developing countries to train personnel and develop 

 innovative programs for developing and promoting 

 appropriate, location-specific pest management systems 

 for both crops and livestock. 



An important complement to this initiative is U.S. 

 technical assistance related to the environmental 

 effects of pesticide use which concern health, 

 agricultural, and environmental officials in many 

 regions. We recommend that the United States enlarge 

 its assistance to departments of entomology in 

 developing country universities, work with government 

 officials on ways to minimize environmental problems 

 associated with pesticide use, and help make available 

 information on the efficacy and effects of alternative 

 pesticides in terms that are easily understandable to 

 governments, formula tors, applicators, and farmers. 



U.S. pesticide manufacturers should be encouraged 

 to provide on-the-job training for local technical 

 personnel and to supplement AID efforts in other 

 regards. For example, exporters could be required to 

 furnish importers with detailed, easily understood 

 information on toxicology, safe methods for use, and 

 appropriate warnings about the effects of misuse. 

 Also, all development agencies should be encouraged to 

 develop better means of predicting the environmental 

 effects of their programs. 



Finally, we recommend that the United States 

 support more complete worldwide collections of (1) germ 

 plasm, especially for crop varieties that have unique 

 resistances to specific pests, and (2) organisms 

 injurious to crops and livestock. U.S. computer 

 capabilities could be used more widely in developing 

 worldwide information banks and diagnostic services in 

 these fields. 



4. Overcoming Biological Limits to Plant Productivity 



Over the long term, sustaining the increases in 

 food production necessitated by a burgeoning world 

 population will depend increasingly on making crop 

 plants themselves more productive. Large, unexploited 

 possibilities still exist for applying available 

 breeding techniques and further identifying the genetic 

 potentials of various crop plants. However, the rate 

 of increase in crop yields by hybridization will 

 decline over time unless some of the fundamental 

 biological limits to plant productivity are overcome. 



Accomplishments in identifying further genetic 

 potentials have been quite limited to date. Indeed, 

 evidence suggests that the highest yields of rice and 

 wheat yet obtained may be close to the biological 

 ceilings as perceived by present levels of knowledge. 



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