Hello from your faithless correspondent!  Things have been so busy here I’ve neglected you…will try to be better from here forward — most of my “work” obligations are now (thankfully) behind me, so I want to share with you my experiences from the conference. 

First, this is truly a global conference; in past years as many as one third of the attendees have come from outside the U.S.  And boy is that evident when you visit the exhibition floor which opened yesterday.  Once I figure out how to post pictures to this thing, I’ll share with you images of the colorful and elaborate booths from the trade show.  This is a real opportunity for countries to showcase their commitment to biotechnology.  And it has always struck me as ironic that some European countries who are so reluctant to voice support for biotech crops (that’s GMO crops to some of you) spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a strong presence at the conference to lure biotech companies to their countries because they want the economic revenue and clean, well paying jobs that come with biotech research and production facilities.  Go figure.

One of the largest country pavilions (this is no standard 10×10 booth) is for China.  Wow.  For anyone who hasn’t already realized that China is emerging as a global economic power, hello!  They are very serious about biotechnology, particularly for agricultural purposes.  They have a few billion people to feed and recognize that with biotech they can increase yields by making the crops more productive, but what is becoming even more important, adapting crops to deal with fluctuating climate conditions such as drought. 

I have to sign off as I’m headed to a session on biotech and sustainability.  This is a hot topic and I look forward to learning more about how biotech crops are uniquely suited to help with growing food in a sustainable manner.  More later!