Oleksandr Mazur, a student of Faculty of Agrarian Mangement will represent Ukraine at Youth Agrarian Summit in Brussels

     Bayer company together with association Groene Kring and the Federation of Young Farmers announced 100 finalists from 49 countries aged 18 to 25 who were selected to participate in the Third Youth agricultural summit "How to feed a hungry planet" to be held from 9 to 13 October 2017 in the city of Brussels (Belgium). Agricultural Youth Summit (Youth Ag-Summit) is a global youth conference, which aims to inspire and unite the next generation of young leaders in agriculture and related industries.

       1,200 essays from 98 countries were sent to this contest. It shows a keen interest of the youth in matters of food safety in the world. The selected young leaders have their interest and motivational driving force to change the world. These changes will help to feed a hungry planet.

       Two young people will represent Ukraine at Agrarian Youth Summit and one of them is Oleksandr Mazur, a student of Faculty of Agricultural Management of NUBiP of Ukraine. We have talked to the winner.
 

   Oleksandr Mazur says "Frankly speaking I have long wanted to participate in some global conference, but most of their issues were of different political focuses. These are of no interest to me. But once looking through magazine "Proposal", I came across an article "Youth Ag-Summit in Brussels" and the title "Agricultural Youth Summit" immediately caught my attention. After reading the information, I decided to try my hand.

      The first requirement was the size of an essay. It said no more than 1500 words on food security. I paid most attention to this, because I understood that the organizers wanted to see creative and imaginative solutions of the food problem, which is very urgent for the world especially for underdeveloped countries. In this essay I had outlined my proposals, namely three ways to achieve this goal such as

•    – to reduce food waste, that is rational consumption of food;
•    – to develop new technologies in growing agricultural crops;
•    – peculiarities of the development and use of genetically modified products.

     Then I sent my essay, cover letter and other necessary information to the organizers’ website. In some time a representative of Bayer company in Ukraine contacted me and said that my essay was selected by the jury and then according to the contest rules I had an interview with the jury in their office in Ukraine, which included representatives from Bayer, Ukrainian club of agrarian business and other experts. In 6 weeks I got an official invitation from the headquarters of Bayer which told that I had been selected to represent Ukraine at Youth Ag-Summit to be held in October in Brussels. 
      I was overwhelmed with emotions and now I am looking forward to this event because I will meet hundreds of peers who have a keen interest in an agrarian sector and want to make this world better, as well as I do. Therefore, at this point I am setting an objective to prepare well to represent Ukraine at this Summit.

      We wish Oleksandr Mazur to present Ukraine successfully and at Youth Agrarian Summit in Brussels and expect him to have new creative ideas to provide food safety in the world.

Olena Kovtun,
head of international programs of
Faculty of Agrarian Management