 So yes, so good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Thank you so much for joining this event. We have over 800 participants, which is quite outstanding. I'm Yvonne Hatz-Pietra, Director of Public Affairs at the International Fertilizer Association EFA, and it is now my great pleasure to moderate the first webinar of this brand new Plant Nutrition Innovation Series, co-organized by the FAO and the Fertilizer Association. For this inaugural event, it is also a privilege to have with us Dr. Char, the Director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division. Dr. Char will provide some background to this joint project and explain also how it all aligns with FAO's strategy and goals. Now, this series is dedicated to the numerous innovations in the plant nutrition sector that transform the way we produce food and have to shape more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems. A lot is happening in the plant nutrition space to address more and more effectively the double challenge of increasing yields for a growing world population without putting further stress on the environment. For the plant nutrition industry, this means working with researchers to provide farmers with a number of tools to help them optimize their crop production and facing the droughts, floods, and these unusual temperature spikes that climate change imposes increasingly on them. Underlying to all this, however, is the very idea of understanding better nature. Innovative application and youth methods, innovative design, material productions, they all take their inspiration from nature and are designed to help farmers to use and adapt better to nature. And the topic of our webinar is the perfect illustration of a nature-based solution that contributes to boost the protection and performance of soils and plants. Actually, microbes have always been present in and around the plants and have naturally developed numerous symbiosis to stimulate plant growth. Exploring these interactions, finding new ways of making them purposefully available to plants is one of the many new biological solutions that are being proposed to farmers today. But nature is complicated and so are the microbial solutions for plant nutrition. Our excellent speakers today will explain how research and commercial developments work hand in hand to overcome these challenges and amplify their potential for the future of agriculture. But before we start, let me just briefly remind you of a few housekeeping rules. The whole webinar will be held in English but interpretation is available in Arabic, Chinese and French and you can found it in the Zoom at the bottom bar on your screen. The webinar is recorded and if you would like to watch again some of these interventions, you can always view it from the FAO channel on YouTube later on. During the webinar, you will all be muted but if you have specific questions for our panelists, please use the Q&A box. We will select some of them and we will try to answer them at the end of the session. Should you exchange greetings or write more general comments, please do not use the Q&A box, please use the chat box. And it's now my great pleasure and immense honor to hand over the microphone to Dr. Cha, the director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division, who will inaugurate our event today. Dr. Cha, the microphone is here. Thank you very much Yvonne, the chair of this webinar. Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning, good afternoon and good evening. I'm very pleased to welcome all of you for this first webinar on sustainable plant nutrition series. Julian did a hosted by FAO Technical Network on sustainable crop production and agriculture and the plant production and the protection division and this P together with the international fertilizer association AFA. It is well known that the global population is projected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050. To match this growth in population, we will need to produce about over 60% of more food, which will be mainly depend upon increasing the crop productivity, slow, volatile improvement, balanced nutrition, better irrigation, and effective pest management. It has to be sure that the accurate average percentage of yield increased contributed by fertilizer is about ranged from 30 to 50%. In some area, even over maybe over 70%. So you can see fertilizer is really food of a crop. It's very important. The objective for this collaborative webinar series is to highlight how new plant nutrition solution can contribute the enhanced crop productivity and the same time also ensure environmental sustainability and human health. This webinar series is closed aligned with four better of new FAO strategic framework for 2022 to 2031. What is four better? Better production, better nutrition, better environment and better life. Therefore, this contribution to sustainable developmental SDGs. This webinar series is also closely related to renewed the mission of the NSP list division, enabling transition to more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable crop production and protection through optimization and minimization. If you work on innovation for sustainable agricultural production system, we mainly focus on bio fertilizer option because this is the important technology tool to increase crop productivity and the same time minimizing negative impact to our environment. In this area, a close collaboration among research, academia and private sector is badly needed in supporting transformative change and the transition towards sustainable agricultural and agricultural food system. More specifically today, we would like to raise awareness of the benefit and the potential of a microbial as a new available tool to our small holder farmers to improve their plant nutrition in context of an integrated approach. Take this opportunity, I would like to acknowledge the long standing cooperation between the FAO and the AFA in sharing of fertilizer statistic and also shared interest in promotion of international code of contact for sustainable use and the management of fertilizer. We are committed to promote integrated efficient and effective use of fertilizer. To assist to assist Stig Holder in establishing the system for monitoring the production, distribution, quality management, and the use of fertilizer to support sustainable agricultural development. The FAO will continue to create space where the best science and plant nutrition products available from private sector partners, courage to all farmers to contribute to a sustainable plant nutrition and so to achieve SDG. This is in also alignment with FAO commitment to improving sustainability of agricultural food system while minimizing negative impact of our nature environment. In this aspect, the role of a private sector is essential. I can share all the great news I can say good news now. Now, a FAO strategy on private sector engagement for 2021-2025 has been approved at the 165th council last December in 2020. Dear colleagues, Ladies and gentlemen, the world agricultural and agricultural food system are not presently delivering desired outcome of food security and nutrition. And the great innovation that we will discuss today are a step in the right direction. Vegetarian fixation is the most effective and the efficient great innovation for plant nutrition. The two outstanding experts today and the doctor Manish professor from the University of Jeff Jeff and Dr. Jim Mark, the global technical marketing director. And this is the name and plant care will present their brain is thought and the enriched experience in green plant nutrition technology to small holder farmers. This is the first in the series of weapons and the journey organized by FAO and AFA, which we also can nearly demonstrate important role of private sector in the achievement of 2030 agenda. I'm looking forward to enjoying the presentation and the discussion today, and I wish you all a very successful and productive webinar. Thank you all over to your chair. Thank you so much, Dr. Cha for these thoughtful and really stimulating remarks I think this was an either way of setting the scene and indicating the roadmap towards more sustainability. A journey which is, which is paced as you indicated with innovations but also with a significant change in agricultural practices. So we start with our first speaker I just wanted to apologize for the technical glitches with the interpretations. Thank you so much for your patience. It seems like our technical problems are resolved now and. So now we are moving on to Dr. Manish Reisada, Professor of the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Gulf in Canada, where his lab focuses on the discovery, testing and improvement of probiotic microbes for crops and the development of low cost sustainable agriculture kits to empower farmers. Dr. Reisada will explain to us the science opportunities and challenges of nitrogen fixing and nutrient microbials for smallholder farmers. Dr. Reisada, the micro is yours. Thank you, Dr. Harris Petra. And thank you Dr shots and honor to be here today with FAO and IFA and your participants greetings good morning from from Canada. With permission from FAO and IFA might my talk will be a little bit longer than 20 minutes today, in order to ensure that everyone has a good introduction to the topic. The picture I'm showing you on your screen is a field of maze, but the intriguing picture on the upper right are root hair cells, and the green dots are bacteria that we discovered that helps to solubilize rock phosphorus in those root hair cells. So today what I'm going to talk about are, I'm going to introduce you to microbial bio fertilizers, discuss specific types of microbial bio fertilizers, make the general argument for the use of microbes in the tropics and subtropics, discuss disadvantages of bio fertilizers, and then discuss future and current and future access to bio fertilizers by smallholder farmers. So let me jump in. Let me talk about the evolution of life so plants evolved in a world in which to in which bacteria had 2 billion prior years to evolve clever nutrient acquisition and also defend strategies. And by making friends plants could depend on microbes for critical functions. So for example obtaining nutrients or protection. Now, what's interesting is that most critical plant hormones such as indolacetic acid or oxen, which initiates new roots originated from bacteria during evolution and persists today, which means that a bacterial spray can fundamentally control plant growth. For example, new roots for better uptake of fertilizers. Now imagine if this was true for humans. Imagine if I sprayed a probiotic microbe on you, and you grew a new arm. That is what is equivalent in this case. And in the diagram that you're seeing on the right, what is showing are microbes that associate with the roots are producing IAA. And in fact that signaling actually alters flowering time and hence seed production. So microbes have a very big role to play in terms of controlling plant behavior. Today microbes live inside and on the surface of plants how many the answers millions billions and trillions and combined the constitute the plant microbiome. So if you look at the top row of bacteria program of plant tissue or soil. It's divided into below ground and above ground plant niches. As you can see in terms of abundance, we are talking about trillions of individual bacterial cells. And in terms of bacterial species diversity. It could be as many as a million species associated with the roots and hundreds or more associated above ground. And similarly, a large number of fungy. Where are plant associated microbes located. If you look to the right of your screen, we can divide it into two general zones above ground, the phyllosphere and below ground outside of the roots, the rhizosphere. Within that there are two other categories. So microbes that are inside plants, which could be inside the roots inside the leaves. We refer to those as endophytes endophytic microbes. If they're on the surface of plants, could be on the surface of roots leaves we refer to those as epiphytes underground you find many microbes associated right on the root surface. That is termed the rhizoplane that can be associated with root hairs. So the primary absorption of nutrients occurs. What we find is, when we start to tag individual microbes, in this case with green fluorescent protein. So an individual microbial strain appears green. We can see that they're not randomly located, particularly under stress conditions, whether it's a pathogen stress or nutrient stress. They may localize to specific locations. In general, we find microbes located in between plant cells in the vascular tissue, root hairs, the root surface. My lab has found them in maize silks and maize seeds very recently in maize pollen. What you can see on the bottom left is a single root hair projection, and it is full of a particular type of bacteria that we discovered in my lab. On the bottom right on that image, what you're seeing on the longitudinal axis is one root. And the long green stripe is probably a million bacterial cells sitting right on the surface of the root between the root and the root hairs. Interestingly, microbes can be mobile inside plants. So unlike plant cells, which are locked in by cell walls. This allows them to target pathogens and perhaps seek nutrient opportunities. In the image I'm showing you as an experiment we did many years ago where we micro injected particular bacterial strains into the stem of maize, and then we watched them. Where did they end up? And one particular microentrobacteria espuriate ended up in the rhizosphere. So it actually traveled to the root and exited out. And what we discovered subsequently is that microbes solubilize as rock phosphorus. They also carry microbes and it appears that seeds carry some of their own plant and a subset of rhizospheric microbes, especially on the seed surface. What I'm showing you here are barley seeds and on the right is an image where you can look at the barley seed coat and the green is showing you just below the surface bacteria, which upon seed germination those bacteria can potentially coat the roots and potentially become the founders of the rhizosphere. Where do plant associated microbes originate from? Well, two areas. Acquisition, there's can be acquisition of microbes from the surrounding environment, most famously from the soil. And these microbes get into cracks in the roots. They can come from above ground through leaf pores through the stomata. They can be inherited to the progeny via seed. We can look at humans. You know, humans have similarly can acquire microbes from the environment and from a parent. We know during COVID that there is person to person transmission of, in this case, a pathogenic virus. So similarly, plants can also acquire microbes from their environment. In humans, bacteria are transmitted from the mother to the child during through the vaginal canal at birth also through breast milk. Similarly, we know that microbes can be inherited through seeds in plants. So that brings us to the topic today. What are microbial bio fertilizers? Microbial bio fertilizers also known as inoculants or biologicals are microbes, including bacteria fungi that can be sprayed onto plants or soil or coated onto seeds to reduce chemical fertilizers and or improve their usage, better efficiency, solubility or uptake. A farmer may add more of a naturally occurring microbe or swap beneficial microbes between different plants or introduce a bread improved microbe what we might term an elite strain. These microbes can then inhabit specific plant tissues, they can be mobile, they can accumulate in the soil over time and build up reservoirs very similar to the endogenous plant microbiome. What are some of the steps in terms of producing or applying a bio fertilizer. One has to cultivate the microbe formulated and then apply it, they can be applied onto seeds onto soils as a full year spray. So if I go into that in a little bit more depth. So step one is again to acquire or cultivate microbes from plants or soil, and then they can be stored in the freezer indefinitely. So that requires government microbiology lab or company, for example, the microbes then are multiplied in liquid liquid culture. So that requires some infrastructure and trained personnel, which it can be a bottleneck in some developing nations. And then one can formulate a starting population of microbes by coding it onto a solid carrier for shipment that can be sterile Pete, some sort of a hydrogel etc. And then they must be shipped under sterile conditions. Now microbes often die in hot weather, or can get contaminated, which are very serious issues, particularly in the tropics and subtropics. So then step four the farmer then ultimately has to prepare and add the bio fertilizer microbes to his seed, or onto this onto his or her seed or onto the plant and what you're showing what I'm showing you here is an image of a farmer, adding a bio fertilizer onto their seed, prior to planting. There are some interesting questions here will it be a man or a woman farmer who will buy and prepare what is the training required. There may be literacy issues access issues purchasing power issues. It is sometimes a little bit complicated. I'm showing you on the left here a package of rhizobia bio fertilizer for legumes developed by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture it in Nigeria. And what you can see here is there are a few steps. This is not as simple as applying a chemical fertilizer. There must be some sort of a sticking agent, particularly if the if the bio fertilizers to stick to seeds, so that the sticker has to be prepared in this case it's gum Arabic. Then the sticker has to be applied onto the seeds, and then the inoculant usually has to be mixed, perhaps with water reconstituted and then applied to the sticker. So this does require some level of training and literacy. With that introduction to microbial bio fertilizers. I'd like to now discuss the specific types of microbial bio fertilizers. There are many. I'm going to discuss a few highlights. If you look at the root zone around plants we all know that plants require many macro and micro nutrients. I'm going to discuss a few in particular today that are relevant to the most popular bio fertilizers. I'll talk about reviewing chemical nitrogen fertilizer production. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are made by taking end to gas nitrogen gas in the atmosphere, which has a triple chemical bond and requires high heat to break it to convert into ammonia, which is a usable form. This consumes high levels of natural gas. What is interesting is that they are bacteria able to break that triple bond in end to gas. So, in each of these slides I'm going to box a particular nutrient flow that is catalyzed by particular type of bio fertilizer. And in the text box I'm going to explain a little bit more about it. So in this case an end to gas is converted by ammonia. In this case I'm referring to symbiotic nitrogen fixation with legume crops, such as beans, lentils, soybeans. The mechanism is that the bacteria have an enzyme called nitrogenase which converts end to gas to ammonia in specialized underground root nodules. The species of bacteria or the genera in this case are rhizobium, brady rhizobium, mesorrhizobium and others. These bacteria can fix between 50 to 200 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year at a low cost. The inoculant cost here is typically three to ten dollars US US dollars per hectare. So it looks like this. I'm showing you here soybean roots. They have these specialized plant organs called nodules. If I were to look within an individual cell, an individual plant cell within that nodule. In this case again, you see a rhizobia cell tagged in green and you can see a copious a large amount of these cells. And what these bacteria are doing with nitrogenase again is breaking that triple bond of end to and making ammonia. Now, legumes can recruit soil bacteria, these rhizobia bacteria to inhabit root nodules where they fix nitrogen. But the efficiency of nitrogen fixations can sometimes be improved using either more or improved rhizobia bacterial inoculants. One of the new innovations in this area is that Mariana Hungria and her colleagues in Brazil have shown that repeated rhizobia inoculation during a single growing season in soybean results in substantially higher yields. Similarly, her lab and others around the world have shown that combining rhizobia with asus brilliant bacteria, or, or a mycorrhizal fungi also can result in higher yields. So a combinatorial approach sticking to nitrogen fixation. There are another class of nitrogen fixing microbes that don't occupy nodules, but instead, for example, lives live in stems or between cells or in roots. We call this associative nitrogen fixation. This is found in sugar canes. There's a hunt for it in cereals such as rice wheat and maize. It's the same as a same mechanism bacterial enzyme nitrogenase converts into gas to ammonia in stems roots and leaves in exchange in both these cases for sugar, because this is an energy energetically expensive process. The most famous of these bacteria are asus brilum and a Zeta Bacter. This is caused between 15 to 160 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year. In studies one finds a tenfold variation even within a crop such as sugar cane, and I'll discuss that significant variation later. What's caused some excitement recently is a discovery first by Mexican scientists and elaborated more by American scientists, which is that a very tall ancient maze plant. This is a mix of from southern Mexico can fix nitrogen in aerial brace roots. And that fixation happens in mucilage, as you can see on the bottom left. So this is a very unusual plant. It produces a lot of these brace roots. It's a very tall plant, and it has many of these brace roots. The mucilage is again full of different types of sugar, and it's full of nitrogen fixing bacteria which can supply. It's reported between 30 to 80% of this plant's nitrogen requirement, and there's efforts now to transfer this into hybrid maze. Now, in the sphere of nitrogen fixation, one shouldn't forget this symbiosis, which is that in flooded rice paddies, one can see algae on the surface. Excuse me, it's one can see a water fern, azola. And this azola has a symbiotic relationship in between its little leaves between with anabina, which you can see in panel CD and E. And this is a blue green algae, which can fix nitrogen, and it ultimately deposits this in rice paddies and what you can see on the bottom right here is a small holder farmer preparing an azola anabina starting culture. Interestingly, because azola is associating with night with with a nitrogen fixer. It has a high level of amino acids, since nitrogen is a building block for amino acids. And hence, this has turned turned out to be a high protein feed that can be fed to livestock so this is actually an azola farm meant for livestock feed. Nitrogen fixation can also happen. I've just mentioned the rice paddy nitrogen fixation can also happen underground in the rhizosphere. Same mechanism, the bacterial enzyme nitrogenase. This is a material genre, typically clepsiola for corn bacillus for wheat blue green algae for rice paddy. The fixation level here is lower 10 to 25 kilograms for nitrogen per hectare per year. This is a company for example there's there's several startup companies in Canada in the US in this space. In this case, this company pivot bio is using gene edit editing and synthetic biology to optimize a nitrogen fixing rhizospheric bacteria clepsiola. And their claim in field trials is it's supplying about 20% of the nitrogen demand for hybrid corn. I realize this may be a small slide. What I wanted to just show you is the increase in grain yield compared to the non inoculated control for various crops and microorganisms that fix nitrogen, and you can see that there's a wide range, but a very substantial contribution can be made from bio fertilizers. So let's switch to phosphorus civilization in the rhizosphere. Most soil phosphorus is in soluble. There are some microbes that can secrete organic acids to solubilize rock phosphorus. Others release key leaders that capture cations from insoluble phosphorus complexes such as calcium aluminum and iron, thus liberating phosphate. Others microbes can actually mineralize organic phosphorus so through phosphatases. There's numerous species that do this most famously bacillus pseudomonus, and then also penicillium and aspergillus fungi. Here's a particular bacteria discovered in my lab again labeled in green. We're looking at a root in red under a soluble phosphorus environment there's very few of these green bacteria in an insoluble phosphorus environment. They seem to multiply and be selected. This can colonize the root here. And then if you put these seedlings either coated with this bacteria called 3F11 or not. It changes an acid indicator die. So what 3F strain 3F11 is doing here is it's acidifying the environment and thus solubilizing rock phosphorus. Now we turn to potassium solubilization in the rhizosphere or soil. 98% of soil potassium is trapped within crystal structures, but it can be liberated by organic acids or by chelation I apologize for the spelling mistake. These can be bacillus bacteria aspergillus Niger fungi, many others. And so here now I've covered NPK. We turn to sink and sand and silicate solubilization in the rhizosphere soil. Only 1% of soil zinc is water soluble. Most zinc fertilizer, when it's added actually is also rapidly converted to insoluble forms. So it's said zinc that the World Health Organization has identified zinc as a critical missing micronutrient in diets. If it's not available in the soil, it's not in the plant, and then humans and livestock are deficient. Microbes can solubilize zinc and also silica, silicate in soils and rhizosphere again by acidification and or chelation. Berkaldira rhizobia entrobacter bacillus again I apologize for spelling mistake there. Apart from fixation or solubilization. In general, the mycorrhizal fungi and other microbes can facilitate nutrient mobilization, which is essentially mobilizing these nutrients and also water from soil to the root by increasing the root absorption area. And allowing allowing some of these nutrients to to reach smaller soil pores. Most famous of these are mycorrhizal fungi or vesicular or bruscular mycorrhizal fungi or VAM. And that is an ancient symbiosis on earth, going back 400 million years. But there are bio fertilizer opportunities in some cases to improve that symbiotic relationship. A new innovation here is the application of consortia of microbes. This is a package from India. So in this case, it's called NPK booster, it fixes free atmospheric nitrogen. It is another strain that solubilizes phosphorus and another strain that mobilizes potassium. You might be surprised to learn about the market share of each inoculant. So this is recent data from India. And what I've highlighted here is the percentage share in total in terms of bio fertilizer sold or distributed as a percentage you can see in 2016, only 8% of bio fertilizers are rhizobium. Rhizobium is 12% and phosphate cybilizer is 30%. Potassium mobilizer KMB is 6%. VAM that I discussed is 10%. And the NPK consortium I just discussed is 8%. So this is a very vibrant area. The sector has gone well beyond rhizobium. Let's now turn to the general argument for the use of microbes in the tropics and subtropics. So what is smallholder farming? These are parcels of land less than two hectares. So imagine 200 meters by 100 meters and imagine making one's entire food supply and also potentially profit from that small parcel of land. This encompasses 400 million smallholder farms, primarily in the tropics and subtropics. If you multiply by a family of five, these support 2 billion people. They need more yield with greater nutritional value from their own farms for food and for profit. Superimposed on this are approximately 800 million people who are chronically malnourished. Why is this malnourishment primarily happening in the tropics and the subtropics? As the earth spins, we know that the equator is closest to the sun and hot air rises and it carries moisture with it. And that moisture falls as rainfall. And so the equator, of course, it gets year round rainfall. That moisture, however, is drawn continuously as the earth spins from north and south of the equator, the subtropics. So paradoxically, the driest places on earth, which are in the subtropics, are next to the wettest places on earth, the equator, because the two are connected. As a result, for example, Africa, which is located dead center on the equator, has one could say the curse of suffering from too much rainfall and the north and south suffering from too little rainfall, simply because how the tectonic plates landed. The effect of too much rain on chemical fertilizers, synthetic chemical fertilizers, or mind or synthetic chemical fertilizers, is that year round heavy rain causes rapid leaching of fertilizers and nutrients. Nitrate is soluble in water and leached from soil, reducing amino acids and crops leading to protein malnutrition in humans and livestock. Because of this leaching, there's low soil organic matter. There's a lot of organic matter above ground, for example, in rainforest, but very little below ground. Organic matter, you know, DNA proteins, etc. They have positive and negative charges. Those positive and negative charges normally would bind fertilizers which are inherent inherently charged positive or negative. So in the tropics, however, those charges are lacking and fertilizers cannot bind effectively in the soil. Acidic soils, which are inherent in the tropics, reduce bioavailability uptake of added chemical fertilizers, including PK and zinc. Now, what is the effect of insufficient rain on chemical fertilizers? So now we're talking about the north and south, the subtropics. And 75% of global malnutrition is in the subtropics, primarily in South Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa. Intermittent rain, this is characterized by intermittent rain with prolonged dry seasons. There is inherently low soil organic matter because there's low vegetation. Again, that means low charge residues in the soil and low fertilizer retention. This area is characterized by sandy soils because of low organic matter. The large pore size causes rapid fertilizer leaching. Water leaches nitrate. It reduces amino acids and crops leading to, again, to protein malnutrition. Now, the onset of the first rains after the dry season causes runoff of topsoils, which can contain these fertilizers, especially on hillsides in East Africa, where about 300 million people live. And then, of course, there's insufficient water to allow nitrate, which is water soluble, to flow to roots. Now, so therefore, chemical fertilizers have inherent challenges in the tropics and subtropics. Can microbial bioferralizers overcome these challenges in the subtropics and in tropics? First, in the case of the challenge of acidic soils reducing nutrient availability, it's less of a problem if microbes deliver nutrients directly inside a plant. It doesn't matter what the acidity is outside. In terms of leaching or runoff of nutrients in the soil, again, it may not be a problem if microbes colonize and deliver nutrients directly inside plants, or if they directly stick onto the root surface, the rhizoplane, as I showed you earlier. The lack of water in the subtropics to permit nitrate to stabilize in water and flow to the root zone. Again, it may not be a problem if microbes deliver nutrients directly inside plants. In terms of the substantial poverty in this region, microbes can potentially become resident in the soil or have the potential to be inherited in seeds. That is a bit more ambitious. Thus reducing fertilizer input costs. We know that rhizobia inoculants, for example, can build up after in particular about three seasons of inoculation. Now, in terms of, we know that there are insufficient resources to breed local crop landraces, indigenous farmer landraces. Microbes could prevent displacement of local seeds selected over thousands of years while allowing for new traits to be introduced, such as root stimulation or phosphate solubilization. Other benefits of biofertilizers compared to chemical fertilizers for smallholder farmers, in addition to NPK zinc and other benefits, other benefits include they can promote root growth, because for example they can secrete plant hormones, which allows for overall better uptake of fertilizer and water, critical in the subtropics. They can promote grain yield by various mechanisms. They can also combat competitor crop pathogens and insects and nematodes, thus reducing the need for fungicides and pesticides. So hence biofertilizers can have multifunction benefits compared to chemical fertilizers, which typically have a single direct benefit. And indeed, for example, in India biofertilizers have shown a greater return on investment compared to chemical fertilizers, at least based on a meta analysis of research trials. What I'm showing you boxed in orange is the biofertilizer cost per kilogram of nutrient acquired compared to a chemical. For example, if you look at rhizobium in terms of nitrogen, it's 2.6 rupees per hectare compared to the equivalent of night equivalent amount of nitrogen from chemical fertilizer, about five fold higher. If you look at phosphate solubilization, the second last row at the bottom, you can see that ratio is that biofertilizers are approximately 43 fold more cost effective at least based on this meta analysis. Now I don't want to only be a cheerleader for biofertilizers. There are many disadvantages of biofertilizers. I'll show you one from work from my own lab. This is a fuel trial that we did with farmers in Nepal. So in this trial, 55 to 65% of smallholder farmers we worked primarily with women farmers on Nepalese terraces showed increased yields of common bean with a $1 rhizobia inoculant. But what's critical and what is often not reported is that other farmers, we worked with about 100 farmers here, other farmers lost yield. And that's shown in this graph. So the blue are those farmers that gained in yield, the red are those farmers that actually had greater than a loss of greater than 5% in yield. So, you know, the benefits of biofertilizers these estimates vary widely between studies in the literature. I believe one should look at some studies biofertilizer studies with some degree of healthy skepticism, and also note perhaps what is not being reported. What are some other disadvantages of biofertilizers compared to chemical fertilizers. First of all, not every microbe is safe to human health, such as many Klebsiella species, they're in fact quite dangerous. Some can have many can have a very short shelf life, a chemical is inert, a microbe is a living organism. So the short shelf life and variable quality product quality due to high temperatures in the tropics and subtropics, causing drying out, excuse me during storage and transport or in the field after application. Microbes may prefer specific plant varieties, not others as hosts. And in fact, microbes may be recognized as an enemy not a friend. And number five inoculants can become contaminated with crop pathogens during shipment or storage. If there's for example a slight puncture in their bag, they may be out competed by endogenous plant and so microbes in the field I already showed you that the endogenous microbiome consists of millions of bacteria. When one adds an inoculant, you're asking it to out compete the endogenous microbiome. There, there can be very variable temperature soil nutrients pH causing variability in microbial activity under field conditions. And then there, we know that there can be very poor access to extension training services and low literacy to prepare and apply bio fertilizers as I introduced earlier. So this real world studies show that bio file bio fertilizers sometimes have poor results in the field. Let me conclude by talking about current and future access to bio fertilizers by smallholder farmers. What is the current access to micro bio fertilizers. So Brazil, which of course is is is a wealthier nation. It is it is a leader in bio fertilizer both research and use. The government and brought the lead research combined with the private sector and that partnership, for example, has enabled 70 million doses of inoculants sold in 2019. In India, similarly, there is a very vibrant commercial sector, for example, as this brilliant with 100 industries under the biotech consortium India umbrella. They've been reported by government labs, for example, they've recently made 2000 isolations of novel rhizobia and other institutions various regional centers 58 bio fertilizer production units, especially in southern India. In China, recently there have been 800 patents related to microbial inoculation in North Africa there's progress in in Morocco, for example, there's a new university. They've started a, they've hired a number of crop microbiome faculty I happen to be a an honorary professor at that university. And, and also there are Moroccan inoculant companies. Egypt, for example, through their MIRSEN initiative also distributes inoculants. What about in Sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, in this case, in much of Sub-Saharan Africa but not all. There's only pilot scale bio fertilizer capacity better in a few countries. In this small commercial sector, perhaps except for South Africa. There are some high profile projects such as the Gates funded foundation and to Africa for nitrogen fixation. IIT in Nigeria for rhizobia. And then the microbiological microbiological resource centers MIRSEN's in different parts of Africa, but typically these initiatives are only reaching 10s of 1000s of smallholder farmers. So then moving forward what is needed. We know that the backbone of smallholder agriculture are women farmers. This is actually a wonderful, wonderful women farmer that I have worked with in South Asia. We know that number one, there is a need for extension personnel to train women and male farmers in terms of how to prepare and apply a bio fertilizers. And as I said, it is a little bit complex. One only needs very simple tools, such as water and, you know, buckets, etc. But one has to be trained how to do that and that requires a minimum amount of literacy. We need scalable extension materials that feature women farmers. Myself and an illustrator we've created just as an example of this a 200 page picture book which is freely available as that books calm to download. What we're showing here is how a farmer can simply take a Zola from one rice field rice patty and introduce it to another rice patty in a very simple way, although there's more complex ways of inoculating. There we need large scale innovative extension that is interesting. So this is a fantastic TV show in East Africa called Shamba shape up. And what they do is they go to individual farms, and they diagnose their problems those of you who live in the West you may know of home improvement shows. This is a smallholder farm improvement show. And they bring in technical experts and for example they've had 12 12 million viewers. In terms of radio, we know that farm radio international which by the way started at my university. Farmers around the world risen to radio and prerecorded calls to cell phones. Just to create awareness of the bio fertilizer technologies. We need participatory approaches to learn from farmers to learn from farmers about their needs constraints and their abilities. So for example, as I said earlier we conducted rhizobia or bio fertilizer field trials with women farmers in Nepal as part of our sustainable agriculture kit for Nepal project. So the bio fertilizers to scale up their formulations must be sufficiently stable to be able to be to be sold at village level stalls, because most commercial activity at the village level occurs in these stalls. Now, in my experience where if I whether I've traveled in the Congo or India or anywhere in the world. I could always buy if I wanted to cigarettes, beer, potato chips. That means there are distribution networks that exist in in one of our projects for example we have sold products, agricultural technologies through these distributors on consignment. But in the case of bio fertilizers they have to be accompanied by clear step by step instructions for low literacy farmers, particularly female farmers. So, for example, in our pictures we created a, you know, a simple in well they're not it's actually not that simple when one thinks about it instructions that one would go to a vendor purchase a bio fertilizer add a sticky agent, you know, add it to their seeds. So this the the goal here is that if a farmer were to buy a bio fertilizer, they would have a little brochure accompanying with it. In a local language with with pictures fourth small holders would benefit from a dedicated CGI or microbiome Institute. That would have a large global bio fertilizer or bio pesticide bank, or at least a micro bank at each at each CGI or Institute, similar to the to it in Nigeria, which I discussed earlier. So five for bio fertilizers to be effective a restaurant menu approach may may be beneficial to remove other constraints that are specific for an individual smallholder farm or household. So, for example, in our sack project, we created a regional menu of innovations from which smallholder farmers can pick and choose individual items for purchase. That's basically two to $10, which is within a female female farmers decision making power. So, what are some of these innovations so apart from an oculent, perhaps greater access to legume seeds I'm sure I'm sorry that's a vegetable seed package legume seed package there. Small seed packages of micro and micro nutrients. So that potassium phosphorus sulfur can be very effective for legumes to and will assist an oculence gloves why gloves that assist women farmers to collect farm yard manure, and also to collect thorny weeds. Very simple rakes that actually the women farmers designed against to help collect fine farm yard manure or weeding which is done manually. It's a small irrigation system so that legume seedlings can be started earlier in the season to to maximize the production time, and then there's it doesn't it doesn't help if one has higher yield of legumes or or or maze. If there's if there's improper storage. So hermetically sealed grain storage bags which only cost $1 or $2 and then increase production does not help. Typically, unless it is connected to markets, so some sort of strategy, so that farmers can sell this. So this is an integrated package approach, but any one farmer may only want one or two of these products, and it should be their choice to empower them. Long term the greatest benefit for microbes may not derive from an oculence alone, but from an integrated approach with chemical, appropriate chemical fertilizers, and by investing in breeding seeds for improved native microbiomes, using microbe specific molecular markers, similar to how breeding is done with plant chromosome markers already told you there's a fantastic, beautiful abundance of microbes in the plant, we now need to to to select for that more carefully. I want to thank you for your, your patience today. What I tried to discuss today is to introduce it to micro bio fertilizers, discuss specific types of micro bio fertilizers. Try to make the general argument for the use of microbes in the tropics and subtropics where chemical fertilizers have inherent disadvantages because of rainfall patterns. Honestly, about the disadvantages of bio fertilizers, particularly their farm to farm and season to season variability, and discuss current and future how to increase future access to bio fertilizers by smallholder farmers. I'd like to thank you, FAO and IFO, IFA for this privilege to speak to you today. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Reisada for this very comprehensive and excellent introduction into this whole topic. Without losing further time, we will now further delve into the commercial development of microbes with Jean-Marc Sanchez. Jean-Marc Sanchez is an agronomist with over 20 years of experience in developing bio fertilizers, and he manages currently the technical marketing department of Le Mans Plant Care, a global leader in the development, production and marketing of yeast, bacteria and fungus. Mr. Sanchez will talk about breeding technologies as well as further address the challenges of delivering continuous efficiency in the field and adapting it to farmers' practices. Mr. Sanchez, you have the floor. Yeah, thank you, Yvonne, and thank you Manesh for this great presentation. Do you see my screen? That's okay, Yvonne? Yes. Okay, perfect. So, yes, Manesh, you present the general principle for bio fertilizer and then here I will try to present the challenge we have as a microbial company to find the good strain, the good microbes, and to make it happen into the field, creating value for the farmer. So I'm Jean-Marc Sanchez, and Le Mans Group is not a fertilizer company. We are not a plant protection company. We are really a microbial company, and then we have more than 42 plants that are dedicated for producing bacteria, yeast, fungus. And the general idea when you are developing a fertilizer, but Manesh explained that a little bit, is that we want to create, to build small factory in the root system, billions of small factory that you can see on the image. Because the microbes have the advantage to live, so to reproduce, as soon as they find the good place to live in the food, they will multiply and they will produce metabolites. Metabolite, that can be enzyme, organic acid, that can be phytolormone, ciderophore, different metabolite that will unlock nutrients, fix nitrogen, oxidize the phosphorus, oxidize the sulfur, solubilizing the phosphorus, or chelate the iron, or developing the root system, as Manesh was explaining. And that's a co-evolution, that's really a great thing, because the coast is only from the sugar, from the photosynthesis for the plant. It has a coast, and the payback will be great for her. And as Manesh was explaining, the plant is never alone, and it comes from a co-evolution. Manesh already showed you that kind of graph when you can see the microbes, but it makes you understand how much the root system of the plant is colonized. These green fluorescence protein that makes us tracking the bacteria and to see that they are localized around the root system, in the root system are really great to concretely see that microbes are all over the root system. But you know that till the beginning of the agriculture, we have selected the crop, the varieties. We try to find the best crop, the best varieties to produce the best yield, the more resistance to a biotech stress or disease or pest. But we didn't select the microbiome, the microorganism that are really the partner. And we have to now to think about the plant and the microbes as a whole. And you cannot separate them, because they are quite together to be stronger and facing the environment and the stress, so together. So what we are doing is trying to select microbes and to find new partner to the new varieties that we have selected during the last decades with the new molecular biology tool or genetic tool that we have. And you can see that the effect, the idea is to mine two genetics, one from the microbes, the other one from the plants. Let me show you a recent paper. I'm trying to go faster to leave the question. So let me show you a paper that has been released recently is that is illustrating what I was saying. This guy, they have taken the variety of corn that was selected during the last 50 years. So you can see the vertical on the horizontal axis that these are the year where when the corn variety has been selected each dot our variety. And they have made they have grown the corn in pots with natural soil, and they have make an analysis about all the bacteria microbiome around the root system. And they have taken a picture of that, and trying to have a quantity of genes to real gene, in charge of fixing nitrogen. And you can see that there is a trend that is showing the recent varieties that has been selected for yield or whatever over achievement we want. They, the microbiome that has been recruited that this variety are less able to fix nitrogen. And on the other side, they have more and more bacteria that have the capacity to make the nitrogen volatilizing means that the new denitrification is when you transform the nitrate into the soil in those gas and to that is exactly the contrary to fixation. So we have selected varieties if I will take into account microbes. That's what we are trying to do and it could be interesting now to inoculate to reintroduce the good partner to these new varieties. And inoculation could be really interesting but as Manesh was explaining we have billions of different candidates and we have to choose the best one and the way we will do that will be really important. So that's a graph is an example of of on P and lentils with rhizobium which is a bacteria of nitrogen fixing bacteria rhizobium leguminosa. Each dot is bacteria on the horizontal axis you have the competitiveness means that each bacteria when she wants to create a nodule to enter into the plant to race. And the one that will win the race will be the one that will form the nodule you have only one strain of bacteria in one nodule. So the competitiveness the capacity to be the first to create the nodule is very important for a bacteria. And that's what you see on the horizontal axis on the vertical axis you have the efficiency means how many nitrogen this bacteria is able to fix how many shoot dry matter. How many yield in that's the efficacy for the bacteria. And you can see that sometimes bacteria that are really competitive and that will be native in the soil are not really effective to over bacteria that are really really effective here on the left, left of the graph, but not competitive. So we will try to choose different parameters for bacteria being competitive be efficient. And you can see an example here. So what I want to say that the first challenge we have in some time companies are saying we have billions or 1000 or millions of bacteria bacteria or fungus, but it's not about the number. It's how you will choose from this huge number of candidate, the best strain, how you can make trial. What is your model in terms of screening to find the good, the good strain. Most of the company are doing traditions, you know, on the left, you can see traditions. Oh, it's easier to make screening on a petri dishes Latin, because when you have 1000 of strain, doing that directly in the field, it's really, really a lot of resource and and money and so sometimes we are doing traditions screening in that case is not really realistic because in the real life in the soil, the behavior of the bacteria will not necessarily be the same. Here you can see in the blue dishes, different colony of bacteria that are producing side of four and side of four to late iron, but in this growing media, they are producing metabolite late iron but in the real life, do you think they will do that. We have to check so most of the time we are doing greenhouse trials, if natural soil, because we want to respect the competition natural competition. But it's a lot of efforts, for example for phosphorus civilization it took us more than three years to find a good model that could be discriminant simulating the way we apply the phosphorus granule. It's time. When we have the good screening model, when we find the good kind of the good strain in the middle of billions of candidate, we have to produce. And we produce in big ferment or to be cost effective. And you know, to be cost effective, we have to find the good recipe, the good parameters and depending on the way you produce a bacteria, you can change the behavior of the bacteria in the field and the efficacy or even the toxicity can change. So here is an example of the same bacteria we produce in three different process, changing recipe, the food for the plant, the oxygenation, all these parameters and it will change the behavior. It's like when you're educating twins, your child, and then if you are educating in a different way, it's breathing, that's living organism, they can change their behavior in the fields. So we have to be really consistent in the way if we want to be cost effective and consistent in the way to produce, be sure that the efficacy will be the same. And finally, we have to adapt our solution to the forming system. That's really important because the efficacy is depending on that. And that's the problem we have. Not about the efficacy, the problem could be about the consistency of the efficacy. Look at the two pictures, that corn in the same area, you know, same climate, corn here on the left and the corn with crop residue on the right. And if you apply a bacteria on the soil, 40 degrees Celsius, no water drought, it will be less effective than when you have a soil with moisture that could help the bacteria to multiply. So we have to integrate our solution with advice and to give the good advice to the farmer. First, the equipment. When you want to apply, generally farmers, they don't want to apply only one product because it's a lot of money, resource time. So we have to find a way to mix with herbicide, for example, or chemical product. So we need to evaluate the compatibility and the provider are ready to give this information to the client. Is it compatible in a tank mix or with this herbicide with fertilizer? Even we can stick the bacteria, the fungus on the seed or on the fertilizer granule, but it has to be checked the shelf life on the granule before and after all that stuff has been to provide by the provider. And of course, check the compatibility with chemical, with over biological. The crop rotation is really important. And we show you some example, but we know, for example, that when you want to apply microzae, the cruciferous seed or seed rape or canola will decrease the population, will be antagonism. And there is some example I can show you that there is a lot of parameters that make the efficacy of the microbes into the field. It could be the variety. Here you can see an example of the same bacteria we tried on 16 different varieties of rice with sira. You can see the red bar and that show the inoculated varieties and the black bar is the control, the non-inoculated. And we measured rice roots weight. And you can see that there is different things on varieties. Even the V16 is not really efficient with this bacteria. That's important to know. You know that microzae and phosphorus, the timing of application of phosphorus fertilization is really important because if you apply the phosphorus solubilize phosphate, at the same time you apply microzae during the period of microzae needs to enter into the root system to start to give a benefit to the plant. It can inhibit the phosphorus application. It can inhibit these symbiosis with microzae. So you have to change your way to fertilize maybe after, maybe before, maybe more in a more different way, but it's always complementary to the fertilization. But it has to change a little bit. So we have to adapt our way to advise, depending on the farmer practice. These are an example of on leguminous PLN-teals with rhizobium steel. And you can see that if you have leguminous history or non-leguminous history, you have a different benefit from the inoculation. So if we inoculate rhizobium and PLN-teals that has not have any history in legume, you will have approximately in that case was 19% of yield increase. And in case of leguminous history was 5% increase. So let me talk to you now about the shelf life. And because that's the main constraint we have. Most of the companies and the product can put on the market bassidus, you know, maybe bassidus is a bacteria that is porilland bacteria. So you propose porous, porous is a really robust and really great for the shelf life and the stability because they are reproducing in spores. It's a kind of protection against the environment. But there is a lot of good bacteria and fungus that could be really effective, but the shelf life and the stability is not really good. So you have to put that in the fridge to have a one year shelf life. So we are working a lot and there is a lot of innovation coming. We can work on the way to produce. We can work on the packaging, non-vacuum packaging. We can work about the formulation. And depending on the way you produce, you can change the shelf life. Here is an example of a fungus, which is really weak. We had the three month shelf life at room temperature and we succeeded in having one year at room temperature, which could be really interesting for the market. So that may be that will be one of the questions you will have. I'm trying to go to accelerate a little bit of time for the question. A really important point for us and you were talking about challenge to put on the market. That is a big challenge where we are struggling, I will say, every day because the registration and the way to have access to the market with the regulatory Sphinx is quite a nightmare. We are a microbial company. We deal with plant protection product. We deal with fertilizer, biosimilane, whatever, and in many, many countries. It's not the same. There is no harmonization. Every country has their own legacy based on molecule. And when you arrive in a country, you try to register a microbe. I would tell you my first experience was in France 20 years ago. When I when I try to register micro is a they asked me the boiling point of my spores. That was an example of now. It was 20 years ago, but now we have a lot of problem. Most of them are, you know, we have to demonstrate that our microbe is not the fancy side of the plant protection product. As you know, every microbe are doing both they are competing in the same ecological niche. So they are competing for the food. So even the micro is a horizon can be a plant protection product at the end. So it's really complicated and some states are asking us to demonstrate something that is not really possible. We have a lot of things to say on that will be a question we need more adequate or appropriate and resources for that. I give you to finish this example will be on my 20 minutes even at the end. I will I'm showing you that because we need, for example, to do a trial in the micro plots for regulation regulation to demonstrate the efficacy in some country in Europe of our product. So the micro plot are two meters on 10 meters for a replication and you know cross cross contamination, you put the bacteria on these on these plots here in the middle that could be the treated one, the control is just over there on the left. During six months, the bacteria will expand and we go from one to each other. So we have a lot of that's an example of agronomic evaluation that we have to face and to change the model to try our product. Finally, and that will be my last slide, we need science, we need academics, we need companies to work on that there is so many things to put on the market to have a greater shelf life to fix nitrogen in a consistent way for the plants to give advice to the farmer and we suffer about credibility. And that's the problem we want regulation, we need regulation, because we need credibility, of course, but we need an appropriate regulation that's it. And that will be my, my last sentence. Hope we have time to get some question. Definitely. Thank you so much. Yes. Yes, we have but we have received so many questions that I'm afraid we will not be able to answer all of them. Feel free to write to us and send your questions at the end of the session and we will do our best to to to provide individual more detailed responses. Just, you know, take some minutes and at least address more the more general ones. So we received a question about the use of a synthesized chemical fertilizers pesticides and how far these could impact the microbes and their relationship with crop plants in farming environments. I would also take this Mr. Isada, are you maybe start and then Jean Marc Sanchez, if you would like to complement. So one way for so for example, farmers can add different types of chemicals that can be adding nitrogen fertilizer. We know that nitrogen for that that nitrogen fixing microbes have a feedback inhibition mechanism. So if there's too much nitrogen in their environment, they will shut down nitrogen fixation biological nitrogen fixation. And interestingly, one of the private sector products I showed one of one of the advances they made with gene editing was they knocked out that feedback inhibition so in other words, that micro can now see synthetic nitrogen fertilizer in its environment and it will still fix nitrogen. Other classes of chemical inputs of course can be fungicides. Some of them can be systemic fungicides that are coated on to seeds. Of course that could disrupt the beneficial fungi that are that are carried on to seeds. But what I will say in general is to have an integrated approach between bio fertilizers and chemical inputs. And usually achieve that or often achieve that by applying those at different times. Okay, so if there's concern that some chemical input might be detrimental to a bio fertilizer that's being added. They can simply be added at different times that alone will mitigate some of the issues. Thank you. Mr Sanchez, do you want to compliment. Yeah, I will just say that I agree that the compatibility could be on two ways the first compatibility when you apply the product you have to check that the living organism is it's compatible with for example the fungus if you apply it with a fungicide. Maybe they could be have some problem, but sometimes we summarize a little bit too much and I agree with Manesh because we say phosphorus is not compatible with micro is a is not the case. The question is that for example the micro is a she has a there is a period specific period where you don't have to go above a threshold of concentration of solubilized phosphorus in the soil solution. So it's more complex than that so you have to think about your fertilization in applying maybe lower dose before a greater after it's a question of timing, and these are really compatible, but it's not opposing because the micro is a to unlock phosphorus. She needs phosphorus. Of course, she will not create the phosphorus, but it's a question of timing like was saying, and those and kind of phosphorus you are applying. So it's more complicated than that. I mean, you know the fertilizer industry when it comes to mineral and organic fertilizer applications we we promote this kind of for our concept you know using the right source at the right dose in the right place at the right time. It sounds like what you just explained is, is there something that could similarly emerge here despite the complexity of this whole field that both of you just explained. Mr Sanchez, if you just want to continue a little bit idea is this possible. Of course, we are working on that because, you know, it's just about, you're sending a microbes and you give it to the farmer and you play it like he was applying a mineral product or even organic product. And the way and the most difficult in our job is to explain what is the ecosystem around that because this micro has to balance with the ecosystem so how to apply when during the evening during the summer, the moisture in the soil. What will you do the compatibility what will you do with the fertilization because all we are microbes only one tool in the middle of the tool that that the former has so it's not miracle product. You can fix nitrogen okay but you cannot fix quotation or phosphorus because there is no so you have to really explain how to apply how to respect the shelf life and the company, the everybody has to give these advice to the farmer, and that's exactly what you were saying, there is a lot of study about precision hug, and that's a precision hug that we have to do with the microbes with the fertilization. Is there a specific machinery technology that is that is on the market of being used for to optimize the efficiency the effectiveness of bio fertilizers. Okay, maybe it's still me. I can tell you afterwards to your colleague. There is a lot of research on that and that's really good question how we can provide to the former solution means, for example with inoculant we are trying to work on granule, where you can have the protection of the rise of the inside to ensure a good stability a good shelf life and a good distribution around the seed and not on the seed coating because when you apply on the seed you have to be compatible with chemicals. So there is, I will say that in most of the case, we as a bio control industry, we are trying to be easy to use with the existing equipment sprayer fertilizer, but we are maybe adjusting a little bit. When a sprayer, there is too much pressure, which we can change in another we can change a little bit, but not really trying to change completely the equipment of the former, we are trying to stick on what is existing with small change and adaptation. Yes, thing. Thank you. Another question and I think that's that's a question that goes to both of you. And I would like to start with Mr. Isada for, you know, for the response. Yeah, where do you see the main markets for microbials, the systems of intensive agriculture rather in the Western world, all the low input agriculture in some other developing world countries and regions in Africa. What is what what are your estimations also thinking about the future of this market. So, in terms of getting this technology to small farmers. The issue really is around the stability as Jean Mark has discussed, it's improving that stability and shelf life and improving the accessibility in terms of simplifying the application. If some of those issues can be improved. The market in the developing world is enormous and we already see, for example, in India, you know, India for a long time. Products like a this brilliant rhizobium, you know, they have been marketed very successfully to smallholder farmers. So the market there is enormous. If we look long term in terms of global population, we know that later in my lifetime 40% of the world's population will be in Africa, primarily sub-Saharan Africa. So just population demographics feature into this that there is going to be a very large market for bio fertilizers in Africa. In Western countries, Europe, United States, Canada, there is a burgeoning of startup companies. Those products are often around nitrogen. Some of those are being mandated by government regulations, changing government regulations to reduce, you know, to reduce our fossil fuel use, particularly with nitrogen fertilization. So in some cases, consumers and regulatory agencies will drive some of this change. There is a wonderful opportunity that we didn't talk about. One can breed annual crops like maize, but then there's tree crops perennial crops that are very difficult to breed. And in this case, microbials have a really wonderful future to introduce traits rather quickly. And Mrs. Sanchez, do you want to compliment what the market developing? I agree. I will say that indeed the microbes can be really powerful and that there is disadvantage that Manesh was saying that there is it could be powerful where it can multiply and having the good media and the good place. I will say that the market will develop in these developing where there is the needs and where sometimes, you know, in Europe or in Canada, wherever there is some limitation, you cannot, you cannot, you cannot apply what you want. There is a limitation and in that case you have to optimize what you already have. Or in some case, you don't have the organic matter breakdown and there is no life in the soil. So, and these needs happen where it happened. And I see that it happened even in intensive crop like we are doing in some country, really trying to push the yield as much as we can on one hectares of land. But now I really think that is moving and there is a trend towards the conservation agriculture when people are trying to think about the crop rotation, the cover crop and it happens everywhere. I mean, even in Europe, in North America, and of course in Asia, in South America. So, these are good things because people are thinking agronomy and they are thinking about the life in the soil, the partnership, the symbiosis, how to complexify the ecosystem, how to make it more resilient because we all face the same problem of the climate change, of the scarcity of the, of the things. So, conservation hack, complexity of the ecosystem and the microbes is one tool in the middle of the tool that the farmer have. And that's somewhere, that's everywhere, sorry, even in the world. I am traveling a lot, I was traveling a lot before, and I can see that in Brazil, in China, in North America, in Europe. So, I think it's really global. So, so at this stage, you know, and you both touched a little bit upon it already, you know, regulatory plays a role for further development. So, what would you say are today regulatory constraints or are there regulatory constraints from your perspective barriers that that you both believe should be overcome what what would be a message to policymakers. I don't know what to start. You know, from, I guess, my perspective as a researcher, the primary barrier that I face is, is, is really the ease of being able to conduct outdoor field experiments. So, the, the cost associated with see when we when we do indoor trials lab trials greenhouse trials. They have very limited value in terms of what will happen in the real world outside. So, the faster we can go to the field. It is a bit of a numbers game, whether we're trying to test a large number of candidates or trying to breed some candidates, the faster we can go into a field environment, the better it is. So what I've recommended for example to the Canadian government is they set up a dedicated large area outside in different spots outside that researchers with very minimal permitting paperwork can do can do research trials. And that ultimately is for the societal good. I think when we're talking about at the commercial level. I think it's better if I turn it over to my colleague. I said sorry, it's a big, big, big issue for me and I'm, I'm struggling with, I'm struggling with that till many years, 20 years now. I've seen the change and I can tell you that we need people that understand microbes in the regulatory people we need that. Absolutely, because we lose time in explaining asking question that are not appropriated to us. I can give you many details but we don't have the time today for experience, but if we, we want to give to farmer a good tool that will be great. It's not miracle product. Please give us the opportunity to put innovation on the market. We want regulation. We want risk assessment because Manesh say that microbes can be dangerous. But we can prove that and we can discuss with people harmonization around the world and proposing regulatory. We are able with companies. I mean, microbiologists to to propose that there is many, many, many issue there even. Yes. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. I think we hear you loud and clear and it looks like that would be even could even be a topic of a separate a whole separate webinar just listening to both of you. But, but I'm afraid now it's really time to conclude so so the key takeaways are certainly that there is a lot of potential for research for investments for partnerships to ensure that these microbes are consistent, reliable enough to provide the long lasting effects on the plants. I heard that they will never really replace chemicals but a lot of complimentary and synergetic functions are successful. And on the other hand, posing increasing challenges to the regulatory authorities who have to and are expected really now to respond much more swiftly and more effectively to to the expectations of the market. So if you are interested in hearing more about these solutions but also about other cutting edge plant nutrition technologies. I would invite you to register to EFA smart and green conference which will start on June 8 but most importantly I will also encourage you to stay tuned for the next FAO EFA joined webinars, which will take, which will include nutrient recycling, mitigation solutions and data driven nutrient management. Now, oh I just received the message that Dr. Cha would also like to thank this audience. So, thanking our excellent speakers, I'm now handing the microphone to Dr. Cha for a final note. Thank you very much, Yvonne. And I want to express my great sense to excellent speaker. And because I have some background, you know, for research and also excitation I learned a lot. I want to say everybody here, and we have here about the 378, the highest number of tennis meeting. And this is the topic is very important, because now we are really want to say something about sustainable development. What is the approach? I think the green innovation is very important. What is the green innovation? We should, you know, let's talk about our environments. We should protect our environments. And of course, at the same time, we should increase productivity. However, and then one time we want increase productivity, one time we should protect our environments. This is the best, efficient, effective way. And I can say feed all aspect of sustainability. And I hope all the people here please try our best. And now for realizing your next digital, only 10 years past 2021, 2030, only 10 years, there's a lot to do, concentrate on something about the more innovation, great innovation to support sustainability over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This was absolutely great. Thank you so much again, also to our speakers to an excellent audience, very vivid. I think everybody appreciated these presentations and the engagement. Thank you again for not having been able to respond to all these questions. You can listen again. As I mentioned at the beginning to this webinar on the FAO YouTube channel, send your questions to us and and again stay tuned for the next webinar webinars and now what I wish you a good day, a good night. Good afternoon, whoever you are. And thanks. Thanks again. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye bye.