International Women's Day (08/03) provides a great opportunity for us to celebrate the many women involved in MINAGRIS, each of whom are contributing to investigating the impacts of micro- and nano-plastics on agricultural soil health. Above are just a few of the women involved in the project!
Available on IoS, Android, and in your desktop browser, the recently launched SoilPlastic App allows you to record your sightings of plastic in soils. With these records, you will help scientists to gain a better understanding of the impacts of plastic residues on soil health. This is a key area of research because we rely on our soils for producing 95% of our food. Access our quick-start guide here.
Today we co-hosted the Minagris x Papillons' joint stakeholder forum on "Plasticulture: An International Perspective on Environmental Sustainability". This was a joint effort from our partnership with Papillons, another EU Horizon2020 funded research programme focussed on agri-plastics and soils.
Here, partners, stakeholders and organisations presented in Greece and online from across the world, including the FAO, UNEP, and European Bioplatics. They discussed plastics in agriculture, specifically in acricultural soils, both intentional and unintentional. There was talk of where these plastics come from, how they get there, why they are useful in food security, what harm they can do to plants, animals & microbes, and what the ramifications of this might be now and into the future.
We look forward to a thriving partnership with Papillions going forwards, and excited to read their findings as they emerge!
MINAGRIS is one year old, and what a year it has been! The team have been busy working on a number of activities, from developing and launching our multiscale experiment protocol, to completing a Europe-wide sampling campaign across 11 case study sites.
Partners in the project have presented at seminars, conferences, and public events, and we have co-hosted two joint stakeholder forums with our sister project PAPILLONS. Team members have published the first papers affiliated with MINAGRIS. Meanwhile, we have produced several key deliverables, including developing the SoilPlastic citizen science app (available on Apple and Android).
We rounded up year one with our annual plenary, this year hosted by the Slovenian partners in Ljubljana. This was a fantastic opportunity to check in with each other, establish where we stand and plan next steps for a productive year ahead!
