 our colleagues in the office in Geneva for this opportunity to bring this globally important and relevant issue to the audience in Geneva. It still remains a new topic, so if you allow me I will spend a little bit of time showing you the scale and the importance of plastics used in agrifood systems and or food and agriculture sector. Trying to see why my, yes. As plastics became a pervasive issue in agriculture through large-scale use, I would say starting from 60, 70, so it's about 60 years ago. It even resulted to the introduction of the terminology plastic culture in agriculture, specifically applied to the agricultural sector. Because of its low-cost adaptability, plastic products became present now in almost every part of the food system from fishing nets, from fishing gear to tree guards to greenhouses. The introduction of plastics in agriculture brought many benefits and obviously the most important of them was increasing production efficiency, reducing use of agrochemicals and also contributing to the reduction of food losses and waste. But one issue which stays on the side of trade-offs, of negative side, is this practice has often resulted in elevated and significant risk to human and environmental health, especially through the long-term use of plastics and their accumulation in soils. The consequences become really global and local and obviously national. At FAU, the work has been on plastics started some time ago, but really the breakthrough was with the publication in 2021 of the Global Report on plastics use in agriculture, which assess the scale of the problem, impacts, and also various approaches to policy and practices which are using plastics. So our assessment indicated that on average about 12.5 million of plastics is being used in all agricultural sectors. Majority of it, it's as you could see almost 80%, is associated with crops and livestock followed by fisheries and aquaculture. And finally, some part is used in the minor part is used in forestry. Important also to mention that about if we can see the agrifood systems in its entirety, 37 million metric tons of plastics is used in packaging. So when we speak about agrifood systems, we are talking about 40 million tons of plastics associated with food and agricultural sector. For comparison, 12.5 million is almost the same amount which enters on an annual base to the oceans. I would, I already mentioned the various benefits, but let me reiterate them here. But also, let's speak about the trade-offs particularly. First, majority of agricultural plastics due to various factors primarily contamination are not being adequately recycled and disposed, especially when we speak about developing countries. And our speakers will obviously speak about good experiences, but the global picture is certainly alarming. Plastic contamination in soils is an increasingly recognized problem, especially through degradation and intentional introduction on micro and we increasingly speak about nano plastics in the food value chains with important consequences for food safety. Nano plastics and micro plastics has been discovered almost in all agricultural, let's say, milieus, livestock, milk, vegetables, fruits, plants, and I would say even in human placenta, the recent research discovered nano plastic particles. Over continuous use of agricultural plastics and especially we learned this in some regions of the world, high accumulation reverses the trend when it was introduced in the first place leading to the decreased yields. Finally, as you know, most traditional plastics are oil and gas. The stocks, feed stocks are coming from oil and gas industry. Obviously, there is association of plastic use with GHG emissions. Here is, I would not go very deep into the slide, but you will see that again, there is a diversity of plastic use in agriculture, especially in the production side, which include user fertilizers, use of mulching films, pesticide containers, different boxes which are already used in the field, and then the list goes on. Our report identified some priority products in this respect and I think it's also useful to keep in mind when we speak about the diversity of plastics in agriculture. As in plastics in other sectors, there is only one way to deal with the problem is the approach, the circular economy approach. We have to start from substitution or refusal up to least preferred option recovery. So prevention is obviously a fundamental and particularly in the agricultural sector, there are many opportunities to address this through various agroecological approaches and different other practices, but not always and not everywhere. A very brief glimpse at what FIU as an organization is doing, we created a mechanism of interaction, knowledge exchange and joint collaboration across different sub-sectors and also different thematic divisions. For example, the fisheries and aquaculture division, which has a long history of working on marine litter microplastics, is currently implementing a glow litter project with WMO, which is looking at the reduction of plastic litter from fishery sectors and different maritime sectors. FIU developed voluntary guidelines on marking fishing gear, which is one of the major policy instruments to address abandoned loss and discarded fishing gear in the marine and ocean environment. We also implemented a global goals gear initiative. There is increasing body of work by our colleagues in the Codex Limentarius, the food safety division, looking at the food safety implication of plastics in packaging and also in other environments. Land and water division, which leads our work on soil pollution and global soil partnership, is also looking at the knowledge side of plastic pollution. Plant production protection division has a body of work on pesticide containers and also application of agroecological approaches. Finally, our joint center is in Vienna, is looking at the use of nuclear techniques to trace microplastic pollution in different environments. I think I would not speak very much on this slide. I think Kavi already presented the mandate given to us by FIU members, includes three major streams of work, scientific assessments, policy coherence, work on the ground, through enhanced intersectoral cooperation, because particularly on this issue, cooperation between ministries of environment, ministries in agriculture and in some instances, all other ministries is fundamental. FIU, we started developing now voluntary code of conduct and on May 25th, we will be conducting informal briefing to members in Rome. So I also encourage colleagues in Geneva to link to this informal briefing and finally intergovernmental negotiating committee where FIU is an observer. And I think that's the rest of my presentation, we'll be specifically on this agenda item while Voluntary Code of Conduct is our important contribution to INC. INC, as you know and understand, is another, it's a parallel process where we are observers and our mandate is to support negotiators, support members to understand and to consider important issues of plastics in agriculture. We have been part of the discussion from the beginning, from the first intergovernmental meeting in Uruguay, and we are planning to attend the next one in May, first week of June in Paris. We are bringing to the negotiation table the issues basically voice on agriculture in food security, food safety and nutrition in those discussions. And if you allow, the minute I'm looking at the time, how much time I have that we are, we have great presentation. Do we have five minutes? Good. Yes, you have five minutes, you have five minutes. Thank you. So this is a volume picture, but I just want to give you a flavor of particular entry points we have with the agriculture to the international legally by the instruments and around many currently with countries submitted their comments and proposals for potential co-obligations why I'm saying it's an evolving field. The objective which I think there is a lot of convergence among members that the objective will be around the language of ending plastic pollution, protecting human health and the environment from its adverse effects throughout the life cycle of plastic. So you already see the message of circularity and understanding and this is also the mandate of UN Environment Assembly which triggered this process. And I think from my intervention before you see that there are this is also the approach we take of circular use of plastics in agriculture. Among co-obligations I list some of them and all of them directly and indirectly concern plastics in agriculture. For example in many instances as in let's say packaging many of plastic products used in agriculture are single use therefore we have to discuss issue of the issue of substitution reduction recycling content in in plastic mulch. We have to consider especially this particularly problematic practices where we are intentionally introducing micro plastics in our soils as plastic coated fertilizers but again there are very few developments in the moment alternatives are limited in this area. There is another also problematic use is sewage sludge which is often contaminated with micro plastics which we're distributing in the fields to improve nutrient content in soils. We have to consider what alternatives we have. Obviously the issue of waste management as I mentioned and I think our colleagues especially today will give you some examples national exams of sustainable agricultural waste management practices which we have to scale up and promote in many developing countries. There are alternatives to plastic mulch for example using cover crops not full crops so it's a very complex as all agricultural sector complex sophisticated very diversified systems where we have to be very careful and bring knowledge and experience to this process from from the perspective of agri-food systems. FAEA agenda and this is my last slide if you allow me at again as an observer I reiterate FAEA is not a negotiator we support our members but our agenda will consist of four major if you wish pillars or lines of argument that we will support our members to ensure that international legally binding instrument considers benefits but also trade-offs and sustainability of plastic use and agri-food systems and this is very important for us as a part of wider agri-food system transformation towards efficiency inclusivity resilience and sustainability. This is a FAEA mantra a four-eye approach as some of you know better environment, better production, better livelihoods, better nutrition while leaving no one behind. We will promote holistic approach, success, refuse, redesign, reuse, recycle and recover and importance also evidence-based, science-based approach to plastic to plastic management and also micro plastics and agri-food systems. We want to discuss with members given the specificity as a as you see complexity of the sector that potentially agriculture should be treated in the context of sectoral approach which is also coming up in the discussions of international legally binding instrument to consider especially the dimension of reduction of release of plastics to what are so in there and finally we see this as an important contribution to negotiators that in addition already recognized by members of the importance of implementing and enforcing voluntary guidelines on marketing fishing gear also we will be developing voluntary code of conduct which provides specificity and support especially to ministers of agriculture but also other stakeholders at the national level in using plastics sustainably in our sector. Thank you very much. Well thank you very much Lev indeed for a very interesting presentation again for presenting the magnitude of the issue we are you members are dealing with is our support the also the work of FAO that really cuts across the organization involving family divisions and offices across the house and then for for really describing how the treaty may and I noticed the use of the word may address sustainable use of plastic in agriculture to call for careful approaches and finishing by really presenting the role of FAO as an observer within our mandate in support of the members in the context of IMC too. So thank you very much Lev and I will now move to our next speaker Mr. Ronan Vano the director general of ADVALOR who will present the importance of the extended producer responsibility schemes and the experience of ADVALOR in France in that respect. Mr. Vano the floor is yours. Do we have Mr. Vano sorry to fix Mr. Vano I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Shien Yang Jian counselor at the mission of the People's Republic of China in Geneva will introduce the policies and regulations adopted in China on the usage of Merge films. Mr. Shien the floor is yours. Okay thank you. Here the microphone is okay. Okay thank you thank you and here Mr. Dominic dear friends and colleagues agriculture plastic film is important agriculture production material. In recent years in order to prevent and control the pollution caused by radio agricultural field we have insisted on lowering investments and policy incentives in China. We have established a scientific system for the use and the recycling of agricultural film and the national agricultural film recovery rate has been mined in this bill at over 80 percent. First we have improved the policy regulations. We have implemented the requirements of laws such as the soil pollution prevention and control law and the law on the prevention and control of solid wasted pollution. Relevant departments have jointly issued the management measures for agricultural plastic film and the opinions that are accelerating the prevention and control of agricultural plastic field pollution. We have established a regulatory system covering the entire chain of agricultural field production sales used and recycling and build a multi-department collaborative governance mechanism. Second that we have strengthened the regulatory enforcement. We have promoted the revision of the mandatory national standard for the isolated global agricultural mulch field and increased the minimum nominal thickness of the mulch field to 0.01 millimeters. Relevant departments have issued the notice of further strengthening the enforcement of agricultural plastic film and the notice on publishing typical cases of enforcement and supervision of agricultural plastic film. We further strengthen the enforcement of regulatory measures for agricultural plastic film and practice severely on non-standard plastic films entering the market and being used in the fields. Third we are promoting the scientific use and recycling of mulch film. Since 2017 we have implemented a mulch film recycling campaign with a focus on establishing 100 key counties for recycling in the northwest region. We have promoted the use of standard mulch fields to mechanize the collection and professional recycling and established government-guided and market-led recycling network system. Starting from 2022 we have launched pilot projects for the scientific use and recycling of mulch film focusing on regions set with high uses of plastic films. We are promoting the use of high strength thickened mulch films and fully biodegradable mulch fields and exploring the establishment of long-term mechanisms of mulch film pollution control. Fourth we are strengthening monitoring and the evaluation. We are establishing 500 national monitoring points for residual mulch film across the country with a focus on monitoring the use, recycling and the residual conditions of agricultural plastic film on front land. This allows us to timely grasp the dynamic trends in pollution changes. In 13 key provinces that use plastic films extensively such as Gansu, Shandong, we are establishing evaluation and application basis for fully biodegradable mulch films. We are conducting continuous evaluations of product function, suitability, safety and promoting product improvements and performance enhancements. In the future we will further collaborate with relevant departments to strengthen the joint enforcement of agricultural film regulations, improve the system for recycling, utilization and classification of waste mulch films and effectively prevent and control white pollution on front land. Thank you. Thank you so much Mr Shand, indeed, for presenting the efforts that are ongoing in China and especially the work that is ongoing in terms of policy regulations and incentives on the sale, use and recycling of plastic film with already a clear impact which you referred to for also briefing us on the pilot projects that are ongoing in regions with high use of plastic films and for I think referring to the multi-department nature of the work that is on one. Thank you so much Mr Shand and I will now try again to go to Mr Vano from Adi Valor who is going to talk on the importance of the extended producer responsibility. Mr Vano, the floor is yours. Thank you, sorry for my late arrival. So I will present you the French scheme for agricultural waste. I will share if I can my presentation. Do you see my screen? Yes. Yes. Yes. So how does it work? Our scheme is quite simple. I mean the financial flow is the eco fee. The eco fee is included in the price of the products, either the packages or the products with the plastic like films and nets and pipes and so on. So the eco fee is given to Adi Valor to finance the whole process and the farmers are giving their waste to collection points and it's really important that farmers are sorting their waste before we have 22 types of waste that are sorted by farmers and after that Adi Valor takes care of the waste and sends them to the recycling unit which is our goal is to go to recycling first. So the sorting is made by farmers. The collection is supported by distributors and the removal of the transported the treatment is ordered by Adi Valor and the the financement is done by the eco fee. So Adi Valor was created in 2001. It's a non-profit private company and it's really important that we have an inter-professional governance, a shared responsibility between farmers, distributors and manufacturers which are all shareholders and since the beginning it's really important to have everybody around the table to discuss and to create this system and to make it work. Our vision is to have zero plastic waste on farms and that's it. Some guidelines the shared responsibility has said the fact that we are not the profit. Also the transparency we really want to clear on what we are doing and we don't hide anything because we are publishing our financial data, we are publishing every data that we have. Also we have decided to to create a national technical setup but we are working at the local level to organize a collection and transport and treatment. What is our scope? Our scope is that we have every every packaging coming from the plant protection product, fertilizer product, seeds and also vision products and we have also used plastics like film, bailed wine, netting, pipes and so on. So we have 22 types of weights that we are managing. It's really important to have a close cooperation with regulatory service and with the French authority and we have really good relationship with the French authorities and Adi Valor is mentioned in the Ajax law which is law that our what can I say that in English, this law is giving the big guidelines for EPR skin. So we are in this law and we have a special agreement with the French ministry of the environment. We have also a close partnership with the recyclers and waste companies. We are working with 30 recyclers, 10 in France and the other across Europe and we are working with 70 waste companies to collect, to store and to to recovery our waste. Okay figures, we have around 120 tons of every waste to recover 22 waste streams as I said our average collection rate is 78% and we are recycling more than 90% of what we are collecting. We have made some life cycle analysis and it's around 70,000 tons of CO2. We have big logistical organization because we need to manage around 45,000 collection requests per year. The main challenges for the future, we need to go on with the arrangements of the collection scope. We need to work on recycling capacities because we have not enough recycling capacities in France for idle waste and it's important because if we have less distance we can have a better equation for the CO2 efficient. We have to work on eco design for sure and we have some regulation challenges because the waste regulation is always moving and we have lots of things that will happen in the next years in France and in Europe. So the arrangement of the collection scope next year in 2023 we will add animal nutrition system. It means that we will add more than 10,000 tons of waste to recover. We will also add the professional archaeological plots. It's around 4,000 tons additional waste to recover and we have several pilots on going on insect proof nets on non-woven films or other irrigation pipes but also on all the packaging. The aim is that we have every plastic waste at farm level in our scope. We have four new recycling units that will start between 2022 and 2024. We have plasticine which will start the next months and this unit will be dedicated to merging film which is a film that is very hard to recycle because it's very dirty full of water, sand and grass and so on. We have rossiwests which is dedicated to bayonet and twine. It has started in September and quite hard these days because it's a new process and it needs to be fine-tuned and the start of a new unit is always quite difficult. We will have a new unit also dedicated to big bags in 2023 which will be with the group Novus and we will have also a new unit dedicated to stretch film in Brittany. Lots of new recycling units, new capacities and it will be very great because we will be able in 2024 to recycle 80% of what we are doing in France so it will be better for the number of kilometers that we make our waste done. Eco-design is also a big challenge because it's clearly the trend that we have to follow so we start eco-modulation in 2023 so it's a bonus matter system on fees to support PCR integration and support recyclability. And we also have very close partnership with industrials in closed-loop working groups and pilots and we are investing more than 1 million euros since 2020 and we will increase the budget for the next three years. And the regulatory, as I said, is also a challenge because you have lots of new low, you have lots of new, there in France the Ajax law is giving the guidelines on EPR schemes and there will be a new EPR on industrial packaging in 2025 and you have the future EU regulation on packaging and the future waste directive and the future EU regulation on eco-design so lots of new regulation so we want to go on with voluntary commitment, the agreement with French authorities and it will be lots of talks because we will need to for sure increase the quality and the performance of the system. That's it so my conclusion is that the system is working because you have a close cooperation between stakeholders, it's really important to have everybody around the table, distributors, farmers in these manufacturers and also authorities and we have a specific step-by-step approach, I would be sure is a very specific domain topic and for more we have a very good performance because we have a proactive commitment and that's the aim of this system. Thank you for your rotation. Thank you so much Mr. Vano Ibley for presenting the active law, French experience, the national collection schemes, the I think multi stakeholder efforts you are undertaking, the strategy and I would say the results which you have already but also the challenges for the future in terms of more collection, more recycling capacity, co-design and then this point on the regulatory framework, the complex regulatory frameworks which you are dealing with which is indeed very important so there is a rich Q&A that is ongoing so there has been already a question addressed to you so I will ask you to reflect on it and after the other speakers we will be coming back to you and basically there was a comment saying that Addie Valor is a great model, what adaptation would be required to make it workable in developing countries so you have about you have a couple of minutes to reflect on that and come up with a comprehensive clear response that can be implemented. Thank you very much. I'm sorry I can't stand there but my colleague Kéretien Janton is here and he will be able to answer to this question. Excellent, very good and now I would not like to invite Miss Anne-Marie Bolland, the principal consultant at RM Consulting Group in Australia to present a case study from Australia on policy recommendations for interventions to improve the sustainability of critical agricultural plastics. Thank you and also thank you very much for the opportunity to present some of the recent work we've undertaken in Australia on agriculture fisheries and forestry plastics. First of all RMCG is an environmental and agricultural consulting firm so we're not representing any views of the Australian government, we have more research and engagement body. I have a background in agricultural science focused on sustainable practices and resource use efficiency and my colleague Isabel who'll also be presenting as an environmental scientist with a background in resource recovery. I'd also like to acknowledge the broader team within RMCG but also a number of sub-consultants that we have worked with that have contributed to this work and also acknowledge the First Nations people as traditional owners on the land on which we reside. So I think it's already been mentioned that dealing with plastic in the agricultural sector is a very complex or wicked problem with many solutions. The work we are describing today, Isabel if you could just go back, yeah we are describing today sits within an Australian national policy framework and global initiatives such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There's a range of our other activities being undertaken in Australia so today we're just presenting a snapshot of some of the research that we've been involved with and that has been supported through AgriFutures Australia and also the Australian Government. The agriculture industry has its own specific needs and challenges that are amplified when we consider plastic waste. Challenges include a variety of plastic waste streams, a large number of businesses that are dispersed meaning that collection and logistics are difficult particularly in a country as large as Australia and also a lack of pre-processing mechanical and advanced technology infrastructure. It's also important to note that plastic use is increasing largely due to the intensification of production and also protection that's required with changing climate and extreme weather events. Over the past couple of years we've been working with the agriculture industry to develop a roadmap and the roadmap has focused on better describing the problem of waste, identifying some solutions and also determining what industry needs to do within a 10-year time frame. The roadmap was developed by industry for industry with RMCG facilitating the process and engagement with more than 300 industry representatives. Importantly the roadmap links to other Australian waste policy although to date plastics in agriculture has not been the major consideration with consumer and industrial plastics receiving much more attention. The roadmap applies the waste hierarchy which we've already touched on and principles of circularity with the objective to encourage industry to move up the hierarchy. What this means in terms of managing plastics includes designing out plastics in some systems we've already heard about cover cropping and moving into options for reuse and recycling. Our least preferred option is on-farm disposal however it is in realistically in the short term it's something that we need to address and an option may be responsible landfilling rather than on-farm disposal. It also highlights the solutions for each step of the hierarchy required at the moment and also into the long term to ensure that we have sustainable management of plastics. It's important that we understand the scale of the problem and I think we talked about volumes of 12 million volumes of million tons of plastic produced in agriculture globally. In Australia we're just a drop in the ocean about 100,000 tons per annum that's generated. However it is it is worth looking at how we describe the sector production also the plastic streams that's produced and also their management methods because this can help us work out where we should apply our efforts. Important figures to note is that horticulture uses the most in Australia. This is expected as it's more intensive and requires greater crop protection. Protective films are a major waste stream and we've already touched on those particularly soil mulch and also crop covers. At end of life we have the largest volume of material remaining onsite presenting significant environmental risks and it's also interesting to note that we have small volumes that are being recycled with a great need for a range of interventions to facilitate better management. So the roadmap that's being developed and recently launched by Agri Futures helps industry determine what needs to be done to improve waste management. Activities are focused on four key pillars that describe the why and how related to knowledge, behaviour change, partnerships and research and development. All issues that we've heard are really critical to solving some of these major problems. The roadmap focuses on industries working together and demonstrating commitment through industry sector plans. Importantly we already have some of the solutions in place and I'll hand over to Isabel who'll drill down a little bit and talk about some of these solutions that we've already been working on. Thanks Annemarie. So to follow on from the sort of overarching options looking at the why and the how for required practice change the supporting research that we've produced has looked at more practical solutions at a few different levels. So to start on in this slide from the extensive engagement as well as literature reviewed the research that's presented here is more of a consolidated repository of available options for improving the agricultural waste management. The importance of gathering all of these existing options is to highlight where there are considerations to move up the hierarchy such as avoiding a plastic plan support and using for example hemp or sisal string or encouraging a system where you lease or reuse specific crates or pallets. But by mapping out some of the ideas that are currently happening in isolation we can also see where there's similarities between other in agricultural industries and therefore needs of collaboration. But what we can also see with this list is whilst there's many options available the current culture the regulatory landscape and the financial incentives are not driving these options to become mainstream practice change just yet. The Australian main problem plastic is highlighted in the thank you diagram that Anne Marie showed are focused around plastic mulch, horticultural netting as well as fishing and agriculture gear. So to develop an option from a long list we really need to look at more further analysis. So in the case of plastic mulch or soil mulch and the preventative option of using certified soil biodegradable mulch our research has shown that material in Australia is used in a range of different horticultural crops from vegetables to fruit but also across a range of different climatic zones and soils. And so rather than just looking at a cost benefit analysis or what cost a certified soil biodegradable mulch may become cost competitive the research has explored other types of barriers so including things like reduced flexibility and performance throughout the crop cycle as well as the installation timing and also their incompatibility with certain fumigation practices. So these barriers as a whole along with the obvious cost increase must all be addressed for a solution to be properly adapted. In the case for fisheries and agriculture we have done some deep diving into the problems here. What we've found is that composition and management are difficult and often quite distinctly different from other types of agriculture. We've researched where a plastic gear type is used by a specific industry and this highlights that certain fisheries and agriculture industry use a specific type of gear. So for example feed and air pipes are commonly used by aquaculture and so a redesign or a recycling system approach in a closed loop system with this specific industry is suitable. Whilst other gear types such as tubs boxes containers and ropes are used throughout by many different types of fisheries and aquaculture industries. So a collaborative approach here potentially even linking in with agricultural systems would be beneficial. Another part of this research looked at where plastic variables and how these really determine the actual avoidance and recycling solutions that are available or in many cases in aquaculture and fisheries where they're not available. Highlighting really a strong need for technological advances as well as significant infrastructure. In Australia we have a good example of this in Port Lincoln so one of our largest ports that supports a range of different fisheries but also a range of different aquaculture and this cross industry system has collaborated to invest in aggregation infrastructure as well as sorting capabilities and has through that enabled to attract some recycling processes. It's in its initial phases but it shows that where you have that collaborative approach you look at a port and location based generation point there is a pathway. As Adib alor very elegantly has summarised addressing plastic in agriculture on that large scale is very well done so through a products stewardship scheme. AMSAG has been working with the Australian government for the last three years to develop an approach for the Australian landscape. Here we've found that the quality and the quantity of plastic naturally will determine the viability of the logistics of such a scheme therefore some plastics are probably more suited to this than others. As we've heard from Amroy that Australia is a really large country and we don't have relatively that much plastic waste so having the ease of a one-stop drop-off location has been critical emphasising that a holistic approach is preferred. As this slide illustrated currently there's several different schemes operating and so moving to an umbrella system as we've seen in the example with Adib alor is a recommended approach. So we haven't got much time and I'd just like to say thank you for the opportunity to showcase some of the work, some of the research as well as some of the strategic elements that we've been developing here in Australia and if you wish to read any of these further these links here will be hyperlinked to the PDF version which we will share. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed Ms Boran and Ms Axel for your presentation, for indeed again describing the magnitude of the problem in Australia, for the diagram which you presented that was very telling especially pointing to the impact of the agriculture sector but not only. Also for presenting the roadmap for waste and resource recovery which as you said very well has been developed by industry for industry therefore a partnership with your research and engagement body which I think is very interesting and then of course for describing a number, a range of opportunities which exist to handle these situations. Thank you so much for that and I will now move to our next speaker, Mr Abubakar Bama and Musa who will share with us the perspective of the Nigerian Young Farmers Network. Mr Musa, the floor is yours. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Young Farmers Network in Nigerian Africa as well. Let me share what I have to tell you so that I hope you can see my screen. Not yet but I guess it's coming. Thank you. It arrived in Geneva safely, go ahead. Okay go ahead now right? Yeah yeah please. Okay basically here in Nigeria we have two types of agricultural plastic used in Nigeria. We have the agricultural chemical plastic inputs widely used by farmers during both the dry season and wet season farming and this. Mr Musa you are frozen if you can fall in the slides. I guess Mr Musa is coming back. Yes you are back but we need to go back to the previous slide because we lost I think your presentation of the of the previous slide. We missed so no he disappeared. We seem to have an issue with Nigeria. While we try to reconnect Mr Musa perhaps we can go we can go to some of the of the questions. I must say there has been a very rich dialogue in the in the in the chat. He's back Mr Musa you are back but but we can't hear you. Mr Musa you have to unmute Mr Musa. Yeah we can hear you please go ahead. Let me hear your presentation. I don't know please go ahead. Okay sir so is the presentation all right? Yes okay as I'm saying how plastic agricultural plastic we use in Nigeria here we have two types of agricultural plastic use in Nigeria we have the chemical plastic inputs which are widely used by farmers during the border dry and wet season and this chemical comes in plastic containers and are often disposed improperly leading to the environmental pollution and the other one we have a mulch and primarily used for growing food and vegetable crops over the extensive areas in Nigeria here. So what is happening here is uh most if you can see a picture here I have this picture here I I snapped a picture from the warehouse where government were disposing this impute to the farmers here in Nigeria. So and the mismanagement of this impute cause a soil pollution uh the agricultural plastic that are left in the soil uh micro plastic are released into harmful chemicals into the soil and secondly we still have the water pollution which agricultural plastic and also pollute the waterways properly disposed and we have an air pollution we have a virtual pollution and wild wildlife farms which are another harmful to the forestry as well and wild animals. So we have a best practice than a project to address the plastic, better plastic pollution here in Nigeria. For the past 10 years government have come in to intervene and the farmers farm agricultural sector here in Nigeria have a program called the uncle boroughs uh from 2016 of the date government have inject almost three million three billion dollars into agricultural sectors and what they did to farmers normally is they give an impute to each and every farmer per hectare. So basically what they give as an impute they give almost five plastic containers of chemicals that are the herbicide, pesticide or liquid fertilizer came in all plastic containers and you know agricultural plastic containers are not more like the other plastics that are easily recycled this is our chemical plastics and as well these people in the village and the rural farmers use this plastic for their domestic consumption some use it for water some keep at home and all these things we can of course a very serious damage. So that's the reason in circulation here in Nigeria we have over 60 million plastic containers are in circulation from for good seven years which directly the government are involved in supplying this kind of containers to farmers we are not looking off retrieving all this this this containers back to be to be produced or to recycle it so which is a very serious problem that's the reason we come up with a model to see how we can have a very good recycling mechanisms to retrieve back these plastics and return it back to the producers and have a collection sentence in the rural area. You know the population of Nigeria here is so aligned we have almost 200 million populations and 60 percent of this population were used so and this year most of them target 20 percent of agriculturalists or young farmers there here so we are looking for a way to have a mechanism to inject more innovations to create back all these deployments. So secondly we have to create an enable environment for education and all these farmers most come from the rural areas without a modern education you have to come down to their to their rural languages to explain all these things to them so understand the benefits and the disadvantage of using all this plastic in their in their farms. So the role of young farmers in defining a sustainable solution in the management of agri-plastic we are looking at the innovation because we believe young people are more innovative and they have a lot of idea to tackle this kind of plastic pollution in agriculture so we have to create a lot of advocacy collaboration as well with the NGOs, stakeholders, business government and the development solution of plastic and they can work together to implement their cycling programs and technologies and promote a sustainable practice. As well we still have to take role in the education if I mean by this education we have to bring on our younger agriculturalist universities, college of education to even understood the plastic pollution, agricultural plastic pollution itself. We here in Nigeria and Africa is a new dimension we will really deal with that domestic plastic when it becomes agricultural plastic. As I'm telling you now we have more than 80 to 100 million hectares here in Nigeria so more than foreign countries and never in countries are still coming into Nigeria to farm with these are we're practicing in the way of modern technologies to bring under this much farming and all these filings to Nigeria so that's the reason we have to cut them here we have to tackle it at the early stage we don't have to leave it to go far before we tackle this situation. So we have to look at the leadership young people have to take the leadership roles in their in their communities to inspire order to take action definitely because if young people can play a very good role in the leadership they understood the system they understood the policies and everything from their communities they can implement that and the government can take over on it and the policies. So the role of youths and generally when it comes to finding the sustainable solution use of plastic I know young people can play an active role in protecting and improving the environment but they can change their lifestyle and how it affects the environment. Youth are backbone of the nation we all believe that and we all agree on that and they can change the future of the society with their well-being and courageous behaviors by applying the green knowledge at home and school so we can help to market a city greener city environment. Youth role is to implement the recycling program for use of plastic and you can arrange for collection services with them. So there are almost many collection funds for recycling of plastics so do not simply throw them away youth have a role to play in the environmental and composition effort that will improve the life. So the role of youth in INC process we are part of the negotiation committee last year in the Euro guy that's what we made with power there for the negotiation. So the issue of plastic pollution globally challenges the collective effort of all stakeholders including youths young people and children as well the youths can play a critical role in the intergovernmental negotiation of plastic pollution in the following ways so these are me and my colleagues here in Euro guy following the process and giving more interventions and an innovative idea to tackle agricultural plastic pollution. So the role of youth in INC so it's to advocate and create awareness where young people can advocate for policies and everything there and plastic pollution through awareness campaign and social media platforms. So research and innovations bringing youths on board on this INC can help them to collaborate and come up with a very good researches and very good idea to talk about plastic pollution as well an active participation in negotiation where young people can get an access to finance funding to be the INC can help a lot to to tackle on this and to get more opportunities on the conferences to network and have a very good ideas and directly answer questions from the stakeholder member of state and everything. So collaboration and partnership where young people can have an access to the for collaboration and partnership towards this. So young people have a crucial role to play by the intergovernmental legislation plastic is essential to involve the empowerment of young people to this negotiation and show a future for all. So thank you very much for my thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much Mr. Moussin. Thank you for your penacity in coming back despite the the challenges you were facing. Thank you for again also setting the scene the type of pollution the best practices that are being used in your country but then I think what what was really critical in your presentation was your your focus on the crucial role of young people young farmers in this in this whole process in the work in Nigeria in terms of innovation advocacy collaboration education and leadership within the communities but then also for highlighting how you see the youth positioning within the INC2 process and again I would like to flag that all this I mean FAO has now for the last couple of years a platform where the youth has to play critical role in the agri-food system transformation. This is the world food forum. It has events all year long involving youth and especially a focus during the week of 16 of October which is a world food week where there is a big gathering wrong. With that I think we have concluded this part of the of the presentation and I would love to like give the opportunity to our colleagues in the room if they have questions to ask these questions or comments and and then and then also I would like to say that while we were presenting the case studies there has been a very rich Q&A session ongoing virtually and that we would make sure of course this is documented as part of what we will be posting on our website after the events. We have also received a number of questions but I will give priority to colleagues here if they have some comments or questions. Sir thank you thank you so much. Let me introduce myself I am Emilio from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile. I would like to thank for this presentation with Francisco who is over there who are in charge of the international chemical agenda. We are focal point for the INC process from where for Chile we was in I was in Puente del Este and I will be in Paris a couple of weeks more. I would like that this kind of comment are very important inputs for us because we are preparing the national position in relation to the INC too and I have a lot of doubts and for that presentation but I would like to make two questions. The first one is for Ronan and I would like to know if they know the figure of waste speakers and if he have some kind of work with the waste speaker because they are a very important part of the new treaty and the other one is for Lef who is playing waste hero. His vision regarding the potential element document for the INC too and I would like to know what they expect for this meeting not just relating to the document maybe more general. Okay thank you thank you very much sir indeed and I would like also to remind you as my colleague Lef said that there will be another session posted at FAO at Cuarta on the 25th of May. We will make sure that you get all the connection details so that you are connected but perhaps we can ask our our speakers. I know Mr. Ronan had to go but he has his colleague who is there who may take the question on waste speakers correct sir from Adi Valor speaking to me yeah I'm here okay and what are the questions please if I understood correctly whether you have more information data on waste speakers yes which is a key relation that they have with waste speakers yeah the relation that you Adi Valor have with the waste speakers the collectors in the the decision. Okay we have a close close relation with the collector which are the distribution sector of agri supply so we have we are 25 in Adi Valor and we have 10 people on the on the territory of France so we have we have close relation if that's the question perhaps perhaps we can also connect you offline so that so that perhaps you can provide Mr. a bit more information I don't know if if other colleagues for example from Australia and Marie you have information on that sort of of the relations with the the the waste speakers which is a point of interest for our colleagues from the mission of cheating I was just going to say with the existing schemes such as drummaster big bag recovery so they're schemes that are already in place we have very strong relationships with the collectors it's it's very much based on those relationships very good Isabelle you wanted to add also with with waste speakers just I think we might have slightly different terminology is it there the collection or the processes that is of particular interest the collection the collection the collection there's this in Australia there's probably a handful of large-scale collectors but currently most of those aren't writing in agricultural plastics so with Australia being in its infancy of setting up agricultural schemes on a wide scale we have the ability to bring those together to to create that what Adi Valor has described as quite a coordinated and integrated approach okay early but big opportunity and Adi Valor is a good model okay great so next Lev there was a question addressed to you yes thank you so much for this question for sure it's not easy there is no easy answer to this because we are facing evolving process sorry can you hear me yes very well left oh good yes we certainly face evolving process in different positions among countries and so on and you know that the big the big debate is would it be a bottom-up treaty or top-down treaty are we following let's say the Paris agreement or we are rather following let's say Minamata Minamata treaty but this is a big it's sort of the generic thing when it comes to agriculture and again I reiterate that we are speaking we cannot prejudge any position of individual members I'm speaking as an observer first I didn't what we brought to the first meeting we will bring to the second one I think in our context of agriculture plastics has to be considered as an integral element of if you wish agricultural management food commodities production so why we say plastics as a part of agri-food system transformation towards sustainability it's a material which has benefits it has trade-offs and there is no easy answer so therefore we for sure we will discuss with delegations why why I bring to the to the discussion this issue of sectoral approaches which is just emerging emerging among some members that they are saying that specificity of management requires a truly sort of whole sector approach while there are key principles obviously we fully support them the principles of circularity the principles of reduction if not elimination of plastic pollution and adverse impacts of plastics including in use in agriculture and human health and environment this is uncontested sort of statements the management side of things let's say banning substitution and and so on and so on I think have to be discussed in the context of agriculture agricultural stakeholders from smallholder farmers to the ministries of agriculture to the ministry of science have to and as as you brought for example informal pickers which also in in some instances would concern agricultural fields if it's informal sector they have to be consulted so therefore we believe that this discussion have to be made in the context of this of our stakeholders the agricultural stakeholders while the treaty will provide framing for this but this is it's my this is basically what we are we are bringing to the table and to conclude as also I indicated in my presentation what we hear from our colleagues across the house that as as you already see plastics concerns our constituency working on soil pollution food safety food loss and waste agricultural production and again sorry that I'm we have my colleagues now from fisheries equal culture a huge issue with fishers in agriculture with which has its own approaches and all own means to address the problem so it's very it's very important to have all these voices somehow channeled in the negotiations and obviously these discussions are well familiar to agricultural stakeholders and may not be so well familiar to environmental ministries and environmental stakeholders that's a challenge we we will have as we go along with ANC I don't know if I answered your question it's okay okay it's okay we are certainly looking very much chose I mean to my mind because no we are reaching almost the end of this discussion it shows that and we have about 100 participants online it shows that this is an area of very high interest including for the Geneva based community so so we will not exhaust the topic there's been plenty of questions in the q&a we will we will collect all that provide elements of response if needed reaching out to the various panelists so that we can provide a good summary in the in the next couple of days in the you know on our webpage and then we will discuss with our colleagues in Rome but perhaps there might be any for another discussion on that after the Paris the Paris negotiation that will take place and again to continue I would say feed a discussion on that so I think I would like really to thank you all for for this very rich and fruitful discussion we hope of course that the seven today was useful I mean as you prepare for ANC two and and that you could get really the sense that FAO working with a member of partner is there as an observer who support you the members in this in this work we have clear messages from experts within the sector about the importance that plastic products currently play in food security but also their potential for arm if mismanaged we have also heard that the sustainable management of plastic products and their waste on farm post-particular and complex problems that require sectors specific solutions so we hope that these messages will prove useful as you go to ANC two and I would like to make a small commercial here to say that basically you know FAO office in Geneva we are not trying to be working with our colleagues from the the environment the office of CAV from office of environment and climate working we are trying to really beef up out of Geneva our environment engagement there will be a number of events in the coming week the most immediate very important being the celebration of the world B day on the 20th of May and whom are this important event will be organizing an event on Tuesday 16 May in collaboration with the permanent missions of Slovenia Switzerland and the office of the UN in Geneva and the theme of this year's discussion will be money for empowerment so you are you are all welcome to attend this I mean don't underestimate the role of these as pollinators and so you are all welcome to join us on in building H at 11 30 on Tuesday 16 of of May so with that I only have left to thank of course really super grateful to our speakers today our panelists especially for Anne-Marie and Isabelle we know it's very late in in Australia but thank you for being with us and thank you also colleagues from my fellow Mr. Moussa for bringing the youth voice and level and I feel I caught up so thank you so much and we look forward to see engagement with you hi my name is Chris I didn't film that before but I was in the Uruguay