ABSTRACT
Lupin breeders and growers took the opportunity to consider some of these problems in greater detail and from different points of view. The principal intention was to determine how scientists could help the farmers, and to define the problems to be solved by scientific work. Research work in this field could be taken over by scientists of the Near East countries. At present L. mutabilis is grown as populations in the higher elevations, where conservative farmers are working in a traditional way. However, agricultural progress moves on rapidly. If new cultivation methods and new cultivars are introduced, the old populations would disappear, leading to a gene erosion and the loss of valuable unknown genes. The International Board for Plant Genetic Resources has been collecting lupins in the Andes for at least three years, particularly in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and will continue to work in Ecuador in association with IICA.
