An Overview of International Development Perspectives in History: Focus on Agricultural and Rural Development

This essay has developed gradually over the approximately 20 years, until 2000, that I taught what was then listed as AGEC 5163 and RSOC 5163, International Agricultural and Rural Development. The first draft was written during the "New Directions" mandate period, while the Green Revolution and its Agricultural Fundamentalism dominated and the Washington Consensus strategy was just emerging. Project funding was still common in international agricultural development, at least in USDA. A dramatic shift from the biological science research of the Green Revolution to Farming Systems Research was underway. The UoA Division of Agriculture had just obtained $5.0 million "Strengthening" grant from USAID, and had successfully competed for several large agricultural development contracts; in Egypt, Haiti, Rwanda, and Burundi. Major updates were prepared in 2000, and again in the summer of 2004.