[img_assist|nid=178|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=100|height=43]In many countries population pressure, natural disasters, and changing climate conditions demand an urgent solution to the problem of food security. Genetic engineering claims to offer promising solutions, but is this a technology that can be applied with trust – and if so, under what conditions? Within the framework of the Dutch government debate on the subject, and under the auspices of the Terlouw Commission, we set up an international debate in which we invited an international audience to share their ideas and insights with us around the issue of biotechnology. We were especially interested to listen to “Southern Voices”. For that reason, the readership of the “Biotechnology and Development Monitor” was approached to participate. The reader ship consists primarily of policy makers in the public sector; scientists; industrial, farmers’ and consumers’ organizations; environmental and other non-governmental organizations; and university students in developing and industrialized countries. Other possible participants were approached through a variety of networks.

The aim of the first round of this online debate was to let the participants identify the issues they wished to discuss and form the agenda for the second round in which the in-depth discussion would take place. In the first round, in order to kick off the discussion a framework of four contentious issues was decided upon. These were: Food safety vs. food security, GMOs vs. organic, Private vs. public and Local vs. Global. The moderators put together a (so called) topic map from this first round. The methodology chosen and the results of this round were worked into a report documented in Appendix 2. Some 421 participants registered for this first round that took place over a period of two days (31 October to 2 November 2001).

A number of topics re-occurred across the different discussion rooms. Four of them formed the basis for the in-depth discussion aimed at in round two. They were chosen for

• their relevance to a worldwide debate on biotechnology and food,
• different opinions on the topic between participants from the North and the South,
• possible implications for Dutch policies.

Under the titles Poor patents, Options in food production, Rights and choices and Capacity building, the second round took place between 6 and 14 November 2001. To stimulate the debate daily contributions were summarized and every day a new question was posted to all participants as a basis for that day’s discussion. The number of participants rose constantly through-out the second round and reached a total of 529. The biggest groups of participants came from Europe (208) and from Asia (91), with participants from Africa (69), North and South America (77 and 55) on similar levels. The most active groups of participants came from India and the Netherlands. Interestingly enough, participants from Africa, North and South America contributed a similar number of contributions.
Participants intensively discussed biotechnology and especially genetic engineering in the context of international relations and regulations. They looked at the socioeconomic impact, and took past experience with agricultural research and development into account. A recurring theme in the discussion was that participants expressed that their ability to make their own choices is being limited in the following ways:

• access to technology (be it through lack of capacity or through IPR issues);
• farming practises that cannot coexist;
• decreasing access to seed and other agricultural resources;
• lack of financial and political power.

In various contexts throughout the discussion, participants articulated that genetic engineering in relation to food production has to be looked at from both the perspective from the natural sciences (for example environmental impact, food safety, risk assessment) as well as the social sciences (it is also deeply interwoven with the political issues of accountability, democracy, choice and empowerment).
The participants came forward with interesting proposals for moving he debate forward. The most intriguing and also most promising ideas probably emerged in the discussion about patents. Proposals were made of how to ensure both access to genetic resources and technologies, while still rewarding knowledge and research. The key proposals are outlined in Chapter 3. The four discussion rooms are summarized in Chapter 4.
It was interesting to note in the discussion that the opinions of the participants are not based on any clear-cut divide between “northern and southern perspectives”. Opinions were invariably determined both by the participant’s institutional setting and occupation as well as by their regional background. In most cases overlaps in argumentation are higher for example between members of different non-governmental organizations than between participants from the same country. Nevertheless, on issues like capacity building the specific experiences in developing countries led to specific input in the debate. The different groups of participants are described in Chapter 2.

The full text of the debate, as well as the reports on the first and second discussion round is available online at www.southernvoices.nl.