The First Asia --- Pacific Conference on Agricultural Biotechnology was
held in Beijing, China on 20-24, August, 1992. Over half the population
in the world is in the Asian and Pacific Region. With an increasing
population and decreasing farming lands, it is important to develop
agricultural biotechnology for improvement of the productivity,
profitability and stability of the farming system. The Conference's main
objectives were to bring together scientists working in different fields
of agricultural biotechnology to stimulate discussion on this important
process and to have an appraisal of the most recent studies concerning
genetic manipulation of plants, plant cell and tissue culture, plant
gene regulation, plant-microbe interaction, animal biotechnology etc.
The Conference was attended by 391 scientists from different countries
and regions. This volume presents the contributions of the lectures and
a selected number of posters, which are an up-to-date account of the
state of knowledge on agricultural biotechnology. The book provides a
valuable reference source not only for specialists in agricultural
biotechnology, but also for researchers working on related aspects of
agronomy, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, microbiology and
animal sciences. It is with great pleasure to acknowledge the
contributions of the authors in assuring the prompt publication of this
volume. We would also extend our sincere thank to Kluwer Academic
Publishers for the publication of these proceedings.