The benefits accrue to the United States, to Israel and to both countries together. Agriculture Benefits Studying the rapid multiplication of plants and food preservatives in bacteria are just two examples of the joint research projects conducted by South Carolina and Israel scientists under the auspices of the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund. BARD was created in 1978 with equal contributions by the United States and Israel. Since its inception, BARD has funded more than 800 projects in 41 states that have led to new technologies in drip irrigation, pesticides, fish farming, livestock, poultry, disease control and farm equipment. In 1998, it funded 21 institutions.
New projects promote increased quantity, and improved quality of agricultural produce.
For three years Professor Roy Young of Clemson University worked with the Volcani Center in Israel studying alternative techniques for micropropagation. Normally, parts of a plant are taken from a mother plant and when placed in a hormone solution called agre the plant material multiplies. Rather than using this base to grow the plants, Young used an alternative liquid sugar base solution to grow the membrane material. The results of this study have been the rapid multiplication of genetic plant material that are not only virus free but also exact replicates of the parent plant. Commercially, this is extremely useful because of the fast duplication of new virus free plants.