Wednesday, May 22 : Stakeholders Forum
We are proud to share with you the key messages sent by European Parliament member Maria Noichl, Rapporteur of the Soils Monitoring Directive, opening the stakeholder forum, alongside our project leader Luca Nizzetto, gathering more than 100 participants online and offline interested in “Looking Beyond the Soil Surface”, our round table on microplastics, moderated by Luc Vernet (Farm Europe).
Rachel Hurley and Prof. Dr Christian Laforsch presented preliminary results of the on going research programme which will be further developed in future communications.
Various stakeholders contributed to shape the discussion. Thank you Airi Kulmala from MTK (Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners), Xavier Ferry from Plasticulture and Hasso Von Pogrell, Managing Director of European Bioplastics.
The seminar was also an opportunity to learn more about the European atlas which is under construction thanks to the presentation by Evelia Schettini. It will provide a unique inventory of agricultural plastic uses across Europe, a building bloc to promote sustainable use of plastics in agriculture and develop solutions across Europe minimizing the impact and maximizing the benefits. You will soon have the opportunity to fill out this survey to help advance the research and directly contribute!
Our partners from MINAGRIS – H2020 project also shared their results. Abdallah Alaoui presented the feedback from stakeholders on plastic use in agriculture. Spela Zeleznikar provided insights into the impact of microplastics on soils through pre-testing laboratory and small-scale experiments to observe their effects on selected soil properties.
A warm thank you to all the online and offline speakers and participants!
In the afternoon, the physically present stakeholders had bilateral meetings with the various work packages for in-depth explanations of the results and methodologies. If you would like more information on these topics, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]
Thank you to all participants and speakers for their contribution to this week rich in exchanges and innovations !
You can watch the full video here !