The Twelfth Session of the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture take places at FAO headquarters, Rome, Italy on 18-20 January 2023. Several biotechnology-related items are on the agenda for this meeting. These include ‘Monitoring the diversity of animal genetic resources for food and agriculture’ (agenda item 4), for which an information document entitled “Methods for estimation of within-population genetic variation” has been prepared which explores the availability of, access to, and optimal use of genomic and/or breed demographic data to estimate parameters that may be suitable to complement breed population size data as indicators for monitoring the genetic diversity within livestock breeds. The agenda also includes ‘“Digital sequence information” and animal genetic resources for food and agriculture’ (agenda item 9), for which the working document “Digital sequence information and genetic resources for food and agriculture” has been prepared which provides information on how “Digital sequence information” is generated, stored, accessed and used for research and development related to genetic resources for food and agriculture, and summarizes relevant developments that have taken place in other fora, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, prior to 15 November 2022, drawing on a longer study that is also provided as an information document. See https://www.fao.org/animal-genetics/events/events-detail/en/c/1603813/ or contact [email protected] for more information. Working documents for the meeting are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish while information documents are provided in English.