BEAN/COWPEA COLLABORATIVE
RESEARCH SUPPORT PROGRAM

Proceedings

These publications were made possible through support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, (USAID) under the terms of Grant DAN-G-SS-86-00008-00. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect that of USAID.

The following is a summary of these Proceedings. The Bean/Cowpea Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) convened a Midcourse 2000 Meeting of its Principal Investigators and Regional Facilitators at the Kellogg Center on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing, Michigan, on April 9 to 14, 2000. Scientists involved in bean and cowpea research, representing regional projects in West Africa, East Africa and Latin America/Caribbean, were in attendance. This meeting was important because it represented the only opportunity for all the Principal Investigators from the three continents to come together during the current FY 1997-2002 Extension period of the Bean/Cowpea CRSP. Primary objectives of the meeting included reporting and sharing of significant research and training achievements and impacts involving bean and cowpea, and planning for the next phase of the Bean/Cowpea CRSP (FY 2002-07).

At the onset of the current phase, it was recognized that efforts to find solutions to the problems associated with the burgeoning world population, including insufficient food availability, malnutrition, poverty and environmental degradation, were stymied by the lack of multi-disciplinary research. Research involving input and collaboration by scientists with diverse expertise at both the planning and execution stages was necessary to address effectively the complex problems confronting the developing countries of Africa and Latin America.

Recognizing this necessity, the Bean/Cowpea CRSP implemented a new regionalized structure for the extension phase (1997). Teams of U.S. and Host Country (HC) scientists and partner institutions were convened to integrate their resources and to work in a collaborative and comprehensive manner to overcome major constraints identified within their respective regions. Three Regional Teams, each with a specific bean or cowpea focus and with collaborating U.S. scientists were organized: West Africa (Cameroon, Ghana, Sénégal), cowpea; East Africa (Mala
i, Tanzania), bean; Latin America/Caribbean (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, México), bean.

Readers of these Proceedings are encouraged to review and assess for themselves the progress and success of Bean/Cowpea CRSP scientists in addressing the constraints which are the focus of the current five-year extension of the program. It is my hope that you will find these scientific achievements to be exciting, thought provoking, and of benefit to your individual scientific research endeavors and/or efforts in international agriculture development. I also hope you will be impressed with the overall commitment of Bean/Cowpea scientists to making a positive difference not only to the U.S. bean and cowpea industries, but also in the developing countries of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

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