While all technologies involve risk, the issues that surround biotechnology, especially its application in agriculture, have generated a lot of emotional debates. The Philippines, as the first Asian country that approved a genetically-engineered crop (Bt corn) for propagation, food, and feed, has a unique experience to share in its information campaign in biotechnology.

Ms. Sonny P. Tababa, Network Administrator of the SEARCA Biotechnology Information Center (BIC), shared BIC’s experience in public education and communication with scientists from government and universities in Bangladesh. Occasion was the Biotechnology Issues and Risk Communication Workshop held last 19-20 June in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her discussion focused on the Philippine experience with the biosafety evaluation of Bt corn.

The workshop also demonstrated the South-South experience in biotechnology as other resource persons from the Philippines and Thailand talked about the assessment of biotech crops in terms of environment and food safety as well as socioeconomic concerns. The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), the Bangladesh Biotechnology Information Centre (BangBIC), and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) sponsored the workshop. (SPTababa)

- SEARCA Diary, June 2005
( http://web.searca.org/sdiary.asp?SDArticleID=100).