Group 5 of the Agricultural Council of the South (G5-CAS)

Issues around agricultural biotechnologies discussed at the APEC HLPDAB present similarities with the workings of the Agricultural Council of the South (CAS), including the involvement of the ministers of agriculture of participating economies. APEC economies may consider forming working groups within the HLPDAB to discuss technical challenges around agricultural biotechnologies and deploy ways to address them.

Created in 2003 with the objective of serving as a forum to discuss, coordinate, and deploy regional actions to address agricultural and environmental challenges, the Agricultural Council of the South (CAS) is comprised of the ministers of agriculture from participating economies. The technical and administrative secretariat for this group is operated by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). The CAS holds regular meetings to discuss topics of interest to the region.

The forum operates through technical groups that produce position proposals on topics relevant to agricultural policies after thorough analysis. One such group is Technical Group 5 (G5-CAS) on Public Policies on Biotechnology, which is overseen by the Agricultural Policy Coordination Network (REDPA).

Other technical groups include ones that focus on:

• Information Systems and Agricultural Policy Analysis
• Market Information Systems
• Risk Management and Agricultural Insurance: Public Policies on Climate Change
• Public Policies on Agroenergy
• Associative Enterprises and Beekeeping

The proposals prepared by the technical groups and discussed by the ministers of agriculture take the form of joint positions on issues of regional interest and are presented as ministerial declarations. Some examples of ministerial declarations issued by G5-CAS pertaining to products of recombinant DNA technology and genome editing are listed under “Relevant Links” below.