Combining Knowledge with Fun in Ravello

The emergence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the mid-1990s raised major questions. What would their impact be on yields, costs, profitability, pesticide use, and the environment? Who would benefit from the technology, and who might lose? How should intellectual property rights be managed? What were the implications for international trade, and what role would regulation play?

Several of us were intrigued by these issues. With support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and with colleagues from Yale, Berkeley, and other institutions, we began meeting in Rome in 1996. We moved to Ravello in 1999 and the consortium took formal shape over the following years. In 2026, we celebrated its 30th annual conference.

Several factors explain ICABR’s resilience and success:

An evolving research agenda 

We started as a consortium emphasizing biotechnology. In the early years, presentations on the impact of GMOs. They documented that adoption of technology tend to increase yield, reduce use of very toxic chemicals use, and increase profitability even among small farmers. Other presentations warned about the risks of concentration of ownership of technologies in few hands and developed proposals to provide access to the technology to small farmers in developing country. Some presentations showed that the gain from GMOs were not captured by the technology provided but distributed among consumers, technology providers, and producers, including small ones. After 1999, much of emphasis shifted to assess the impact of regulations of GMOs. It was practically banned in Europe and adopted mostly in the Americas. Presentations show that African countries could gain from adoption of GMOs but these gains didn’t materialize because of European pressure that prevented adoption.

Around 2006 and 2007, biofuels emerged as major topic. Presentations considered the profitability of biofuel production, documented the food-versus-fuel tradeoffs, arguing that less regulation of GMO will enable more of both. We found that not all biofuels are alike and while some make economic sense others do not. Biofuels opened the door to a broader transformation of the consortium to study the bioeconomy. The bioeconomy includes sectors of the economy that utilize renewable natural resources to produce food, materials, and energy. The modern biotechnologies enhance the capabilities of the bioeconomy, and it can provide solutions to climate change and rural development. We investigated the potential and impacts of the bioeconomy and its performance under alternative policies.  

From an Economics Core to a Multidisciplinary Consortium 

The founders of ICABR were economists. The nature of the problems expanded the range of disciplines to include other social scientists and biologists. Executives from the private sector contributed practical perspectives on research, commercialization, and regulation. This multidisciplinary structure gave the consortium the flexibility to move into new areas without losing its identity. As the notion of bioeconomy is gaining popularity and importance, ICABR is establishing relationships with other organizations in the field.

Leadership Renewal and Organizational Resilience 

The leadership of the consortium was challenged to secure resources, recruit participants and speakers, and design and manage conference programs based on membership input. ICABR operated with a relatively lean model: only a limited number of participants could be fully supported, while most paid their own travel and accommodation. There was informal division of responsibilities among the founding generation, Vittorio Santaniello was responsible for the website, the local arrangement and the tours. Bob Evanson from Yale Provided intellectual leadership, especially in innovation and IPR. I was aiming to attract mostly agricultural and environmental economists to the program. Pasquale Scandizzo contributed to obtain resources that led us to Ravello, and Peter Phillips started the Saskatoon connection. FAO (through Joe Cooper and Prabhu Pingali) and University of Rome Tor Vergata provided support in the early years.

The deaths of Bob Evenson and Vittorio Santaniello created a major leadership gap. Carl Pray played a critical role in filling it. Together with Sara Savastano and, later, Justus Wesseler and Stuart Smyth, and expanded the consortium’s activities. Leadership renewal also supported meetings and workshops in a wider range of locations, including Berkeley, Washington, D.C., Nairobi, Bologna, and Buenos Aires. 

We are now seeing a third generation of leaders, including Stuart Smyth, José Falck-Zepeda, Regina Birner, José Maria Ferreira, Madhu Khanna, Yanhong Jin, Dušan Drabik,Ruslana Palatnik and Vincenzina Caputo. This generation includes substantially more women in leadership and a broader range of geographic, disciplinary, and professional backgrounds. That diversity should strengthen the consortium and help it address the next generation of bioeconomy challenges.

Combining Knowledge with Fun

From the beginning, we deliberately made the meetings fun. In Rome, we had a private visit to Villa Borghese and a late-night visit to the Vatican. We ate in some of the city’s best restaurants and sometimes felt as though we were taking part in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.

The early meetings in Ravello were held in Villa Rufolo and we stayed mostly in Hotel Bonadies. We later discovered more of Ravello, including Villa Cimbrone, and organized excursions to Capri and Positano. The concerts on top of the cliff in Villa Rufolo were outstanding. The gala dinners were held in remarkable locations with culinary pleasures and showed that even some academics can look glamorous. Frequently, participants brought their spouses and families, and established friendships among us, which motivated people to return. The combination of knowledge and fun became one of ICABR’s distinctive strengths.

This Year’s Meeting

This year’s meeting was both engaging and of high quality. We expanded the topic beyond the traditional emphasis on agricultural biotechnology and biofuel policy to include the blue bioeconomy (the use of algae as a source of food and in waste management)—and forestry, particularly the use of trees for timber. I was encouraged to see new members joining us, participate in the emerging summer school, and I’m excited about next year’s meeting at Berkeley.

For me, this year’s meeting was especially meaningful because I brought my family to Ravello. For many years, I had told them how much I enjoyed Ravello. All 15 of us—Leorah and I, our three sons and their families stayed at Hotel Bonadies, enjoying the hospitality of Suita and her staff and had a wonderful time together for several days. We enjoyed a concert high above the sea, visited Capri and Positano, enjoying the magnificent cities, though not the crowds. We toured a buffalo dairy, with fascinating automated milking and massage technologies that contribute to the production of excellent cheese. The visits to archaeological sites of Pompeii and Paestum, and the outstanding archaeological museum in Naples (which houses many works of art and artifacts recovered from Pompeii) were special. The children—and the adults—were impressed by the structures and the art created more than 2,000 years ago. It was special to share my excitement about futuristic capabilities discussed in ICABR with the appreciation of the beauty and rich past of Ravello.