Practical Aspects of the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture:

The Forum was launched on 9th March 2000. It is open to all parties interested in biotechnology in food and agriculture - NGOs, private industry, researchers, regional networks, private individuals and, the main target group, policy makers (especially those in developing countries). Registration is open to all, although active participants will be required to state clearly their affiliation, if they have any. The Forum is an official FAO activity co-ordinated by the FAO Inter-Departmental Working Group on Biotechnology.

The Forum hosts a series of e-mail conferences on specific topics that are discussed for a limited time period only. The topics have biotechnology as the core subject and may cover themes such as biosafety, public/private agricultural research, biodiversity, capacity-building, poverty alleviation, benefit sharing, intellectual property rights and food production, all topics as they relate to developing countries. As the Forum covers the broad range of activities found within the area of food and agriculture, it will include topics both of specific relevance to those interested in the animal, crop, fish or forestry sectors or of general relevance to all sectors. To register for any conference, individuals must first be members of the Forum and agree to abide by the rules of the Forum.

Before a given e-mail conference begins, all members of the Forum receive an e-mail message inviting them to join the conference and giving them information on the timing of the conference plus a background document written in "layman's language" on the topic to be discussed. For all topics, certain issues should always be addressed in the conference and sought in the outputs, such as the practical consequences of the topic for developing countries or the relative importance of the topic for different regions of the developing world.

Forum members who register for a given e-mail conference receive all e-mail messages from the conference, although they can sign off whenever they wish, and they may submit messages (of no more than 600 words) to the discussion. At the end of the conference, the discussion is terminated and a brief summary document, again in layman's language, is written and sent to all members of the Forum. At the same time, a more comprehensive summary document is also written and made available. The summary documents provide a synopsis of the main arguments and concerns discussed and, as such, aim to represent the current 'state of the debate' for that particular topic.

Each conference has a moderator, who screens all messages before they are posted to ensure that they follow the Guidelines for Participation in e-mail Conferences as well as the Rules of the Forum (e.g., that they are not offensive) and that they are relevant to the topic of the conference. The moderator plays an active role in the conference to ensure that the discussion is of high quality. The level of involvement of individual members of the Forum will differ greatly. Some may choose not to register for any conferences and will only receive the announcements and the background and summary documents of each conference, while others may register for many conferences.

See also:
How to join the Forum
Rules of the Forum
Guidelines for participating in the e-mail conferences