As part of an overall strategy of enhancing interdisciplinarity within FAO, a number of priority areas for interdisciplinary action (PAIAs) were identified a few years ago. One of these was biotechnology and a major role of the Biotechnology PAIA has been to provide factual, comprehensive and updated information about agricultural biotechnology. This is done through, for example, the FAO Biotechnology website, the newsletter FAO-BiotechNews, and a series of e-mail conferences hosted by the FAO Biotechnology Forum. An evaluation of the Biotechnology PAIA took place at the end of 2005 where stakeholders were invited to fill out a questionnaire soliciting their views on the Biotechnology PAIA activities. In response, a total of 174 questionnaires were received, from over 60 different countries with over half of the questionnaires coming from people living in developing countries. A 7-page summary of the survey results is now available on the web. See http://www.fao.org/biotech/docs/surveyfaopaia.pdf or contact [email protected] to request a copy by e-mail.

19/10/2006