Foreign Aid and Agricultural Science

Abstract

For some reason, ceitain Filipino leaders have recently taken a critical view of the American aid program in the Philippines. So far as I can gather, the principal bases for the criticism are: (i) the total amount spent in dollars is disproportionately small in relation to the counterpart peso funds (two pesos equal one dollar); (ii) much of the peso expenditure is used for the benefit of American experts; (iii) in not a few cases, these so-called experts are not really experts at all, but people with relatively little training and experience; and (iv) the program apparently aims to shackle the Philippines to an agricultural economy, as is shown by its overemphasis on agriculture, at the expense of industry.It should be pointed out that the United States Congress on its part has also been showing uneasiness toward the foreign aid program because of the adverse criticisms voiced by, and the heavy burden the program imposes on, the American taxpayer.Without attempting to refute the arguments advanced, I wish to relate our experience in the operation of what is presently known as the ICA-NEC tion in shambles. Most of the buildings were in ruins and nearly all the animals, seeds, tools, equipment, laboratory apparatus, and library were either destroyed or looted. Although brave attempts were made to reopen the college to students in June 1945, while the rest of the university was still closed, almost no facilities were extant, and emergency shelter for faculty and students had to be found temporarily in old poultry laying houses. Indeed, about the only asset of the college that was left was the experienced faculty that, happily, escaped general massacre on the campus by the retreating enemy.Prospects for ever rebuilding the college looked bleak. We had but a dim hope of restoring it to the status it had attained at the outbreak of the war, when, in 32 years, it had grown in prestige to be one of the world's leading tropical agricultural institutions. The war damage awards to the University of the Philippines, which came a couple of years later, at first gave us some reassurance. However, this new source of relief was to prove quite elusive, for out of the 10 million pesos granted to the university, we were given only P.400,000.When what is now the ICA-NEC program began to operate in 1952, things began to happen in the College of Agriculture. We became the happy recipient of generous grants, thanks largely to the previous flattering recommendations of the American Agricultural Mission and of the Bell Mission. These two missions were sent by the United States Government to the Philippines after World War II to study the needs of the country and to make recommendations to meet those needs. An important feature of the program was the contract for technical assistance signed between the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture at Los Bafios and Cornell University.As a result of this contract, which will continue until 1960, a succession of teams of not more than ten American professors (later increased to 14) ...