Forest Genetics - The U.S. Contribution To International Forestry - The Federal Role

Following World War II, the U.S. Government began a major program to reduce hunger and malnutrition in many countries. Their effort became known as the Food for Peace Program. Funds from this effort led to a special research program in over 50 countries. As part of this effort forest geneticists from both the U.S. and 30 countries initiated joint research in flowering physiology and vegetative propagation, seed orchard management, breeding, species introduction trials, and studies in quantitative genetics. Currently forest genetics studies are still underway in 5 countries supported by the Special Foreign Currency Research Program. In the last 15 years, forestry has played a more important role in the foreign policy of the United States. Through such State Department agencies as Agency for International Development (AID), major forestry schemes have been developed. In support of these forestry development efforts, modest research and development programs have been initiated in forest genetics in over 35 countries. For the most part these have included the initiation of species tests and the training of foreign forest geneticists. These efforts are currently supported by Science and Technology agreements between the U.S. and the other nations. Additional keywords: Foreign forestry, science and technology exchanges, germplasm exchanges.

Download this file:

Download this file

Details

Author(s): Stanley L. Krugman

Publication: Tree Improvement and Genetics - Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference - 1983