[Welcome everybody to this FAO e-mail conference on biotechnology in food processing in developing countries !!! The four weeks available for this conference will go very fast, so we encourage you to participate actively right from the beginning to get the maximum benefit from it. Participants are also reminded to briefly introduce themselves in their first message to the conference.

Thanks to Dr. Nand Lal from India for this first message. He asks some basic technical questions about malolactic fermentation and cheese and vitamin production. Note, the Background Document sets the scene for this conference and highlights the elements to be discussed here, so we strongly encourage you all to read it. It describes the current status of biotechnology in food processing and outlines the kinds of issues to be considered in discussions, such as the potential impacts of biotechnology on the socio-economic and cultural aspects of traditional fermentation processes in developing countries; the appropriateness of applying the different biotechnology tools to food processing in developing countries; intellectual property rights issues related to their application etc. etc. It is available at http://www.fao.org/biotech/C11doc.htm or request it from biotech-mod3@fao.org if you didn't receive it earlier...Moderator].