Several recommendations were forwarded by participants of the International Conference on Biotechnology-based Sustainable Agriculture held in New Delhi, India last December 19, 2009. The conference was organized by the International Life Sciences Institute-India and co-sponsored with the Department of Biotechnology, among others. Among the recommendations were:

• Government, industry and academic institutions must invest adequately in agricultural biotechnologies through capacity building with emphasis on education, training and research.
• Tissue culture micropropagation is a simple and cost effective technology which has not been adequately utilized and should be extensively used for mass seed production of certain crops.
• Transgenic technology holds significant promise for developing crop varieties possessing resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses.
• DNA marker technology such as marker assisted selection (MAS) possesses tremendous potential for precision gene transfer and should be effectively used for improving various agronomic traits and crop productivity.

For the complete discussion of recommendations, visit http://www.ilsi-india.org/PDF/Conf.%20recommendations/Biotechnology/Int-Conf-Biotechnology-Based-Sustainable-Agriculture2009.pdf