FAO has been carrying out a global survey to assess plant breeding and related biotechnology capacity with the objective of designing strategies to strengthen national and regional abilities to use plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. A number of draft reports on national plant breeding and biotechnology surveys are now available on the web (for Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). In addition, FAO, in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), recently carried out a series of workshops in Central Asian countries on designing strategies to strengthen the sustainable use of plant genetic resources. Draft reports from the workshops held in Uzbekistan (6 April 2006) and Tajikistan (8 April 2006) are now available. For both the national surveys and the workshop reports, see the "what`s new" section of http://apps3.fao.org/wiews/wiews.jsp or contact [email protected] for more information.

26/04/2006