, also about the opportunity to create a marketplace for branding between farmers of the countries.
Another interesting question was about the possibility for the local farmer to provide their lands to logistic centers in cross-country format.
Second part of the workshop was devoted to the discussion on Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices in Armenia, presentation of similar platforms and tools for cooperation and development. First speaker was Onik Sanjyan, BSB SF – Smart Farming/ADI – agriculture digital, public relations specialist, who briefly introduced https://adi-platform.com. Then PONTOS project manager Aghavni Harutyunyan presented the PONTOS project results and online tools created within the project. Third speaker was Anna Avagyan, founder of Farm Fresh LLC. She presented their website and mentioned some possible reasons – price, time, distance, and availability – why people do not prefer to buy agricultural products from the market. The next speaker was Mr. Karen Azaryan Trade Officer at European Union Delegation to the RA. He presented the trade between Armenia and European Union in 2021. He mentioned 5 products that were exported to EU with the highest value: iron, steel and other metals; clothes; aluminum; copper and molybdenum; diamond and jewelry. After that Vahan Amirkhanyan, National Technical Coordinator at FAO presented the draft for National Digital Agriculture Strategy of the Republic of Armenia which suggests creating a platform focused on smart and digital agriculture and including digital agriculture in the educational system of Armenia. The next speaker was Gor Movsesyan, Founding member of the “Armenian Agricultural Alliance” Coalition which engages 22 active agriculture-oriented organizations in Armenia. The history of the “Armenian Agricultural Alliance” Coalition was presented and its importance for the Armenian agriculture was emphasized.
The closing part of the workshop was about the summary of main findings of the workshop, recommendations on possible improvements of the platform. At the end, the participants were provided with evaluation forms in paper to provide their feedback on the workshop including and their and recommendations for the future steps of the Project.
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