Ruth, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, everybody, for joining.

I thought this was a really, really insightful discussion.

So a big thanks to Joan and Marta for presenting and thank you to our panelists, Richard, Natasha, Ashley, for their insights, particularly around sort of what we do with the forecasts and the information and the monitoring that's being done.

Yeah, and Chris, thank you so much for hosting and leading us through all of this.

So I think we heard, I'm not going to repeat everything that we've heard, but just some things to reflect on that stood out were a moment of really concerning overlaps of conflict and weather that are going to have significant impacts on poverty.

And we're also at a moment where resources to respond are not as much as we would like to see.

Thank you, Ruth.

Hello, everybody.

It's a real pleasure to welcome you to today's webinar to launch the book Agricultural Trade at a Crossroads and to provide opening remarks.

I'll be brief in my remarks to get to the fantastic lineup that we have for you today with the authors of the book and others joining also.

So yeah, the trade liberalization and openness of the 1990s and early 2000s that created wealth and lifted millions of people out of poverty in low and middle income countries has stalled.

And now, if anything, we're seeing a move away from greater openness.

Agricultural trade is facing an increasingly complex environment shaped by geopolitical tensions, climate pressures, and growing trade disruptions.