Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE)

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Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza is the Spanish name of the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, better known by its acronym CATIE. It specializes in the sustainable management of agriculture and natural resources. It describes its mission as improving the well being of rural populations by integrating education, research and innovation.

CATIE's headquarter is located in Turrialba, Costa Rica. CATIE has national technical offices in Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama and the Dominican Republic, as well as representatives in Belize, Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela and Washington in the USA.

History

At the beginning of the 1940s, Henry A. Wallace, the US vice-president and secretary of agriculture lobbied for the creation of an interamerican research institute specializing in tropical agriculture. As a result, in 1942 the Pan-American Union established in Costa Rica the Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA). CATIE was created en 1973 as an independent institute following an agreement between the government of Costa Rica and IICA.

Banana tissue culture laboratory

Created at the end of the 1970s, CATIE's biotechnology laboratory offers a commercial micropropagation service for a diversity of crops, including bananas.

The coordinator of forest, Musa and ornamental species is María Elena Aguilar Vega (email: aguilarm at catie.ac.cr; tel:+(506) 2558-2386)

References

Also on this website