I am enclosing a document summarising the biotechnology developments in the livestock sector that FAO prepared for the 17th Session of its Intergovernmental Group on Meat. The study is based on a review of the nature of patents for basic animal biotechnological procedures and manipulations, for methods of improving animal productivity and facilitating animal reproduction, and for new veterinary capabilities and other purposes, as well as a general review of literature on the subject.

The assessment suggests that many of the trade effects of the new technologies are likely to be marginal, at least initially, though current trends towards increasing productivity is expected to continue. Initially, the three most important technologies from a trade perspective will most likely be those for disease control, which support large-scale production, as in pigs and poultry, those for quarantine-oriented disease, which could significantly increase (and also restructure) beef trade, and those oriented toward improving feed efficiency. Transgenic animals will come only later � they will probably be used first for smaller animals and may, because of proprietary technology concerns, be less widely available, particularly in developing countries. It is here that it may be most important to support public-sector research and to explore ways to develop appropriate intellectual property arrangements to ensure that these technologies can be available universally. These tendencies imply that the current concentration of research efforts in those areas where expectations of commercial success are the greatest may raise the comparative advantage of producers in the most developed countries. Without offsetting developments this could mean increased exports of livestock products from developed countries to the developing countries. Moreover, because of the complex technical issues involved there could well be a growing number of trade conflicts involving WTO panels.

A. A. G�rkan,

Chief, Basic Foostuffs Service, Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N.

Attachment ccpme987-7.pdf (45 k)

Dear Colleagues,

An e-mail conference lasting 2 months on the appropriateness, significance and application of biotechnologies, including DNA-based technologies in health, nutrition, growth and genetics, for the livestock sector in developing countries has just been launched by FAO. Some of you might be interested in joining, so further details are included below.

In March this year, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture (see the Forum website http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.htm [or http://www.fao.org/NEWS/2000/000305-e.htm for a news story about the launching of the Forum] ). The objectives of the Forum are: to provide an open forum that will allow a wide range of parties, including governmental and non-governmental organisations, policy makers and the general public, to discuss and exchange views and experiences about specific issues concerning biotechnology in food and agriculture for developing countries. This will be done through a series of e-mail conferences, each lasting two months, on specific topics, for which background (before the conferences) and summary documents (after) will be produced. The documents will be the object of an FAO publication.

The first 2 conferences were on the crop sector (now finished) and the forestry sector (ongoing, due to finish on 25 June). The fourth conference will be on the fish sector, beginning on 1st August. The third e-mail conference (Conference 3) of the Forum is on the animal sector and began on Monday 12 June (no messages are yet posted) and will finish 2 months later on Saturday 12 August 2000. The conference title is 'the appropriateness,
significance and application of biotechnology options in the animal agriculture of developing countries'. The purpose of this message is to invite you to join the conference. As the title suggests, the emphasis is on developing countries and we would especially encourage people from developing countries to join up and contribute to the conference.

A 5-page Background Document for the conference has been written and is available on the Forum website http://www.fao.org/biotech/C3doc.htm . It can also be received as an e-mail message using the "send listlog" command when you join the Forum.
To join the Forum, please send an e-mail message to [email protected] leaving the subject blank and entering the following one-line text message:
subscribe BIOTECH-L
No other text should be added to the message (e.g., mail signature) otherwise FAO's mailserv facility will reject the subscription request.

Forum members are not automatically subscribed to any of the conferences, so if you wish to join this animal sector conference, you should then subscribe yourself by sending an e-mail message to [email protected] leaving the subject blank and entering the one-line text message as follows:
subscribe biotech-room3
No other text should be added to the message (e.g., mail signature). You may leave the conference whenever you wish. This can be done by sending an e-mail message to [email protected] leaving the subject blank and entering the one-line text message as follows: -
unsubscribe biotech-room3
To contribute to the conference, send your message to
[email protected]
The e-mail conference is moderated, so that all messages are screened before they are posted to ensure that they follow the Guidelines for Participation in e-mail Conferences and the Rules of the Forum (e.g. that they are not offensive), are not too long and are directly relevant to the topic of the conference. All messages posted during the conference will be placed on the Forum website.

Please feel free to forward this message to others that you think might be interested.

John Ruane, PhD
Research and Technology Development Service (SDRR)
Sustainable Development Department
FAO
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome

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