As part of its Land and Water Discussion Papers series, FAO has just
published "Coping with water scarcity: What role for biotechnologies?" by J.
Ruane, A. Sonnino, P. Steduto and C. Deane.


The 39-page book represents the outputs from an e-mail conference hosted by
the FAO Biotechnology Forum from 5 March to 1 April 2007.

The 39-page book is organised as follows:

* An introductory section, containing the acknowledgements and a preface
signed by three FAO directors I. Alvarez, P. Koohafkan and S. Pandey
* A brief introduction to the Forum and the conference. (Chapter 1)
* A background to the subject, circulated before the conference began. The
chapter gives an overview of the current status and future perspectives
regarding water availability as well as a discussion of some major
strategies that can be employed to deal with water scarcity. It then looks
at the issue of water use in agriculture in more detail as well as some of
the potential ways in which biotechnology could contribute to this area
(e.g. increasing the efficiency of water use in agriculture; application of
mycorrhizal fungi; or improving wastewater treatment). (Chapter 2)
* A summary of the main issues discussed during the moderated conference,
based on the messages posted by the participants, 75% of which came from
people in developing countries. The major topics discussed were the
application of biotechnologies (mainly genetic modification and
marker-assisted selection) to develop crops with improved drought resistance
or water use efficiency; the use of bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi in
water-limited conditions; and the use of biotechnology in wastewater
treatment. (Chapter 3)

The book can be freely downloaded from
[www.fao.org].

www.checkbiotech.org