Biotechnology experts in India to advice on parasitic infections

Biotechnology experts are visiting India on Monday (Feb 23) to provide advice on how to reduce parasitic infections which destroy crops and animals.

The experts from Queen's University have been invited to share their expertise at the International Colloquium on Emerging Biotechnologies in Agriculture, Animal Health and Productivity which is due to run from the whole of this week.

Gerry Brennan, leading the delegation to India, said the country urgently needs to modernise.

Brennan said India is now a world-leading nation in terms of social, technological and economic development, so it urgently needs to modernise and expand agricultural productivity, particularly in the livestock sector, to maximise self-sufficiency in food supply and to raise gross domestic product for a rapidly expanding and increasingly urbanised population.

In response to this need, he said corporate farming enterprises in poultry, cattle, sheep, goats, buffalo, dairy, meat and aquaculture production are developing rapidly and modern production methods are being used across India.

He added that the current field of research at Queen's into veterinary and agricultural parasite control serves to showcase the application of biotechnology in modern agricultural practice.

Parasitic infections cost the world economy around US$200 billion in lost crop production and US$5.3 billion in animal health each year.

The conference at Alagappa University, in Tamil Nadu, southern India, will aim to provide a forum for Indian scientists to hear from overseas experts about biotechnology and livestock-based agriculture.