FAO has just released a major publication on “The state of the world's aquatic genetic resources for food and agriculture”, a 251-page report which assesses the current understanding and use of aquatic genetic resources (AqGR) for the benefit and sustainability of aquaculture. It investigates the trends and looks at the roles of current AqGR stakeholders, research, education and legislation. The main body of information synthesized in the report came from country reports submitted by 92 governments, in response to a questionnaire prepared by FAO. The questionnaire contained a number of specific questions about use of a range of biotechnologies that can be applied to characterise and develop AqGR and the FAO report presents data on the levels of application of these technologies with selective breeding being the most widely applied. The report also drew on five specially commissioned thematic background studies, one of which was dedicated to “Genome-based biotechnologies in aquaculture”, written by Zhanjiang Liu. See the related press release at http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1205417/icode/ (in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish), the report at http://www.fao.org/3/ca5256en/CA5256EN.pdf (5.8 MB) and the thematic background study at http://www.fao.org/aquatic-genetic-resources/background/sow/background-studies/en/.