International Colloquium on Plant Biotechnology; Further Progress in Productive and Sustainable Agriculture

The “International Colloquium on Plant Bio-technology: Further progress in productive and sustainable agriculture” was held from Nov. 20–21, 2003 at Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture. This Colloquium was organized by Prof. Taiji Adachi of Osaka Prefecture University. The symposium was very successful both in the quality of presented papers and the at-home atmosphere. In addition, it was a good meeting for the young researchers and even graduate students who had an opportunity to present their results in the very international and at-home atmosphere. The main aim of this Colloquium was to overview the recent developments in asexual transmission of genes by means of genetic recombination and somatic cell hybridization methods. However, the public acceptance of plant biotechnology is not good and the research activity itself sometimes causes social problems. Fortunately, there are some signs of increasing acceptance of new plant biotechnology in this new millennium. Thus, it is important to have this sort of symposium by researchers from not only advanced countries such as Germany and the US, but also from countries like Thailand, China, Korea, etc. The Colloquium was held at Rihga Royal Hotel, Sakai, on 20 th November, and on 21 st November the venue was moved to the Academic Convention Hall of Osaka Prefecture University. Twenty-one foreign researchers and one hundred twenty Japanese researchers including graduate students gathered together. The foreign researchers were from the US, Canada, Germany, Slovenia, Ukraine, India, Thailand, Indonesia, China, and Korea.