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Historical Perspective
and
U.S. Government Policies
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In 1975, the Congress of the United States passed an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 known as "Title XII -- Famine Prevention and Freedom from Hunger." The mandate of Title XII is to ". . . improve the participation of the agriculturally related
universities in the United States' governmental efforts internationally to increase world food production and provide support to the application of science to solving developing countries' food and nutrition problems." This legislation has the objective of providing mutuality of research benefit to both the United States and host countries.
Under Title XII, the Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) concept was created by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the
Board for International Food and Agriculture Development
(BIFAD), as a long-term mechanism to focus capabilities of U.S. Land Grant Universities to carry out the international food and agricultural research mandate of the U.S. Government. In its September 1997 strategy statement,
USAID recognizes the importance of strengthening the agricultural sector of developing countries to build a firm base for economic growth. The CRSPs are communities of U.S. Land Grant Universities working with developing-country National Agricultural Research Systems
(NARS), International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs), U.S. agribusiness, private voluntary organizations
(PVOs), developing-country colleges and universities, private agencies,
USAID/Washington and USAID Missions, and other U.S. federal agencies such as USDA.
There are nine CRSPs currently in operation to help build sustainable capacities of NARS of developing countries so that they can solve problems of agricultural production and utilization over the long term. The collaborative research of scientists in these
programs benefits American agriculture, as well as agriculture in these developing countries.
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