 Okay, Your Excellency, Mr. Toro Marokawa, Executive Director of the Asia Foundation, Mr. Michael Singler, the regional representative for the Hans Seidel Foundation, Mr. Yasua Takahashi, Executive Director of IJIS, and Ms. Hyun Ji, the Policy Team Leader for ASAC. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to be here today to join you all at this meeting. Sorry I cannot be there in person. But we're here today to focus on some of the key issues of our day, which is food security, decarbonizing the food supply chains, and looking at our own sustainability. And indeed, this is a lot to do in a short time, but it is indeed urgent. To transition to a circular economy, centered on net zero, can only happen if we all work together. So I want to thank the Asia-Europe Foundation for organizing the annual environment forum of bringing us together and providing us this space to exchange our ideas and the solutions on decarbonizing of the agri-food systems. SEI is an independent International Research Institute, headquartered in Sweden, but with offices across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. As a non-profit research institute, SEI acts as an honest broker, trying to look at transparent advice to decision makers to help them handle complex environment, development, and social issues through objective scientific analysis. And so to today's topic. The current narratives of our food systems, which mainly focus on increased production, continues to lead towards resource depletion, and it contributes to approximately one third of our greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the pollution from the agri-food systems and from livestock are due to land use changes, crop production approaches, and indeed the food supply chain itself. It's now estimated that food and green waste contributes up to 44% of global waste, affecting food supply chains by reducing food producers' incomes, causing price volatility, and limiting access to food itself. In addition, the war in Ukraine, it's sending shockwaves around the world, affecting global food security, already deteriorated by the past few years of COVID-19 pandemic. And as Ukraine and Russia provide nearly 30% of global wheat and barley, the war has already affected developing countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, and Egypt, making them more vulnerable to increased food prices and disrupted food value chains. So these transboundary impacts, whether from policy decision makers or from climate impacts themselves, continue to impact global food supply chains, especially when we fail to work together. So there's urgency in our need to decarbonize food systems and make them more sustainable and efficient. The Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly around no poverty and zero hunger, cannot be achieved without an urgent transformation to regenerative and equitable food systems that produce healthy, safe, and nutritious food for everyone. With a projection that food production needs to increase up to 70% by 2050 to feed 9 billion people, it is now crucial and indeed urgent to redesign and transform the current food systems to be regenerative, to be circular, and to be inclusive. The adoption of a circular economy in the agri-food context must be applied through various approaches, including through sustainable business models, preserving nutritional benefits in food, and mobilizing investments in selected food chains, but also through fostering research and innovation in both the infrastructures and technology that are needed to support resource efficiency. And support and coordination from various stakeholders across all of these value chains are those key to the success of closing the loop on food security. And while there are many solutions for decarbonizing food supply chains, many businesses have not yet developed a capacity or full know-how to implement them. Many micro, small, and medium enterprises have huge potential to drive green recovery through the creation of green jobs locally, providing basic needs and services for marginalized communities, and in managing our natural resources, and we need to support them. Promoting food security by linking small-scale growers through climate smart, local, and diversified crop production to the processing opportunities and access to the markets will increase profitability for many of these farmers. Those creasing may be sustainability. Policymakers and businesses need to provide platforms for indigenous people, vulnerable groups, small-scale farmers and consumers to ensure that a diversity of solutions and circular economic models are explored and integrated into policy processes and best business practices. So with the momentum of green recovery, SEI is working with our partners to ensure these measures contribute to environmental sustainability and social inclusivity. And we hope that these will help build sustainable and economic prosperity for all while mainstreaming human rights issues, gender equality, and sustainable use of natural resources. So we hope that this forum serves as a platform where we can discuss and translate the discussions into clear action points. We must urgently shape the future of our food systems about how we both produce them and consume them. We call for stronger partnerships to fight the food insecurity without harming the planet. We want to acknowledge indigenous people's food systems and how they can support and protect and preserve biodiversity. We want to acknowledge women's access and leadership in agriculture and agribusinesses. And finally, we want to accelerate the growth of small and medium enterprises to support this transformation to a more sustainable and circular food system. So lastly, I'd like to say thank you also to CEDA who continue to support our work through the Strategic Collaborative Fund. And I wish everyone fruitful discussions where I hope we can be critical yet constructive in exploring these ideas and the ways forward and help us set the policy agenda for all of us to support. And all of us here at SEI are looking forward to your ideas, collaboration, and partnerships in the years to come ahead. So thank you very much indeed and enjoy the event.