IAEA, FAO to jointly organize the International Symposium on Plant Mutation Breeding and Biotechnology

The event brings together hundreds of international experts in plant mutation breeding, genetics and biotechnology to review achievements, new developments, trends and challenges in the field, and to foster an exchange of information within the scientific community.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will host a major conference on plant breeding techniques to meet some of today's biggest agricultural challenges, such as climate change, diseases and the need to feed a growing world population. The International Symposium on Plant Mutation Breeding and Biotechnology, jointly organized with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), will take place from 27 to 31 August in Vienna, Austria.

The event brings together hundreds of international experts in plant mutation breeding, genetics and biotechnology to review achievements, new developments, trends and challenges in the field, and to foster an exchange of information within the scientific community. Over the last 50 years, the IAEA and the FAO – through the Joint IAEA/FAO Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture – have played an important role in supporting the Member States in the use of induced mutations to develop improved plant varieties, thus increasing productivity and sustaining crop biodiversity.

Topics to be discussed include emerging transboundary threats to crop production and progress in developing disease-resistant bananas and coffee – two top world commodities threatened by a deadly fungus. Experts will also review novel mutation breeding techniques to develop crops more tolerant to drought and soil salinity, better animal feed and the overall contribution and impact of mutant varieties on food security.