THIS Symposium has been organized to provide an opportunity for reviewing the potentialities of nuclear science techniques in the soil and crop sciences, and the extent to which those techniques are already being and could be applied in countries in the Pacific region. When, in 1955, the international programme for promoting international cooperation in developing the peaceful uses of atomic energy was initiated under United Nations auspices, it was, of course, the possible contributions of atomic energy to power production that appeared at first sight to be of greatest interest. Even at that time, however, the significance of atomic energy for agriculture was receiving much attention, and an evaluation made in the United States of America in 1956 by Dr. Willard Libby, then one of the Commissioners in the United States Atomic Energy Commission, suggested that the potential economic contribution of atomic energy to agriculture and food production could be of approximately the same order of magnitude as its contribution to the generation of electric power. In view of the imperative need to make the fullest possible use of all advances in science for the benefit of agriculture and food production if the rapidly expanding populations of the world are to be adequately fed and clothed, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) initiated, in 1955, a special programme for promoting international cooperation in developing the application of nuclear science techniques in agriculture. That international programme has been operated in close association with other appropriate international agencies, and in particular in co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In the course of this address, reference will be made to some of the salient features of the international programmes of FAO and IAEA in this field. In the short time available for this brief introductory statement, it will not be possible to review in detail the immensely wide range of applications of nuclear science techniques in agriculture. A more comprehensive account will be found in an FAO review published in the International oTournal of Applied Radiation and Isotopes in 1958. I t may, of course, confidently be expected that nuclear-derived electric power will eventually make possible a more plentiful supply of reasonably priced current in rural