 Hello, and I'd like to start by thanking FAO and ABC for organizing this webinar to celebrate World Cotton Day. So let me start by first of all just saying a few words about World Cotton Day and why this is such an important day to millions of people around the world. It amazes me that for such an important natural fiber, which literally every day touches the lives of billions of people around the world, that we do not celebrate the communities that produce it and the many byproducts which we associate with cotton today. So World Cotton Day is an opportunity for all of us who work in cotton in one way or the other to not only celebrate this beautiful natural fiber, but also to highlight its global importance to so many economies from the least developed countries in the world to the most developed countries. By shouting about cotton and highlighting all that is good about it, we can also encourage demand for cotton and cotton based products. So with World Cotton Day, that now means that for at least one day of the year, the 7th of October, we can all come together to celebrate cotton and all things cotton around the world. Today, we have many countries that have arranged events to do exactly this to celebrate cotton. So this webinar will be part of a global celebration, including events in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Iran, Turkey, Sudan, Egypt, Australia, Germany, the United States and many, many more. So World Cotton Day was launched last year at the WT headquarters in Geneva. No one could have foreseen how important the launch of such an initiative was to become. COVID-19 has had a severe impact on the whole of the cotton supply chain. So our celebrations today for World Cotton Day provide an excellent opportunity to get cotton back on track to start putting the focus again on cotton and to start talking about the positives of cotton and hopefully to once again produce increasing demand for cotton. So thank you once again FAO and ABC for arranging this webinar and now I'd just like to talk a little bit about the importance of technical innovations for small holder cotton farmers. Now this is an extremely important subject that affects the lives of many millions of people. There are approximately 150 million small holder farmers and their families in the world, nearly all of whom are in developing or least developed countries and rely on cotton as a cash crop. Globally, small scale cotton production systems are very labor intensive, requiring between 70 to 200 man days per season per hectare. The deployment of human labor is at its highest with more than 100 days per hectare in Egypt, Bangladesh, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique. It is operations such as planting, weeding and harvesting that demand most human labor requirements. These operations are time sensitive and labor demands surges at specific time windows in the season, thus resulting in high wage rates and therefore higher production costs. Handpicking is the most labor intensive and the most expensive of all the manual operations and cotton is handpicked in India, Pakistan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan and in 99% of the area in Africa. This is the cost of labor that accounts for more than 50% of the cost of cultivation in Africa and India alone. And in Chad, Mozambique and Nigeria, it constitutes 62 to 77%. When we work out manpower costs per hectare, we can see that in Pakistan, India, Nigeria and South Africa, manpower costs are high at $345 to $469 per hectare compared to manpower costs in Chad, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Cote d'Ivoire, which range from $194 to $272 per hectare. Small farm holders in particular face acute labor shortages due to labor migration, as there is a surge in demand during the critical operations of sowing, weeding and picking. So therefore, mechanization can make production systems more timely, faster, efficient, as well as improving the farmers income significantly by reducing the cost of cultivation, and of course, reducing manual drudgery. Cooperation amongst research institutes and organizations is needed to identify machinery that is suitable for small scale production systems, or to build low cost machinery for those critical labor intensive operations such as sowing and harvesting on small scale farms. By working in cooperatives and fostering an associated service economy, small holder farmers will be able to gain access to capital intensive machinery, as well as appropriate training in technology. So what is the ICAC doing about all this? Well, every year, the ICAC undertakes a critical assessment of cotton production systems with a specific focus on costs, so that we can identify critical areas and gaps where appropriate interventions can lead to higher yields and a reduction in the costs of production. As you may have already heard, the ICAC has developed a crop production strategy to enhance yields and to reduce the cost of production, thereby enhancing profitability. This strategy, which we call four simple steps to sustainability, focuses on improved seed health, enhancing soil health, strengthening the ecosystem diversity, and improving yields through altering the planting geometry and canopy management to ensure higher bull formation and retention. In fact, in many countries, we are guaranteeing that if a country follows the program, we will be able to double the yields within three to five years. The strategies are simple and easy to implement, and not only do we guarantee increased yields, but the program ensures higher profitability due to a reduction in input costs. But two of our most exciting projects have the potential to make a significant impact for small farm holders. The first is our virtual reality training program. The ICAC is in the process of producing two modules for the purpose of training small farm holders in Asia, Africa, and South America on cotton best practices and eco-friendly pest management. This virtual reality technology could also be used to provide training to, for example, entrepreneurs and fashion designers, enabling them to understand and learn technologies that can help these regions to convert cotton fibers into value-added products. The ICAC has also developed e-training and e-extension curriculums, manuals and modules on cotton production and crop protection as digital support to small farm holders during this COVID-19 pandemic, where we are unable to get out to the farms and talk to farmers face to face. The second most exciting project is the ICAC's soil and plant health app for small farm holders. This app has been designed to be able to interact with the farmer and can be used as a diagnostic and as a training tool. The app uses videos and is being built with artificial intelligence and voice recognition so that even illiterate farmers can just describe their problems to the app or upload images in order to seek a diagnosis and receive eco-friendly management solutions. The ICAC is currently setting up small-scale technology demonstration units in Africa, India and Pakistan to ensure that farmers can get a complete idea of how eco-friendly sustainable strategies help in enhancing yields without any increase in inputs and input costs, thus providing confidence to the farmers to adopt these strategies. So you can see from just these few examples the importance of using technology to improve the productivity and therefore the lives of small farm holders. Access to technology is a major problem in many parts of the world, but rest assured the ICAC is working hard to overcome such barriers. Looking forward, it is important that governments and UN organizations and international organizations such as ICAC work together to ensure that this can happen. Thank you.