[For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and
Agriculture see Forum website.
Note, participants are
assumed to be speaking on their own behalf, unless they
state otherwise.]
-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod3
Sent: 16 July 2004 10:19
To: biotech-room3@mailserv.fao.org
Subject: 68: Food biotechnology
This is K.K. Vinod from India again.
The conference has been tremendously useful to me to know the exciting avenues of food biotechnology. In countries like India, where traditional systems of food processing have been nurtured through the ages, the new avenues would, I am sure, pave the way to newer thinking in the minds of food scientists to improve and sustain the values of traditional systems. We have here many unique processes of milk processing, butter and cheese making as well as rice processing which I am sure are great biotechnologies, as the definition of biotechnology goes as "any technology involving biological organisms, living or dead using natural processes and products". Here agriculture itself is the ancient biotechnology.
Though the moderator rightly commented and cut the discussion thread on my earlier suggestions on genetically modified crops (message 26, June 23), I have been very enthusiastically reading through the comments from all over the world on food biotechnology. I wholeheartedly appreciate the moderator for the job. I expect to participate in future conferences, as this forum I find is novel and enthusiastic.
Though I have no specific comment to make in this last day of the conference, I am sure to say that this has been very informative. I appreciate all those who have participated. Thank you.
K.K. Vinod
Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics,
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,
Coimbatore 641003
Tamil Nadu
India
E-mail: kkvinod (at) myrealbox.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod3
Sent: 16 July 2004 10:28
To: biotech-room3@mailserv.fao.org
Subject: End of FAO conference on biotechnology in food processing
Dear Colleagues,
The last message (number 68), from K.K. Vinod, has been posted so Conference 11 of the FAO Biotechnology Forum, on "Biotechnology applications in food processing: Can developing countries benefit?", is now officially closed.
FAO established this Forum four years ago with the aim of providing quality balanced information on agricultural biotechnology in developing countries and to make a neutral platform available for people to exchange views and experiences on this subject. We hope that you found this conference both interesting and of value. All the messages posted will remain on the Forum website for people to read in the future, at http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/c11logs.htm. As is standard practice with conferences in this Forum, we will also prepare a Summary Document in the future to provide a summary of the main issues discussed during the conference, based on the messages posted and circulate it widely.
For your interest, we can provide some figures about participation in the conference. It ran for just over four weeks, from 14 June to 15 July 2004, and a total of 411 people subscribed, which is actually the second highest number of subscribers from the 11 conferences that we have hosted so far.
Of the 411 people, 38 (i.e. 9%) submitted at least one message. The greatest number of messages, 27 of the 68 posted (i.e. 40%), came from people living in Africa. This was followed by Asia (29%), Europe (21%), North America (7%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (3%). The messages came from people living in 19 different countries, with major inputs from India and Nigeria who together accounted for over 45% of all messages posted. A total of 48 messages (i.e. 71%) were from participants living in developing countries and 20 (29%) from participants in developed countries.
Roughly two thirds of the messages came from people working in universities (31 messages) or research centres, including CGIAR centres. The remainder came from people working as consultants, for farmer organisations, government agencies, NGOs, UN organisations or the private sector.
Finally, a very special and sincere thanks to all of the 38 individuals who submitted messages and who made this conference so interesting and useful.
JohnJohn Ruane, PhD
FAO Working Group on Biotechnology,
FAO website http://www.fao.org
Forum website http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp
FAO Biotechnology website http://www.fao.org/biotech/index.asp