One Health in Action: Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance with RENOFARM

A very good morning uh to everyone uh distinguished representative from FAO Dr. Justin Chisena Miss Marilyn. Our speaker today Dr. Allesandro Asani network Malaysia estimate students and participant. A very good day to all of you. Well, it is my great pleasure to welcome everyone to this webinar on the FAO technical lecture series which is one of the activities under the FAO AUNFS youth research proposal competition 2026 which is a strategic initiative aimed at empowering the next generation of agri leaders in the Asian plus region. Today's webinar is more than informative session is actually a platform to inspire young researchers to think critically propose innovative solution and contribute meaningful to the transformation of agri food systems across Asia. Agri food systems are facing complex and interconnected challenges including food security, climate change, environmental sustainability, nutrition, public health and inclusive rural development. Well, addressing these challenges requires strong scientific evidence, practical innovation and meaningful links between research and policy. And this competition reflects a strong partnership between FAO and AU and AFS. For those who who not known what is afs is actually a a new teatic established under network. EFS stand for a food security which combining FAO's technical expertise and policy relevance with the academic strength and regional network of AUFS. Well through this collaboration we aim to bridge the gap between academic research and real world policy application. Ladies and gentlemen, the program provides an important opportunity for young graduate students to develop research proposal aligned with the FAO strategic framework, particularly the areas of better production, better nutrition, better environment, better life and crosscutting innovation through data and digital transformation. And these priority areas are highly relevant to the future of sustainable, resilient and inclusive agri food systems. And through the journey from proposal development, selection, mentorship, grant award, implementation and policy dialogue, participant will gain not only research experience but also exposure to regional collaboration and policy oriented thinking. And this is especially important because young researchers are not only future leaders, you are also current contributors to the solution that our region urgently needs. And I would like to express my sincere appreciation to FAO, AUFS, ASEAN network, the University Malaysia and all partners involved in making this initiative possible. And I also warmly encourage all eligible students to take this opportunity seriously to be bold in your ideas and to ensure that your research contributes to practical and impactful solution for society. With that, I wish everyone u a productive and inspiring webinar. May today's section provide clarity, motivation and direction for all potential applicants. And ladies and gentlemen, now allow me to briefly introduce with our speaker today. Dr. Alexandro Patriarchi is a AMR regional coordinator FAO regional office for Asia and the Pacific that is based in Bangkok, Thailand. Dr. Alandro Pachaki holds a PhD in microbiology from University College Dublin where he specialized in the ecology and molecular characterization of campilobacttor species in portry. He has over 15 years of international experience with the United Nations system including FAO and WHO and he joined FAO's animal health service in 2015 where he established the organization first interdep departmental working group on antimicrobial resistance and coordinated the development of FAO's first M action plan. He also serve as FAO's striper type focal point facilitating collaboration with F uh with WHO and WH and after contributing to AMR capacity building initiative at WHO he returned to FAO's regional office for AIA in the Pacific in 2025 where he leads regional efforts on MR governance and food system food safety system and ladies and gentlemen after his presentation uh we're going to take one or two question or two to three question if available from the participant and now Dr. Alandro the platform is yours. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Um Sara and to all uh very good morning or evening or or afternoon here in Bangkok. It's a morning. So good morning to all and thanks uh so much for the introduction. I'm very very pleased to be here with you and hopefully my presentation will provide you with some inspiration. uh as you move on with your careers. So I'm going to share screen now to present my few slides. Can you please confirm you can see my screen? >> Yes. Yes. >> Okay. Excellent. So thanks again again. My name is Alexandro Patriarchi. I'm a microbiologist by background and I'm currently uh serving at the FO regional office for Asia and the Pacific as regional AMR coordinator. I'm very very pleased to uh present to you a few slides covering the issues of antimicrobial resistance and how it pertains of course the one approach and as well the renovation just very briefly the FAO mandate is to achieve food security for all improve nutrition raise living standards birds increase agricultural productivity, improve the condition of rural population and contribute to a grow growing world economy while ensuring freedom from hunger. uh the regional office based here in Bakol. It's one of the five regional offices um is committed to u transmit and and uh and you know making the the mandate reality here in this region. Um and it does organize its work around the strategic framework 2022 2031 and the FO betters better production better nutrition better environment better life and these are guiding our work for a more efficient inclusive resilient and sustainable agri food systems amongst the priority u that this office is addressing antimicrobial resistance ance is one of them. It's one important priority. Uh it is relevant to the FA's mandate as it directly threatens food security, sustainable agri food systems, animal and plant health, rural livelihoods, and safe food production, which are all core areas of the FAO's responsibilities and mandates. So by the end of this presentation you will hopefully have a better understanding of what antimicrobial resistance is and why it matters to agri food system and its transformation. you would hopefully become a bit more familiar on with what are some of the tools that we are as SFAO currently using as well as framework and initiatives and um I hope you will formulate in your mind and identify opportunities and challenges for research and innovation um as as as a direct results of of this of hearing this presentation. So just very briefly, AMR is can be described not as a disease but rather a a natural phenomenon that occurs when bacteria but also viruses, fungi and parasites evolve in such a way that they are no longer responding to antimicrobial agents such as antibiotics, antivirals, antifungal and antiparasitics. These are drugs who are meant to kill um the organism that uh uh cause disease in humans but also in animal and plants. So the AMR is making infections harder or impossible to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread sever illness disability and ultimately death. The AMR gives the ability of micro to microchines organism to resist antimicrobial treatments. It occurs naturally u but it is accelerated very much by misuse and overuse of these uh compounds and it affect of course humans, animals, plants and environment all together. If we go back to the discovery of the first antibiotic penis by Alexander Fleming, we realize that and I'm quoting one of his uh saying is that he realized that it is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicellin by exposing them to concentration not sufficient to kill them. So in a way as we as Alexander Fleming discovered the very first antibiotic he also outlined the basis of antimicrobial resistance by informing the world that there is it's very likely that these microbes will develop resistance to the same antimicrobials. Why is antimicrobial resistance important? And this slide is providing you some numbers, but it does make infection harder or impossible to treat. Imagine a simple cat you might have in your arm that get infected by a bacteria and you are no longer able to treat that infected wound. So your um the treatment that you will have to go through will become longer and more difficult if not impossible to trade. AMR causes millions of that each year globally and there is constant estimation of numbers that that's coming up at global level. uh just in 2021 bacterial AMR alone directly caused an estimated 1.14 million humans death and was associated with 4.7 million death globally without any action AMR could reduce the global life expectancy by 1.8 eight years within a decade and cause up to 39 million deaths by 2050. And the region Asia and the Pacific, South Asia and the Pacific is the region that is most affected by antimicrobial resistance. It threatens modern medicine. uh you you you have to think that antibiotics are used also uh when anyone needs to go through surgery or for cancer treatments. These these treatments or surgery or other um uh medical attention rely on the use of antibiotics uh very much. So if those antibiotics or antimicrobials become ineffective then we are going to affect also the way we try we we treat cancer and and other condition. It increases healthcare cost and the economic losses. We would see in a in a few slides I show you some numbers around the economic losses but it obviously increases the health care cost as patients will have to stay longer in the hospital as the treatment to treat their uh infection or disease are becoming less and less effective. It spreads across human animals and the environment including plants. Again I will show you uh in a couple of slides how the AMR is one of the area that uh pertain the uh one heads or that requires a one approach. It is getting worse over time with that's projected to rise and AMR is not something we can uh defeat. uh it is something however that we can control and mitigate by applying the uh good practices and we will provide some example as as I go through the slide the the slides and finally trade food safety and food security um as well so how is AMR related to the agri food systems that's simply because AMR threatens animal health, both terrestrial and aquatic. It threatens plant health, food security and food safety, the farmer livelihoods and the environmental sustainability as a whole. The emergent and spread of resistance microorganism. It's driven in part by the misuse and uh overuse of these antimicrobials in food production, livestock, aquaculture and prop production including crop production. Addressing AMR requires therefore a so-called one health approach which I am sure you are all familiar with that promotes good production practices bio security disease prevention surveillance and the responsible use of antimicrobials amongst other u amongst others. So these slides is hope hopefully providing you with a clear understanding on why antimicrobial resistance has to be addressed using using a one health approach. On the left hand side of these slides you can see a picture with many red dots. Uh these red dots represent antimicrobial resistance microorganism but also residues of antibiotics or uh plasmids which are capable of transferring the resistance uh between bacterias. You can also see a lot of sectors are represented in here starting from the human sectors but also pet animals uh pharmaceutical uh factories intensive animal husbandry waste water crop production rivers. You can see waters. You can see the the soil uh being contaminated by either bacteria that are resistance or residues or plasmids. So that's to describe that and to you know make it clear that antimicrobial resistance has no boundaries. It recognize no sectors. Therefore, we need to work uh in a coordinated manners under the one health approach to seriously address this issue. Again, a few more uh numbers in terms of human deaths that are attributed to bacterial are this time focused in South Asia. estimated in 2021 to be 335,000 deaths or 270,000 in South Asia is Asia and Oceanania. Approximately 22% of countries in this region still report using antimicrobials for road promotion. And this is a practice that sees the use of antimicrobials or antibiotics in very low dosage that is administrated to animals. So that their nutrient intake is higher. So in other words, low dosage of antibiotics affect the microbiota of animals so that they can grow faster with less uh nutrients. This is a a very bad practice and we as FAO are trying to support countries in phasing out completely this practice and as it um extensively contributes to the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance. Many countries again still lack comprehensive framework to address antimicrobials pollution in the environment. Think of the withdrawal periods. Uh when we treat animals at farm level, we if we do not respect the withdrawal period, then some of these compounds of antibiotics are excreted in uh uh non- metabolized into directly into the environment in river or our waters. And that's happening to up to 80% of these antibiotics being excreted and in the environment non- metabolized. So you you can see how really AMR needs really a coordinated approach among sectors under the one umbrella at the global level but also regional and country level. FAO collaborates very closely with what we call the partners organization, the world health organization, WH, WHA, the world's uh health organization for health um and the UN the UN uh environment program to support countries in addressing MR in under the one else approach. Now if we change our lens and we look at the issue from an economical perspect um I think there have been a few reports one very recent report from that highlights in a few words highlights how uh vast the economic impacts in agriculture u issue because of the issue of antimicrobial resistance without robust action Global treatment costs and productivities losses could reach up to four 412 billion and 443 billion respectively for a treatment and from productivity losses. the GDP uh loss in livestock production could reach up to 575 billion by 2050 with nearly 1 trillion in global welfare loss. So these are really really high numbers and it's really showing how the economy of especially low and middle inome countries will be affected eventually if nothing is done to address antimicrobial resistance in agriculture. When it comes to the FBO, the Food and Agriculture Organization started addressing uh antimicrobial resistance in 2015 when the very first FBO action plan was drafted by the inter interdep departmental working group on antimicrobial resistance that brings together different expertise and sectors that we have within our organization and it you you can cluster the area of work that FO is implementing uh from global, regional and country level into five main areas. The first is pertaining the center in governance and allocating resources to accelerate and sustain progress at country level. And when you say governance, you think uh primarily on the mechanism that are in place at country level that should guide activities and action to address antimicrobial resistance. Any multis sectoral mechanism uh that guides their efforts would pertain to this area. So any support that we as FO give the government to set up multis sectoral truly one health mechanism uh would pertain this this area. Another area is increasing stakeholders engagement and awareness. This is a very very important as the issue of AMR is not really easy to understand nor easy to explain. As I said earlier AMR is not a disease. uh it's rather a phenomenon and the general public might get confused on what it exactly implies uh the antimicrobial resistance and how they are affected primarily by uh by a another important aspect under the awareness and engagement is that awareness alone will not work. We have now some data showing us that if we try to raise awareness alone that will not drive any change. And therefore the engagement like such as this serious engaging with youth and researchers trying to communicate uh clearly what the risk of antimicro systems are. It's very very important and that hopefully will drive behavioral change and ultimately a better use of these resources that we have that are life saving. Another important area is the surveillance and research. It goes I think alone that uh countries and then you know generation of quality data it's of utmost importance if you want to drive uh policy change. uh you need to generate a data and to generate around the patterns of antimicrobial resistance but also not the way we use in a given context uh how much we use and how we use these compounds. So that's why it's very very important that countries are equipped with laboratories that are generating quality data that can be ultimately used to drive policy change enabling good practices to prevent infection and control. That's also a a quite practical area of work. We will see uh how what some example for each of these area in the next few slides. But this area pertain primarily on the way uh farmers for conservative food and agriculture uses this this somehow this antimicrobials um in the their farming settings. The promotion of responsible use to keep antimicrobials working is also an important area. they cause sometimes hands in hands with good practices and and so this area and all the effort the FO and partners conduct to address AMR would ultimately ensure the efficacy efficacy of these life saving antimicrobials. we want to preserve them uh while sustaining food and agricultural production. And on the other hand, we when we want to reduce the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance and the spreads um and slow down the spread and emergence across the whole food chain. So on the left hand side you see a few picture of a couple of documents. The blue and the orange that's are those are the FAO action plans and the one above the white one is the very first global action plan on antimicrobial resistance which was adopted by the World Health Organization back in 2016 um to provide the blueprints or the you know the global guides uh um to address antimicrobial resistance. The first edition of the global action plan uh is now outdated and the second edition has just came up. Last May World assembly has adopted and governing body from the uh Gua also endorsed it and FAO and UNP will follow with the endorsement official endorsement of this document which was co developed uh by the word and by the quadripartid so-called quadripartite organization therefore WH wa and UNP and this document encompasses uh what I've just uh discussed. It's completely in line with the areas that I was just mentioning and it of course describe the importance and I highlight and underscore the importance of the one head approach uh as the only way to address antimicrobial resistance. So in it I've just extracted what I thought what I think are important points and the first one is the one at implementation and recognizing the interconnected roles of human animal plants food and environmental sectors. The second refers to the importance of the prevention first approaches that includes uh the importance of biocurity of vaccination practices, infection, infection prevention and control measures, water and sanitation and improved farm management practices. A sustainable agri food system that reduce the need for antimicrobials rather than relying solely on the sewership measures. This this is a quite an important point as we are shifting a little bit our narrative from we need to use less antimicrobials to we need to need less antimicrobials. So it's it's it's just a one word difference but it changes a lot in terms of how we see things uh ultimately taking place country level and what concern for example the farming practices stronger surveillance and monitoring system systems for AMR and AMU. uh we will see what FAO and the quality organization came up with in terms of system to compile quality data to drive uh change in in policies sustainable financing and accountability. This is something that is becoming increasingly important in the past few years. Um as we see that many national action plans lacks the uh costing and the finance component leading to uh plans that are not receiving any funds for them to be implemented. So it's a it's something that uh it comes with the cost benefits analysis and it links nicely into with the engagement and awareness tracing. Um so that we can use a a a different type of communication. Um this time will involve the economy of farms for example. Um um and the final one is the international cooperation innovation and knowledge sharing to accelerate implementation. Again this refers to the one element to the need to coordinate and cooperate with existing partners to address the AMR uh as one. What I've just described in the global action plans nicely linked to what we call the renop farm. This is the reduce the need for antimicrobials on farms for sustainable agri food system transformation initiatives. This is a flagship FAO global initiatives on antimicrobial resistance that was officially launched in April 2024. And as a 10-year initiative, it helps countries reduce the need for antimicrobials in in a food systems while maintaining or even improving the productivity. Um the reason it is linked to the global action plan is and because the new global action plans makes many reference to renovit as it reduce the dependence of antimicrobials through increased biocurity vaccination and improved husbandry practices by strengthening the surveillance system and the laboratory capacity. by developing an implementation of costed plans and by promoting a one governance and multis sectoral coordination. Um the red of farm initiatives will inform very much uh two areas of good practice and responsible use of antimicrobials that I was showing uh you earlier. Again, the Renaoparm um it's a two years young initiatives launched in 2024. Uh just last April this year uh the second symphonium symposium uh took place in Ronchang, China um where 300 to 400 participants from government, research institution, producers organization, private sectors and international partners gathered together to assess the achievement and progress against rhino farms in uh globally and also to show renewed commit commitments to uh the principle of the renovative and this commitment has been sort of signed in what we call now the renovar drone chan consensus document that highlight commitments from all participants to accelerate the development and financing of national renovs to integrate the 5G's approach into routine livestock extension practices I will tell you what the 5G approaches in a second to privatize the prevention first policies and to strengthen evidence-based decision making as as fararm is a global initiatives but it has very very concrete targets and these are three. The first one is to ensure that at least 100 countries with their national action plans are fully implemented in the in their agri food sectors. The second is that at least 50% of animal plant workers um strengthen their capacity to reduce the need for antimicrobials in agri food systems. So this is about a lot about trainings and racing capacity of all those individuals who can make the change at farm level and at least 80% of countries that participates in the infarm initiative contribute to the international FOMR monitoring system the so-called infarm and I will spend a couple of slides on what infarm is in a minute but the 5Gs refers to good production practices good health services, good alternatives, good incentives and good connection. This is the way uh the red of arm initiatives intend to go uh to achieve the the three targets by using these five G's and it uses also five action accelerator including education and awareness, youth engagement, public and private partnership, behavioral and social intervention, research innovation and new technologies. So all together the 5Gs with their action accelerators are going to drive change and transform agri food systems in a way that it will not rely so much on antimicrobials no longer but it will improve what are the good production good health and service good alternatives good incentives and good connections. This slide is just showing you just a screenshot of u each of the 5Gs uh and the related domains and then this just to show you that uh you know there's some some certain level of complexity behind the the the the 5Gs um and you know without me reading through all of this I think one of the interesting one is the good incentives um as it pertains the what we call the certification or arms acronization process um that sits mainly under the good incentive pillar of the 5Gs and this is designed as a progressive risk based system to encourage sustainable reduction of antimicrobial use while improving farm management standards. This recognition or accreditation process will ultimately drive uh change the way in the way uh farms are managed for the better. Of course, by following uh u a scoring system through which farms will be able to hopefully receive some gradication uh or certification by the governments of the countries where they are in. uh and that will hopefully lead to a better access to um markets and therefore better livelihood for farmers and and companies that runs the farms. So this is just to provide you an example on how the uh ren of army initiives touches the ground u from being at a global level initiative to a very very practical action at country level and at foreign level. Zooming in now at the regional level. Um here at the FAO RAP uh office, we follow the same approach of course as outlined in the global action plan and the FAO action plan which includes and embed the renovitis. But we need to apply uh a few points or rather lens to ensure the action and implementation take place in in this so diverse region as the Asia and the Pacific. So we need to understand up fronts what are the organizational technical political and social cultural contexts that that we have in this region and at country level. We need to develop and apply or apply existing tool and frameworks to address the identified gap. The provision of training and support to build needed capacity in food and agriculture. Facilitation of coordination and partnership that can reinforce effective mitigation of AMR in food and agriculture and then enable sustained uh implementation. These are in a nutshell uh it can give you an idea on how this regional office is actually trying to make a difference in this region when it comes to addressing antimicrobial resistance. From now on uh I would like to just provide you a few example uh of the what are the tool or framework or the initiatives that we as FAO regional office are using at country level primarily to address Omar under each of the areas that I was mentioning you uh before which are governance awareness and engagement surveillance and then good practice and responsible use. The government's area as I said it pertains primarily supports provided to countries in implementing but also the reviewing and and developing of national action plan on antimicrobial resistance. The awareness component it's more around the stakeholder engagement and making sure that the behavioral change take place and the surveillance it's all around generating quality data that can be ultimately used to drive policy change and finally good practice and responsible use uh uh to enable that change at farm level by using the for example the 5Gs that I was just mentioning under the reform initiatives. So for each of these area I put I pulled out couple of one or two example the starting for with the strengthening sustainable governance and resource allocation to minimize and contain a mar sustainability in food and agriculture. Um these slides represent how national action plans uh supports might take place. Um first uh the national action plan it's a it's a guiding document national document which compile all the activities or implementation steps that the government will then implement to address an issue in this case antimicrobial resistance. And since antimicrobial resistance we have seen it's a multi- sectoral uh phenomenon it deserve what we call the one approach and therefore the governance the and the bodies at national level who will develop uh and implement national action plan must be uh multis sectoral in its nature. In other words, h governments should uh have in place mechanisms that are including expertise around animal health, terrestrial and aquatic and food sectors, the environment, the plant sectors etc. the mechanism. The national body will then develop uh or update uh activities within the national action plan. And then this national action plan will have to be costed by using an uh and we can support the government by using a dedicated costing and budgeting tool to then provide a monitoring and evaluation framework and then implement and ensuring that the implementation is monitored to assess what's working and what's not working. uh a concrete example u Mongolia is not a part of Basian but I think we can also mention Cambodia is one of the latest where these countries were developing or have developed national action plan on antimicrobial resistance but they were lacking a costed plan or in some cases even a monitoring and evaluation framework so our support as FBO regional office was to u uh help them developing a result based and fully costed one uh national action plan uh by strengthening capacity in how to develop a monitoring and evaluation phase framework costing and budgeting by teaching them how to use a dedicated tool and then multis sectoral coordination by increasing awareness and engagement of the um all the sector sectors which are relevant including human health, animal health, agricultural and plant protection, food safety, water sector and environment sectors for the case of Mongolia. Very similar case study was support was provided to Cambodia as well and other countries in the in this region. Moving on to the awareness and engagement area. Um we primarily ensure that um the issue of antimicrobial resistance is explained and the awareness levels around the globe uh and a country level but even at community level it's always up try to make sure that farmers individual from the general public the private sector civil society are constantly kept updated on on what AMR uh is and what it means for their own lives. as I mentioned and as a gap or a challenge here when it comes to awareness is that again awareness alone will not drive change and you know even to make things more difficult it's quite complex to describe and so it is likely that um by using a technical language you will not get attention from the general public so the opportunity here would be to uh come up with different language or different narratives according to the target audience we want to uh uh engage with in so if we are focusing on farmers and we want to drive change in the way the farmers conduct their business at farm level then we might uh want to use for example the economic lens and and and change the narrative around the economic lens with the understanding that farmers that in the major income is from their farms from their animals. So their interest is to keep animal healthy and productive and so port for other for other categories for what concern the good practice and uh responsible use. This is mainly driven by the renovar initiative. Again this is a 10 years orient actionoriented it's country focused country led initiative responding to the global agri food system transformation agenda it is basically saying that we cannot continue business as usual when it comes to agri food system and the way we conduct farming uh because the production and the economic loss will be so much higher in the upcoming years according to numerous estimation that we must uh transform the way we are conducting the agri food system. Uh so reno farms once again engage the entire production chain from farm to fork trying to strengthen partnership including public and private sector with a simple objective to support countries in reducing the need for antimicrobials um through the 5G. that I mentioned earlier. Indonesia was the amongst the first countries who piloted the initiatives and back in 2024. It focused on the poultry sector in the Luna province and supported the implementation of national action plan by promoting farm level practices that reduce the need of antimicrobials while maintaining the productivities of animal health. One of the activities concrete activities that we have implemented in Indonesia to achieve the goal of reno farm is through the so-called farmer field schools uh which is a model that is focused on the awareness so increasing the awareness of farmers increasing the capacity for farmers to apply biocurity measures increase the good husband practices increase the responsible antimicrobial use and the peer-to-peer farmer learning. This has been proven to be quite effective and it's something that we are actively engaging with different countries in the region to conduct and to drive change at farm level. So 20 facilitators were trained farmer field school was established that means that the activity has is sustainable as it continued led by the government themselves after we provided the initial support. It is improved the biocurity and the disease prevention and it has reduced the reliance of antimicrobials to better farm management. So it was an important case study in Indonesia as it showed that this approach works um at country level. Moving on in strengthening surveillance research and evidence through multis sectoral surveillance and research on AMRU and residues. Um this is one of the tool that we are currently using as FAO globally. Um it's called the assessment tool for laboratories and AMR surveillance systems. Erh this is a a a tool that serves to um um allows countries to measure the status or stage of their national surveillance system in food and agriculture and also their capacity uh in terms of laboratory capacity to generate uh quality data using a standardized approach. Um it is it is quite an important tool if you want to ensure that countries raise their level and their ability to generate uh quality data uh that will then eventually uh drive policy change. Um one of the latest um mission we've conducted in Malaysia in September 2025 evaluated the strength and the gap uh in the governance systems in the laboratory work networks and data management surveillance coordination to support evidence-based improvements in Malaysia's AMR monitoring system. uh the mission has shown and provided the country with a very well structured road map for strengthening the surveillance and the laboratory capacity and ultimately helping national authority to prioritize investment. So therefore saving funds and improve cross sectors coordination to enhance and generate reliable data for policy and decision making. Think of uh the usual situation in a given country is in terms of surveillance is that different laboratories may be in different sectors. They independently and work in clusters may be looking at the pro prevalence of antimicrobial resistance. This is not very effective way of working. it would rather be more meaningful and less expensive to coordinate into a network of laboratories uh to improve the way we utilize resources in a given country. So that's what the atlas mission and the address tool allows countries to um identify implement. Another example is the international FA antimicrobial resistance monitoring so-called infarm. This is a global information system that has been developed by FA by FO to support national regional and global surveillance and monitoring. uh the system is will help countries to collect collect and analyze a mara data to visualize and interpret data to inform policy making decision and to share his information at national and international level. The um infarm systems comes as a clear request from the uh from a from a gap that was identified by the quartite and other partners constitution with other partners a few years ago now uh whereby we've realized at the global regional and national level we were not having data around how we use antimicrobials at farm level um and and and what are the partners p part partners patterns of antimicrobial resistance amongst this food and agriculture sectors. So therefore infarm was generated together with the uh WH's global antimicrobial resistance and new surveillance system called glass which focuses on the human health and the one animals antimicrobial use global database called anime news together these global systems will contribute to what's called the giza it's the quadriide global integrated systems for surveillance and antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial usage. This Giza uh system will ultimately give the world uh a a much detailed picture on how the world is using these antimicrobials and how we uh can uh prevent and and and you know retrieve and maintain the effectiveness of these antimicrobials over time. So it's quite an important um uh area of work that it's of course coming with large host as well for countries. This is an example on how this office has actually uh organized a regional training to train some focal point at country level uh in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, VDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam uh to strengthen the readiness for AMR data reporting which is uh taking place on a regular basis. I think the third call for data will soon be announced uh and will will ask countries uh relevant bodies to uh share quality uh data around surveillance and uh resistance and use. Finally, this is my last slide. It's in includes a few takeaways that I hope will stimulate some discussion and questions. First one is that antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to food system, livelihood and public health. We are not uh um saying um resolving the AMR phenomena but we can indeed control it and mitigate it to and ensure that agri food systems are more productive. The one health is not an option. It is the way we have to address antimicrobial resistance at all level at global, regional and country level. Better data leads to better decision. We have seen how the infarm and other systems allows countries to raise their capacity in terms of generating data for us to better use and and and drive decisions. FO and the quadratized partners provides a quite a few number of tools, knowledge and policy supports that can be used by countries to implement the prioritize activities. Countries need to move from planning to implementation. How to do it? This is one question that we are still addressing and it's not an easy one as we have seen in the past 10 years that countries do develop national plans including all relevant areas uh under the one approach but the implementation of these activities still remains quite slow. So what it is that is preventing countries to implement? Is it the lack of funds? Is it the lacks of resources? Is the lack of political commitments? Is it all of them? And what can we do to address this? And finally, prevention uh reduce the need of antimicrobial. This is widely been addressed by the the flagship initiative renov. We need to move from the idea that we can cure and and treat any disease whether it's human, animal or plants. Uh because this will no longer be the case. We have to start understanding that these antimicrobials they are not um they start they start to not working anymore. So we need to move from the treatment to the prevention of this of of diseases. Okay. With that, I hope I went I wasn't too uh over time, but I'm very happy to take a few questions over. >> Thank you very much Dr. Aleandro for your valuable inputs and sharing on the topics of one health uh to all of us this morning and um yeah now I would like to invite participant if you want if any of you would like to ask a question but before that in in the chat room I have one question from Abdullah from Pakistan his question is regarding the infarm rainarm initiative how is FAO addressing the standardization of farm labor surveillance data from LMIC is where veterary reporting is highly fragmented. Yeah, you can you can check in at the chat room. >> Yeah, you do you want me to address this? >> Yes. Yes, if you can if you can answer uh yeah respond to that question. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. That's quite it's quite relevant question and you know I'm pleased to address it. the the the existence of protocols to to generate data is is there. The infarm for example, the infarm systems provides um countries with that information with those protocol which ensure that data is generated in a using standardized protocols which are accepted by uh and defined by extensive consultation process by experts around the around the globe. we um by doing so countries are able to um again use the standardized data uh to generate again quality data that can be compared over countries and over time. However, the challenge remains here as I was saying the use of standardized protocol which are available currently available in the infarm and I think I believe I have a link in my presentation on the infarm uh where you can look at those protocols. The real challenge is the implementation. It's how can we make sure that government or national entities do apply those standardized protocol which might be different from what the countries have been used up until then. uh to to to finish my answer. It's it's um while protocol exists, you always need to contextualize uh the physibility of those protocols uh and compare it against the current u capacity that that given country has. Not all the countries have capacity to conduct LMIC. Not all countries have the capacity to grow pyrobacttor. Not all the countries have the same capacity. So where there is no capacity, primary action is to raise that capacity so that then countries can adopt and use the same standardized uh approach. I hope that answered the question. >> Okay. Thank you very much Dr. Alesandro. Uh now um if any of the uh youth official proposal competition participant if you like to uh ask any question to our panel panelist today you can unmute yourself and then uh straight away uh asking the question you like to to ask any question from the participant H she probably there's there's another another subsequent question from from Mr. Abdullah I think just a short one. What are the uh immediate plans by FAO to leverage special mapping and data modeling to transition in farm from a retrospective repository into an active early warning system that can predict emerging resistant fox? >> Yeah, again a very very very nice relevant question. Thank you. Thank you for that. So I think um my answer would have to include the the Giza uh system. So as you might remember the Giza system is the global integrated surveillance system that would enable anyone to really analyze data in such a way that it would become clear on what are the patterns what what's the where are we going in terms of um use of antimicrobials and antimicrobial uh patterns. Um so that will uh enable us to identify what are uh the risks and put in place active early warning systems uh that can visualize hopefully in a very simple and detailed way because the assumption is that quality data is generated using standardized protocol that would enable a visualization of of patterns across countries and across Ross regions and you know I I recall at the beginning of the presentation I mentioned that AMR does not recognize any B borders or no sectors it doesn't recognize countries so we cannot longer focused on one country or one region maybe a region will be uh okay but um we cannot longer think of uh generating data uh in one country and then the next country if we have a gap of or limited data that would uh impede us to generate a clear message that we ultimately want. H finally to answer the the efforts that we are putting as quadripartite in terms of generating this kind of evidence it's huge and massive. You have to think that these four organization that compose the quadripartile are quite big organization and and what they what we are doing is huge in terms of coming up with systems which are making some sense between each other that align with each other even though they are different sectors. So there's a huge work in terms of coordination between the organization and between centers in general to to address that. Thank you our thank you very much u we we now we are receiving lots of question but but anyway I I I I might allow another two question because uh we run out of time but probably if any of you have any additional question uh you can email to us. So probably we we will can we we we will provide the answer for you in future and there's one question from Cambodia Dr. Sandro from Panagium. His question is many promising probiotic technologies have shown success in laboratory studies but their adoption by fish farmers remains limited from FO perspective. One of the major barriers to translating probiotic based innovation into practical disease prevention strategies for smallcale aquaculture farmers in Asia. Yeah, I think because even in Malaysia many farmers they they innovate their own you know probiotic or postbotic whatsoever but but since that is actually uh you know the fit editing whatsoever sometime they have to go through a lengthy process in order for for the products to be you know accepted worldwide. So your comment on that? >> Yeah and thanks thanks Fan for the excellent question. I think what I'm seeing as I'm reading through the question I see a common line and that's you know uh highlighting once again the gap and that is the implementation. So we we might have gen you know we might be able as as as globally to generate enough evidence to demonstrate that for example uh use of probiotic technology are successful in a laboratory setting but even that I would argue that we have evidence that the use of probiotics and other alternatives that are not antimicrobials are successful at farm level. We have demonstrated that what we are missing is that it's farmer doing it then somehow farmers might still think that the use of antimicrobials definitely is cheaper option. Hence they might believe that by using antimicrobials they might save money therefore the livelihood will be improved the the health of animals will be maintained but doing so they are contributing vastly to these major threats which will ultimately affect us as humans but also animals productivities and the environment. So here I would uh put my uh the emphasis of my answer will be to the awareness and engagement uh area and to the fact that I was mentioning before we need to identify who are the target audience for our awareness raising messaging. If it's a farmer, then we might use an economic investment case that demonstrate to them that by using less antimicrobials and raising biocurity or using probiotics, it's actually effectively increasing their production, maintaining their production or increasing it and saving uh funds and money and financials for them in say five years as opposed to maintain the same the same business u as it usual uh to to complete my answer I think in all the areas governance surveillance good production responsible use uh that I was showing we have uh quite a lot of evidence on what are the what is the good thing to do let's say um we have that I think in over 10 10 years we have we generated enough evidence. The issue is now on why countries or or stakeholders are not implementing those. Why are they still for example some countries is still using antimicrobials as growth promoters. Uh we we need to understand that and we need to provide those countries who have tools and and guidance for them to move away from these bad practices. uh uh using all all we have already developed. Thank you all. >> Thank you. Thank you uh for the answer. Probably just just I think this this is the last question from the participant Ciful from Indonesia. He's asking um how to integrate the reno farm into biocurity frameworks in national level. >> Yeah. So the the bio security heavily rely on the 5Gs that I was mentioning in my presentation. Those 5Gs are including different domains. Each of the 5Gs includes different domains. Those are you you can see them as opportunities for farmers or health workers to uh to utilize for the better. Um so how to integrate the rate of arm into biocurity framework at national level it's completely down to the government and and again I'm making a lot of links back to the awareness you've increase awareness on how grano farm initiatives and the five trees are going to be beneficial for the farmer for the agri food system transformation but ultimately for the uh you know human beings the productivity etc. We we do have evidence. It's just compiling evidence and transforming that into uh understandable language uh for farmers uh that needs to then apply the bio security framework in in their farms over. >> Thank you very much uh Dr. Allesandro and thank you also to all participant that actively participate by asking question. Um with that uh I believe all of us has already received uh you know available inputs again from uh Dr. Alessandro and and has been uh presented in the chat box. If there is any additional question you can send through email to us at a n_agree. Security upm.edu.mmy. With that uh on behalf of AU and EFS and also the FAO we are we would like to thank to all of you uh for participating to this uh webinar. Uh please uh uh get close to us because there's there's a series of technical lectures by FAO officers that that that going to be uh you know uh organized within this few days. So keep updated, keep check your email and before we end our session uh if you can take a group photo that would be great Miss Pim. Okay, thank you very much everybody. Thanks Dr. Asandro and to all of us to all of you. Uh have a good day. Bye-bye.