An adventure in applied science - IRRI books - International Rice ...

Early research and training results 151money from Canada would be forthcoming in 1970. Since 1969 was certainlywell along at that point and no Canadian funds had been received, thefoundations upped their joint appropriations to $1,780,000 for that year and,so to speak, bailed IRRI out of its difficulties.Canada, presumably for internal reasons, was unable to arrange the grantto the Asian Development Bank, a second disappointment to IRRI on thatscore. However, beginning in 1972, that country became a strong financialsupporter of the Institute, its contributions growing annually until in 1979, forexample, CIDA gave more than $1,000,000 toward IRRI’s core budget andIDRC provided over $337,000, largely for the cropping systems program.Back in 1970, however, USAID, rather than Canada, had become IRRI'sthird major donor, a development outlined in the following section.U.S. fundingBy 1963, when IRRI was only 2 years old, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundationswere urging IRRI administrators to seek financial support from other organizationsas well. Consequently, that year Wortman and I prepared two proposalsto USAID requesting grants for segments of IRRI’s program.In November 1963, Leona Baumgartner from USAID, Washington, visitedIRRI and expressed confidence that the agency could help, particularly in thetraining program.On 8 April 1964, I spent the entire day at USAID headquarters in Washingtontalking with Frank W. Parker, James Blume, Erven Long, Clifford Willson,and Baumgartner, each of whom had responsibilities in agriculture or science.As I went from office to office, I did my utmost to get USAID to contribute toIRRI’s core budget, but received a negative reply each time. In retrospect, itseems simply a case of the time not being right. For many years, USAID (andits predecessor, ICA) had a policy opposed to supporting rice research andtraining abroad when the U.S. produced a surplus of that grain for export.(Thus, Canada’s wheat-growing interests were not the sole governmentalobstacle to the broadening of IRRI's funding!) Moreover, USAID (and otherdonors as well) felt that with two large foundations supporting IRRI, additionalhelp was not sorely needed.In 1965 (as reported in Chapter 2), USAID made its first grant to IRRI forresearch on farm and equipment power requirements in Asia. The grant, for$360,000, was to be used over a 3-year period. Although IRRI and USAIDconsidered this to be a special project grant, under the classification systemused by CGIAR today it would probably be called a restricted core grant.In December 1965, Parker from USAID, Washington, visited IRRI, and Ispent the day with him touring the Institute and acquainting him with IRRI'sentire program in an effort to persuade him to recommend that USAID supporta portion of IRRI's continuing program — but to no avail. Parker insisted thatany help from his agency had to be applied to a new project. At that time,however, all staff houses were occupied and IRRI was not in a position to addscientists; rather, it needed additional funds to take care of rising costs onprojects already under way.