The proceedings of the 2nd World Seed Conference, held on 8-10 September 2009 at FAO Headquarters, Rome, are now available, entitled Responding to the challenges of a changing world: The role of new plant varieties and high quality seed in agriculture. They contain the presentations, discussions and conclusions from the one-day Policy Forum and the five sessions of the two-day Expert Forum, dedicated respectively to the role of plant breeding in meeting the multiple challenges of a fast-changing world; importance of plant genetic resources for plant breeding - access and benefit sharing; plant variety protection; importance of quality seed in agriculture; and facilitation of trade and market development. The conference was organised by FAO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), International Seed Federation (ISF) and International Seed Testing Association (ISTA). See http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am490e/am490e00.htm or contact thomas.osborn@fao.org for more information.

The FAO Glossary of biotechnology for food and agriculture" was published in 2001, prepared by A. Zaid, H.G. Hughes, E. Porceddu and F. Nicholas, providing consolidated, comprehensive and accessible definitions of over 3,000 terms and acronyms that are used regularly regarding agricultural biotechnologies. It has proven to be a very popular reference source and has been translated into the five other official UN languages (i.e. Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) as well as Polish, Serbian and Vietnamese, while the terms have also been translated into Kazakh. All language versions are freely available from http://www.fao.org/biotech/index_glossary.asp. The glossary is currently being revised and updated in all six UN languages. As with the previous edition of the glossary, a participatory approach is being used in the review process. We would therefore very much appreciate any inputs and suggestions regarding a) addition of new terms/acronyms relevant to biotechnologies in food and agriculture; b) definitions for any new proposed terms; c) deletion of irrelevant/obsolete terms in the current glossary; d) improvement of existing definitions and correction of editorial mistakes in the current glossary; and e) correction of errors in translating from English to Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish. Please provide suggestions and comments to Preetmoninder.Lidder@fao.org by 31 July 2011.

The FAO Biotechnology Glossary was published in 2001 and contains over 3,000 terms and acronyms used regularly regarding agricultural biotechnologies. Through an arrangement with FAO, the Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology (IPBB) in Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, has just published a tri-lingual dictionary containing the original English terms plus their Russian and Kazakh translations. See http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/y2775kk/y2775kk00.pdf (2.6 MB) or contact gen_dana@mail.ru for more details.

The January 2011 newsletter from the Plant Breeding and Genetics Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture is now available. This 43-page newsletter, issued twice a year, gives an overview of their past and upcoming events (meetings, training courses etc.), ongoing projects and publications. See http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/pbg/public/pbg-nl-26.pdf (1.5 MB) or contact k.allaf@iaea.org to request a copy.

The January 2011 newsletter from the Animal Production and Health Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture is now available. The 39-page newsletter, issued twice a year, gives an overview of past and upcoming projects, publications and events. The editorial highlights the Joint Divisions contribution to the global eradication of rinderpest, including developing a network of laboratories to diagnose the disease, organizing training workshops, supplying diagnostic kits and manuals, provision of technical backstopping, producing international guidelines and developing regional technical cooperation projects in Africa and Asia. See http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/aph/public/aph-nl-53.pdf (1 MB) or contact S.Piedra-Cordero@iaea.org to subscribe to the newsletter.

On 8-9 October 2010, a joint Aarhus Convention/Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety workshop on public awareness, access to information and public participation regarding living modified organisms/genetically modified organisms was held in Nagoya, Japan. Its main objective was to enable participants to share experiences and lessons learned in promoting public awareness, access to information and participation in decision-making concerning LMOs/GMOs. An advanced edited version of the workshop report is now available, prepared by the secretariats of the Aarhus Convention (i.e. the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) and of the Convention on Biological Diversity. See the report, workshop documents and presentations at http://www.unece.org/env/pp/gmo.htm or contact fiona.marshall@unece.org or ulrika.nilsson@cbd.int for more information.

The FAO Biotechnology Glossary is now available in Chinese and Polish. In addition to translations of the terms and definitions contained in the original English glossary, the 337-page Chinese translation includes an English-Chinese vocabulary of biotechnology-related terms. The initial draft was prepared by FAO translators and reviewed by J. Zhao and X. Ma (both from the East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai). The Polish translation was carried out by I. Bartkowiak-Broda (Plant Breeding and Acclimatization Institute, Poznan), Z. Broda (Poznan University of Life Sciences), D. Grzebelus (University of Agriculture in Krakow), A. Korwin-Kossakowska (Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, Jastrzebiec), K. Niemirowicz-Szczytt (Warsaw Agricultural University) and E. Zimnoch-Guzowska (Plant Breeding and Acclimatization Institute, Mlochow). The 358-page Polish book concludes with an index of English terms. The original English version was prepared by A. Zaid, H. Hughes, E. Porceddu and F. Nicholas and provides consolidated, comprehensive and accessible definitions of over 3,000 terms and acronyms that are used regularly in biotechnology, including genetic engineering, and closely allied fields. It has previously been translated into Arabic, French, Russian, Serbian, Spanish and Vietnamese and all the language versions are freely available from http://www.fao.org/biotech/biotech-glossary/en/. To receive a copy of the Chinese glossary, contact charlotte.lietaer@fao.org providing your full postal address. Contact biotech-website@fao.org for any further information.