On 5-7 March 2005, an international workshop was held in Turin, Italy entitled "The role of biotechnology for the characterisation and conservation of crop, forestry, animal and fishery genetic resources", organised by the FAO Working Group on Biotechnology, the Fondazione per le Biotecnologie, the ECONOGENE project and the Società Italiana di Genetica Agraria. Proceedings of the workshop have now been made available on the web. The 20 papers, covering applications of molecular markers, cryopreservation and reproductive technologies, are organised in the following way: Session I on the status of the world`s agricultural biodiversity; Session II on the use of biotechnology for conservation of genetic resources; Session IV on genetic characterisation of populations and its use in conservation decision-making. Session III presented results from ECONOGENE, a European Union funded project combining a molecular analysis of biodiversity, socio-economics and geostatistics to address the conservation of sheep and goat genetic resources and rural development in marginal agrosystems in Europe. The workshop was held as part of the build up to Conference 13 of the FAO Biotechnology Forum. See http://www.fao.org/biotech/torino05.htm or contact [email protected] to request the proceedings by e-mail.

12/03/2005