Cassava is uniquely suited for food security and economic development in unfavored areas of the tropics. Development research for cassava is an urgent need. In 1998, the Cassava Biotechnology Network (CBN) convened a workshop of cassava stakeholder groups in Latin America. After hearing an opening statement from representatives of small-scale cassava producers and processors, stakeholders formulated a consensus set of research and development (R&D) priorities. An adequate supply of good-quality planting material of desired varieties was clearly the most urgent, followed by R&D on market-value traits; yield losses due to pests, diseases, and drought; and cropping system flexibility.Two new projects are using in vitro techniques to address priorities of small-scale cassava farmers in Latin America. One project in Colombia combines a nongovernmental organization, a local farmers' association, and the international research center, CIAT, to explore affordable micropropagation. Findings to date show that most culture medium components can be replaced with local products, and a rustic growth room permits good culture growth without electricity or air conditioning. Low-costs system(s) developed will be assessed as a local microenterprise.A second project, in Ecuador, couples local cassava germplasm (with oral histories and an in vitro back-up collection) and elite clones (introduced in vitro) with new concepts in agribusiness development, to restart local farmers' cooperatives after the disastrous 1998-99 el Nifio floods. The project was developed through group planning by the cooperatives, the local technical university, the national agricultural research program, and CIAT.Research to improve in vitro tools focuses on safe and stable conservation and exchange of cassava genetic resources, long-term, less expensive conservation, rapid clonal propagation, and ultimately, genetic transformation technologies to add desired traits to useful cassava varieties.

Este artigo se baseia no reconhecimento de que as melhorias institucionais da democracia processuais têm buscado cotas maiores de participação eleitoral, que têm sido cruzado com um uso parcial do voto ordinal que sugere cotas de decisão mais baixas eleitoral.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, citrus fruits dominate the worldwide production of all fruits. Because of its geographical position, Ecuador has favourable growing conditions for citrus fruit production and most of the country has favourable conditions for plants and their relationships with environmental conditions. The objective of the present research was to determine the reproductive phenology of lemon sutil (Citrus aurantifolia Swingle) under varying soil moisture levels. A Database Configuration Assistant) using a Randomized Complete Block design as applied and four treatments and six repetitions were distributed as follows: treatment 1 [crop coefficient (Kc) 0.3], treatment 2 (Kc 0.5), treatment 3 (Kc 0.7) and treatment 4 (Kc 0.9). Fruit quality, skin and pulp weight, seed quantity, juice content, degree Brix and polar and equatorial diameter were evaluated, and the phenology was adjusted to BBCH scale coding. No statistically significant difference was found during the study that resulted from rains that homogenised the entire substrate and maintained soil moisture. We established that from the phenological phase of primordia to fruit harvest, there was an interval of 138-140 d wherein the average weight of the fruit (42.62 g) fluctuated according to the weight of the skin (7.65 g), weight of the pulp (34.73 g), number of seeds (5.05), amount of juice (14.36 mL), degrees Brix (5.5), polar and equatorial diameters (44.32 and 42.12 mm, respectively) and the titratable acidity (6.54%). We concluded that the Kcs proposed in the present research should be evaluated during the dry season because, in this investigation, irrigation was induced by Kc for only 2 months after the rains.

Esta tesis, parte de un contexto electoral en la región andina marcado por las mejoras institucionales de la democracia procedimental a través de la apertura del sistema electoral para escoger las autoridades legislativas, sin embargo, la búsqueda por mayores cuotas de participación electoral se ha cruzado con una utilización parcial del voto que sugiere menores cuotas de decisión electoral.