International Programs

Plant pathologists are necessarily involved in any international IFAS program where the objectives are crop production and storage. Considerable knowledge can be gained from international programs and be brought back to augment our domestic programs. Crop production technologies in developing countries may indeed require less energy than in domestic programs. But information gained from successful international programs may still have direct application and benefits in Florida.

IFAS has many ongoing international plant pathology programs in Latin American countries. Through the study of sugarcane rust, cacao witches' broom, viruses of legumes, and banana black sigatoka diseases, IFAS has developed ties with Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, and other countries. The resulting benefits of such ties can be seen, for example, by the recent development of a computer simulator to describe epidemics of coffee rust in Brazil.