DR. Alicia Ilaga, director of the Department of Agriculture Biotech Program Implementation Unit, hopes that Melbourne, Australia's conference "will be an input to the current deliberation of the Provincial Board in Negros Occidental on Ordinance 007 series 2007."

The ordinance bans the entry and market of genetically modified or engineered agricultural products into Negros Occidental.

The conference, set Nov. 10-12, "is of particular relevance to the Philippines as it commits to use all available farming technologies - conventional, biotechnology and organic - as options to improve the agriculture sector," she said.

Slated to attend the conference are Board Members Enrique Miguel Lacson, who chairs the committee on food security and natural disasters & calamities; Nehemias Dela Cruz Sr., chair on livelihood & rural development and committee on energy, and lawyer Edgardo Acuña, chair on tourism and laws, ordinance & good government.

The international conference is on the coexistence between genetically modified (GM) and non-GM crops.

The GMCC '09 conference will bring together the scientific community working on coexistence between GM and non-GM agricultural supply chains, the DA said, adding that the event will cover key issues from production level to the market place or "from paddock to plate."

Key issues will include strategies for coexistence and organizational measures across the supply chain, socio-economics of coexistence and many others as well as highlighting the progress of the Australian approach in the coexistence of GM canola, DA said.