ISGA Farmers Share Biotechnology Experience with French Stakeholders

USDA FAS Global Agricultural Information Network published the outcome of the visit by the International Soybean Growers Alliance (ISGA) to Paris-based Brazilian Embassy. Farmer members of ISGA from Brazil, Paraguay and the US in a seminar entitled "Food Security and Biotechnology in the Americas and the EU: Today and the Future," illustrated how their cultivation practices, including no-till, crop rotation, and biotech seeds, have contributed to increased productivity, total production, and exports, while reducing environmental impacts, the report said.

Paris-based embassies of Brazil, Paraguay and the U.S. collaborated in the holding of the seminar which was opened by the Economic Counselor of the Brazilian embassy. Talks of country representatives in the ISGA group and a French feed compounder industry were delivered to around 30 representatives of the French government, scientific researchers, agro-food industry, and agriculture media who attended the seminar.

The ISGA group also held separate meetings with the French Senate, the Ministry of Ecology, and the High Council on Biotechnology. The points made by the ISGA groups raised significant interest and numerous questions among the French, who expressed needs to follow up with the three embassies involved, and more specifically on the sustainability and socio-economic impacts of agricultural biotechnology, the report said.

For more details on this event, download the document at http://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Biotechnology%20-%20Food%20Security%20-%20Sustainability%20in%20the%20Americas_Paris_France_7-9-2012.pdf.