Biotechnology is a technological revolution that can significantly contribute in achieving the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

Today, more and more powerful tools of biotechnology are finding applications in agriculture and natural resource management. Farmers and consumers benefited from cloning techniques that enabled mass propagation of healthy plants, improved breeds of animals and conserved biological resources. Biological fertilizers and biopesticides offer options for environment-friendly and cheaper farm inputs. Diagnostic kits led to prevention or better treatment of plant and animal diseases while molecular marker-assisted breeding enabled the development of improved plants and animals at a shorter time. Genetic engineering of plants, animals and microorganisms provide additional options in yield improvement, pest management and value adding in food production and post-production processes.

Southeast Asia is endowed with a wealth of biological resources that can be used for resource-based industries. These resources, if tapped judiciously for agri-based and life sciences industries, will contribute to the sustainable development of the region.

The impact of agricultural biotechnology can be best gauged in its application in ensuring food security and safety. Significant increases in hectarage of genetically engineered or biotech crops planted, from 1.6M ha in 1996 to 125 M ha in 2008, have benefited 13.3million farmers in 25 countries. The genetic engineering of plants and animals, however, has reaped both positive and negative responses.

Initiatives in capacity building and in communicating and exchanging knowledge on agricultural biotechnology are credited for its unprecedented adoption from North to South. These initiatives form the building blocks for knowledge management in agricultural biotechnology that involves integrating the promotion of learning and a learning culture, knowledge use through improved access to knowledge resources, and knowledge creation through platforms that allow exchange and synthesis of knowledge.

In Asia, the experiences and lessons learned in biotechnology research and development both in public and private sectors have largely remained undocumented. A substantive amount of the tacit knowledge remains in the minds of managers, developers and practitioners. In this era of the knowledge economy, proactive knowledge management has become essential to keep in step with the challenges in food security and safety in today’s rapidly changing world.

Knowledge management (KM) is the sourcing or deploying of at least four types of knowledge assets (people, processes and structures, stakeholder or support from outside the organization, and technology) so that they create value for individuals, organizations, communities and societies. KM defines “knowledge” as capacity for effective action – “what works” and not just “what is” (information).

KM initiatives applied to agriculture and rural development have incorporated capacity building through social learning and field application; networking and peer mentoring; workshops for reflection and synthesis; and development and publication of knowledge and learning materials in various formats. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) figure prominently in these initiatives.