Author : Sutat Sriwatanapongse

Summary : The paper briefly reviewed global trends in agricultural biotechnology research and applications, including commercialized products. Two major issues were cited to affect biotechnology in agriculture, food, medicine and natural resource management: intellectual property rights and biosafety. Almost all ASEAN countries, except Indochina, have their own biosafety guidelines which are in general, based on those from developed countries such as the USA, Japan and Australia. field testing of genetically modified (GM) crops has been done in China, Japan, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. However, only China has allowed commercialization of GM crops. Further, two major problems in biotechnology R&D in the region were identified: shortage of skilled manpower in biotechnology (and other areas as well) and linkages between research and commercial sectors. Capacity building has been addressed in the region through various networks including the Asia-Pacific International MOlecular Biology Network (IMBN), the Asian Rice Biotechnology Network, the Asian Maize Biotechnology Network and the Papaya Biotechnology Network. It was recommended that international and regional organizations in the region help developing countries in capacity building.