"Learning from the past: Successes and failures with agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries over the last 20 years"

Source:http://biotech-zone.blogspot.com

A summary Document of the e-mail conference entitled  "Learning from the past: Successes and failures with agricultural  biotechnologies in developing countries over the last 20 years" that took  place from 8 June to 8 July 2009 is now out.  It was the 16th conference hosted by the  FAO Biotechnology Forum since its launch in 2000.(http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp). The report contains valuable insights on the status of use of Biotechnology in developing countries.

The 24-page document summarises the major issues discussed by participants during the moderated e-mail conference which took place as part of the build up to the FAO international technical conference on "Agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries: Options and opportunities in crops, forestry, livestock, fisheries and agro-industry to face the challenges of food insecurity and climate change" (ABDC-10), held in Guadalajara, Mexico on 1-4 March 2010 (http://www.fao.org/biotech/abdc/).

Participants in the e-mail conference shared a wealth of experiences regarding the use of agricultural biotechnologies across the different food and agricultural sectors in developing countries. They provided concrete examples where agricultural biotechnologies were benefiting smallholders in developing countries. They also discussed at length why specific biotechnologies, as well as agricultural biotechnologies in general, had not succeeded in developing countries and they offered suggestions to increase their success in the future.

So what is the status of Biotechnology use in Mauritius? Where are we? Could any one provide an update?
Since we did not had the opportunity to participate in this Forum, this is a ripe time to shoot a few ideas?
We strongly encourage you to widely disseminate this Summary Document. It is available on the web at http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/C16/summary.htm (in HTML) and http://www.fao.org/biotech/docs/learning.pdf (PDF, 107 KB).

Any comments on the document are welcome.

Thank You.