Monheim/ Canberra, September 2, 2015 - Young agriculture leaders from across the world have created the Canberra Youth Ag Declaration, a global call for action to help solve the pressing issues facing modern agriculture and food security.

From 24-28 August in Canberra, Bayer CropScience and Future Farmers Network Australia brought together 100 young thought leaders, aged 18-25, from 33 nations for the Youth Ag-Summit to discuss the role science and modern agriculture play in feeding a hungry planet.

The Canberra Youth Ag Declaration outlines the solutions and actions of these young global leaders and will be presented at the United Nation's Committee on World Food Security in Rome in October by Australian delegate Laura Grubb and Kenyan delegate Samba Ouma.

Shaping a call for action

Delegates voted on their priority themes all week to form the basis of the Declaration with education and skills building, communication of the opportunities in agriculture and role in society, responsible and sustainable consumption, innovation including research and development, and personal and organisational leadership selected as the highest priorities for the delegates during the week.

The themes of the Declaration are underpinned by solutions and actions, with delegates assigned specifics roles to motivate industry change. These solutions include:
- Develop a fair and open multi-channel platform for formal and informal educators in the agricultural industry to build greater skills through ongoing education;
- Globally promote and enhance the image of farmers and the breadth of opportunities in the agricultural industry;
- Enhance socially acceptable and responsible consumption through better education and utilization of current resources;
- Create a global network that links young innovators to agricultural needs to drive information sharing, funding and solutions;
- Develop a global youth platform to build a movement and develop youth leaders through mentorship and education via youth groups.

These actions will be fine-tuned in the coming weeks and presented to the United Nations Committee on World Food security in October.

"To drive real outcomes from the 2015 Youth Ag-Summit we need to ensure the solutions and actions identified by the 100 delegates are communicated with key global policy and decision makers. The opportunity to present the Declaration to the United Nations and say this is what young people across the world think needs to be done to feed a hungry planet provides a significant step towards enacting change," states Georgie Aley, Chair of Future Farmers Network Australia.

"Young people have incredible potential to solve global and local food challenges," adds Bernd Naaf, Member of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience. "The Youth Ag-Summit in Canberra has focused on capturing the ideas of young leaders and this Declaration is a first significant step of a long journey. Moreover, the individual commitments of each delegate create positive impact on a local basis which is equally important to pinning down solutions on a global level."

Driving change - globally and locally

Laura Grubb, an Australian student of animal science, has always been active in the field of agriculture. Her chosen field of interest is technology and innovation. In her opinion both are necessary to be able to tackle global food challenges in a sustainable way.

"It's a huge opportunity; normally at conferences the information and ideas shared stay within the body of people that attended, but we have a unique opportunity to spread this around the globe to both developed and developing countries, across a range of different ecosystems, production systems, and cultures. That means we can really put the goals we've developed at the Summit into practice and make a difference," Laura said.

Samba Ouma from Kenya is an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor in Commerce. His motivation to engage in food security stems from his personal experience as he witnessed food shortage all his life. He strongly believes in education and empowerment, especially for youth. "I am so grateful to represent all 100 delegates and speak on their behalf at the UN conference," he said.

In addition to developing the Declaration, delegates were challenged to individually shape "3 little things" which will see them set goals to make a difference in their home countries.

As Samba looks back on his week spent at the Youth Ag-Summit, it is clear the discussion and knowledge transfer has had a big impact, particularly the concept of the "3 little things".

"My personal commitments are based on the needs of my community and that is where I can drive change," says Samba. "My number one priority is to keep the conversation going, especially on social media because that's where most of the young people are, that's where we can tap the potential. My second priority would be to use the next four Saturday's after the Summit, because I happen to work in a youth group in Mombasa in Kenya, to use the foresight of this to teach them, to share with them what I learnt so that I can also empower them. Finally, I want to work closely with the other delegate from Kenya and my country mentor, to ensure that we come up with one very awesome initiative that will bring the entire nation on-board," Samba concludes.

The delegates will stay connected through the Youth Ag-Network, an exclusive online platform for Youth Ag-Summit Alumni to help these young leaders to stay in touch, as well as to support and continue learning from each other.

To download the press kit and learn more about the delegates, please visit: www.youthagsummit.com

Video on the YAS 2015:
https://youtu.be/Tnuzj2XirgE

Join the dialogue on the YAS social media channels:
YouTube: www.YouTube.com
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/YouthAgSummit
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/YouthAgSummit
Instagram: https://instagram.com/youthagsummit/

About the Youth Ag-Summit
The Youth Ag-Summit is a global youth conference to inspire and connect the next generation of young leaders in agriculture and related disciplines. At the 2015 Summit held in Canberra, Australia, 100 young leaders aged 18 to 25 years from 33 countries met to share perspectives in an open dialogue on one of the world's most challenging questions: how to feed a hungry planet? The Youth Ag-Summit forms part of the global Bayer CropScience Agricultural Education Program and aims to raise the awareness of food and and the role of farming all over the world. Find more information about the summit on the website www.youthagsummit.com.

About Future Farmers Network
Future Farmers Network (FFN) is Australia's only national youth agricultural network that connects and supports young Australians involved in rural industries. Operating since 2002, FFN connects youth involved in all facets of agriculture and provides members with access to the latest news, events, scholarships, awards and information from across all aspects of the Australian agricultural sector. To learn more about FFN visit: http://www.futurefarmers.com.au/

About Bayer CropScience
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the Life Science fields of health care and agriculture. Bayer CropScience, the subgroup of Bayer AG responsible for the agricultural business, has annual sales of EUR 9,494 million (2014) and is one of the world's leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. The company offers an outstanding range of products including high value seeds, innovative crop protection solutions based on chemical and biological modes of action as well as an extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture. In the area of non-agricultural applications, Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 23,100 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: www.press.bayercropscience.com.

Find more information at www.bayercropscience.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.

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