The period following the second world war has witnessed an expanding
commitment to incr ased food production in tropical countries. Public
and private initiatives at the national and international levels have
led to the creation of programs geared specifically towards the
improvement of food crops in tropical conditions. Examples of this
increased commitment are the network of international agricultural
research centers and numerous bilateral aid projects. As a consequence,
crop improvement has become a truly worldwide endeavor, relying on an
international network of institutions and collaborators. This holds also
for Phaseolus beans. Following the discovery of the Americas, Phaseolus
beans became distributed on all six continents. Yet, until not so long
ago, most of the research on Phaseolus improvement took place in
developed countries. In recognition of the nutritional importance of
Phaseolus beans in developing countries, this has changed considerably
in the last years, principally perhaps through the activities of the
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and the
International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR). Consequently,
the scope of the research on Phaseolus has broadened considerably and
the number of Phaseolus researchers is larger than ever before.