The State of Food and Agriculture 2003-04 was prepared by a team from the Comparative Agricultural Development Service, led by Terri Raney. Team members included Jakob Skoet, André Croppenstedt, Annelies Deuss, Fulvia Fiorenzi, Slobodanka Teodosijevic and Stefano Trento. Secretarial support was provided by Stella Di Lorenzo and Paola Di Santo. General supervision was provided by Randy Stringer, Chief, Comparative Agricultural Development Service, and Prabhu Pingali, Director, Agricultural and Development Economics Division.
Part I, “Agricultural biotechnology: meeting the needs of the poor?”, was written by Terri Raney with contributions from many FAO technical units and international experts. Background research for Part I was conducted by Joel Cohen, José Falck-Zepeda, Thomas Hoban, John Komen, Anwar Naseem, Prabhu Pingali, Carl Pray, Terri Raney and Greg Traxler. Many of these papers have been published in the ESA Working Paper series and can be found at www.fao.org/es/esa. The FAO Inter-Departmental Working Group on Biotechnology provided additional background material, draft texts, reviews and financial support. The report benefited greatly from the support of the Working Group, in particular James Dargie, Chair. Full bibliographic references are supplied at the end of the report. In addition to the lead author, the main contributors to the chapters were as follows:
Chapter 2 (What is agricultural biotechnology?). Draft texts were contributed by Jonathan Robinson, James Dargie and Irene Hoffman. Additional material was taken from the background papers for the FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture prepared by John Ruane. Additional inputs were provided by Devin Bartley, Elcio Guimarães, Keith Hammond (retired), Hoan Le, Prakash Shetty and Pierre Sigaud. The following international experts generously contributed summaries of their ongoing biotechnology research: Mike Gale of the John Innes Centre on synteny; Miftahudin, Miguel Rodriguez Milla, Kathleen Ross and J. Perry Gustafson variously of Bogor Agricultural University, the University of Missouri and the United States Department of Agriculture on aluminium tolerance; and Tom Hash of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics on marker-assisted selection for downy mildew resistance in pearl millet.
Chapter 3 (Green to Gene). Background papers were prepared by Prabhu Pingali and Terri Raney, Carl Pray and Anwar Naseem, and Greg Traxler. Norman Borlaug and M.S. Swaminathan wrote special contributions for this chapter.
Chapter 4 (Economic impacts). Greg Traxler prepared a background paper and additional inputs were contributed by the following international experts: Kym Anderson, Richard Bennett, Liborio Cabanilla, Matin Qaim and Eric Tollens.
Chapter 5 (Concerns). Christina Devorshak, Daniele Manzella and Andrew Speedy contributed texts and background material. Alessandro Pellegrineschi and David Hoisington of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center wrote the box on the “clean gene” transformation technique and Allison Snow of Ohio State University wrote the box on the ecological assessment of transgenic crops.
Chapter 6 (Public attitudes). Thomas Hoban prepared a background paper on public opinion research and Janice Albert contributed the text on labelling.
Chapter 7 (Research policy). Background papers were prepared by Carl Pray and Anwar Naseem, Prabhu Pingali and Terri Raney, and Greg Traxler.
Chapter 8 (Capacity building). Background papers were prepared by José Falck-Zepeda, Joel Cohen and John Komen, and by Fulvia Fiorenzi.
Chapter 8 (Capacity building). Kakoli Ghosh contributed draft text with additional inputs from Andrea Sonnino.
Chapter 9 (Conclusions). Randy Stringer prepared the draft text for this chapter.
Part II, “World and regional review: facts and figures”, was prepared by Annelies Deuss and Jakob Skoet.
Part III, “Statistical annex”, was prepared by André Croppenstedt, Annelies Deuss and Randy Stringer.
The team is particularly grateful to the State of Food and Agriculture External Advisory Board, comprising Walter Falcon (Chair), Bina Agarwal, Kym Anderson, Simeon Ehui, Franz Heidhues and Eugenia Muchnik, who provided valuable guidance on the scope and focus of the report. External reviews by Hermann Waibel, Diemuth Pemsl and Sarah Hearne are gratefully acknowledged.
The report benefited from the work of the editors, designers and layout artists of the FAO Publishing Management Service.
