SciDev.Net

The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) website is very extensive and well-maintained, with a wealth of background information, as well as regularly updated news items which focus on FAO's work and the work of its partners. It also runs a series of electronic conferences that aim to allow a wide range of parties, including governmental and non-governmental organisations, policy makers and the general public, to discuss and exchange views and experiences about specific issues concerning biotechnology in food and agriculture for developing countries.

The CGRFA is a permanent forum of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, where governments discuss and negotiate matters relevant to genetic resources for food and agriculture. Originally established in 1983, the forum aims to ensure the conservation and sustainable utilisation of genetic resources for food and agriculture, as well the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from their use.

Consumers International is a worldwide, independent, non-profit federation of consumer organisations, dedicated to the protection and promotion of consumer interests. It has a membership of more than 260 organisations in almost 120 countries. It strives to promote a fairer society through defending the rights of all consumers, including poor, marginalised and disadvantaged people. The organisation has a head office in London, with regional offices in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

CropLife International is a federation of multinational companies and national and regional associations working in plant science. It publishes information on agri-biotechnology, pesticides and sustainable agriculture. This includes regulatory codes and biosafety protocols, as well as position papers, opinion articles and technical monographs.

Their website highlights relevant initiatives around the world and includes a glossary of terms, frequently asked questions and links to industry associations, international and nongovernmental organisations, and online information providers. It also hosts a database on the benefits and safety of biotechnology containing a collection of academic papers reporting on genetically modified crop impacts around the world.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation is a United Nations body with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to better the condition of rural populations.

Future Harvest is a global initiative, incorporated in 1998 as a charitable and educational organisation to advance debate and catalyse action for a world with less poverty, a healthier human family, and a better environment. Future Harvest works to promote awareness and educate the general public and decision makers about the importance of food production and the role of agricultural science in meeting the human and environmental challenges of today and tomorrow. The 16 Future Harvest centres, located around the world, are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The World Bank and its partners are planning an international assessment that will guide policy makers on the key questions surrounding agricultural science and technology. The ultimate aim is to develop a policy environment in both developed and developing countries that is grounded in equity, that addresses key issues such as trade, IPR and land tenure, and that enhances agricultural productivity while encouraging the sustainable use of natural resources.

Established in 1977, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is one of 15 centers supported by CGIAR. ICARDA's mission is to improve the welfare of poor people through research and training in dry areas of the developing world, by increasing the production, productivity and nutritional quality of food, while preserving and enhancing the natural resource base.  ICARDA's research provides global benefits of poverty alleviation through productivity improvements integrated with sustainable natural-resource management practices. ICARDA meets this challenge through research, training, and dissemination of information in partnership with the national, regional and international agricultural research and development systems.

ICARDA serves the entire developing world for the improvement of lentil, barley and faba bean; all dry-area developing countries for the improvement of on-farm water-use efficiency, rangeland and small-ruminant production; and the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region for the improvement of bread and durum wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes, and farming systems.

ICGEB is dedicated to advanced research and training in molecular biology and biotechnology, with special regard to the needs of the developing world. It strengthens the research capability of its members through training and funding programmes, as well as advisory services. Specific research programmes are located in Trieste, Italy and New Delhi, India, addressing both basic and applied research problems, with particular attention to those pertinent to the developing world.

The ICTSD is a not-for-profit nongovernmental organisation aimed at improving dialogue and understanding about trade and sustainable development.  It works with a broad network of organisations, publishing information on and hosting events to discuss intellectual property rights, agriculture and environmental issues.

The ICTSD publishes a monthly review, Bridges, that contains information and analysis of international developments in the global trade debate.

CIAT is one of the 16 food and environmental research organisations known as the Future Harvest centres (which is principally funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). With headquarters in Colombia, CIAT's research mainly focuses on the agricultural needs of tropical America, and includes agrobiodiversity and genetics, ecology and management of pests and diseases, soil ecology and improvement, and rural innovation.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, apolitical, international organisation devoted to science-based agricultural development. It is one of the 16 Future Harvest centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Its research focuses on the farming systems of the semi-arid tropical areas of the developing world, where erratic rainfall, low soil fertility, and extreme poverty are formidable constraints to agricultural development.

IFPRI - one of the 16 Future Harvest centres - seeks to identify and analyse policies for sustainably meeting the food needs of the developing world. Research at IFPRI concentrates on economic growth and poverty alleviation in low-income countries, improvement of the well-being of poor people, and sound management of the natural resource base that supports agriculture.

CIMMYT is one of the 16 'Future Harvest' research centres, and is funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. CIMMYT's research includes improving wheat and maize varieties, distributing seeds worldwide, and maintaining banks of genetic resources.

International Rice Functional Genomics Consortium was formed in 2003 following publication of draft sequences of two rice subtypes by the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project. The Consortium will facilitate research in the post-sequencing "functional genomics" era. Objectives include establishing an integrated online network of rice functional genomics databases. The Consortium includes member institutes in China and India, as well as the International Rice Research Institute and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture.

ISAAA is an non-governmental organisation that aims to transfer and deliver appropriate biotechnology applications to developing countriesm and to build partnerships between institutions in the South and the private sector in the North, as well as strengthen South-South collaboration. ISAAA hosts an online 'knowledge center' and produces regular publications, most notably an annual global review of commercialised transgenic crops. Organised as an international network, it has centres in the Philippines, Kenya and the United States.

This website, run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), provides access to statistics, publications and documents and country-specific information on biotechnology in agriculture, fisheries and forestry as well as the role of intellectual property rights in innovation in biotechnology. It also provides news on biosafety issues and databases of biotech products and field trials.

This is a single page of links to agriculture and environment-related information, hosted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. When it comes to land degradation, the organisation is mostly concerned with developing numerical indicators in areas such as biological diversity, soil erosion, and farm management.

The BCH is designed to help parties to the Biosafety Protocol share information on living modified organisms. The website provides information on national regulations, risk assessments, regulatory decisions and clearances, a list of designated technical experts, information about existing genetically modified organisms and details on capacity building initiatives and projects.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission is an international body, established by the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, responsible for developing standards, guidelines and codes of practice to protect consumer health and maintain fair trade. It has convened an intergovernmental task force on food derived from biotechnology to specifically address issues related to genetically modified foods.

The Codex publishes information on maximum accepted residue limits for pesticides and veterinary drugs as well as multilingual publications on food hygiene, labelling and import and export certification systems.