Asian International Preparatory Meeting for Rio+20, MOP6, COP 11, and CSD20

More than 80 officials, scientists, and experts, as well as delegates to the upcoming Rio+20, MOP6, COP11, and CSD20 from 17 countries in Asia and neighboring regions shared their knowledge and expert opinions on local, regional and global concerns during the "Asian Regional Workshop on Sustainable Agriculture, Biotechnology and Biosafety" held at the Rama Gardens Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand last January 10-12, 2012.

Organized by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI), and the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS), the workshop focused the discussions on the topics of the upcoming international meetings, how each are interrelated, and the national implementation of these meetings' outcomes in the participating countries.

The workshop was facilitated by Mr. Piet van den Meer from PRRI who emphasized that the forum is for information exchange and not for negotiation, with the main goal of collecting from everybody a little bit of information, rather than reaching a consensus, so as to get a complete picture of what's happening. The participants were also briefed and updated on global food security and the developments and the status of biotechnology to address its issues from the presentations of Dr. Julian Adams of PBS and Dr. Paul Teng of the National Institute of Education of Singapore.

Other key topics in the workshop were the practice of risk assessment and regional collaboration (presented by Dr. Kazuo Watanabe of Tsukuba University together), capacity building (presented by Dr Julian Adams), the Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress (Dr. Dominic Muyldermans of CropLife International), and Socio-Economic Considerations (Dr. Jose Falck-Zepeda of PBS). Also reviewed were the functioning of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the background and history of the international meetings.

For more information about the workshop, visit http://www.isaaa.org/workshop/2012-01-10-bangkok/ or send an e-mail to bic@agri.searca.org.