Panel Sees Urgent Need to Harness "Biotechnology Revolution" to Help the Poor and Protect the Environment: Calls on CGIAR to Provide Public Research for all Humanity

CGIAR news release on the preliminary findings of a report by an international panel of experts headed by Maurice Strong conducting the third independent System Review of the work of the CGIAR. The report urged the Group to take action to assure the benefits of biotechnology to the poor and the environment at a tiime when private sector investment in biotechnology research in the United States alone amounted to some US$ 9 billion annually. The products and processes being developed by this privately funded research were being patented in what Ismail Serageldin called a 'proprietary science regime.'