Around the world, plastics are finding their way into farm fields
In Uganda's Mbale district, famous for its production of arabica coffee, a plague of plastic bags locally known as buveera is creeping beyond the city. Despite “significant research gaps,” the evidence related to the land-based food chain “is certainly raising alarm,” said Lev Neretin, environment lead at the FAO, which is currently working on another technical report looking deeper into the problem of microplastic pollution in soils and crops. So therefore the demand on agricultural chemicals is increasing,” said Ole Rosgaard, president and CEO of Greif, a company that makes packaging used for industrial agriculture products like pesticides and other chemicals. “The mood is certainly not cheery, that's for sure,” he said, adding global cooperation “takes time, but the problem does not disappear.” Without political will, much of the onus falls on companies. In Uganda, owners of nursery beds cannot afford proper seedling trays, so they resort to cheaply made plastic bags used to germinate seeds, said Jacob Ogola, an independent agronomist there.
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