In 1988, we were contacted by the "Societe Botanique de France" and the
French section of The International Association of Plant Tissue Culture
(IAPTC) to organise a symposium on "Biotechnology and its impact in
Agriculture". The committee members of these two French associations had
the vision to realize that this was a time to depart from the
traditional themes in plant science. Moreover, since one of the major
areas of our interest for the past few years has been that of "Plant
biotechnology", we welcomed the idea of organizing this meeting. Another
reason for the acceptance of this challenge was the location of Amiens
in Picardy, and the enthusiasm of the local governing authorities.
Picardy region is one of the major agricultural zones in France, and
indeed of Europe. This fact and several other aspects of Picardy
Agriculture suggested that this conference would be an excellent
opportunity to combine the basic aspects of plant tissue culture and
genetic engineering with the applications for plant improvement.