Study On The Development Of Foreign Agricultural Aid Of Cornell University In The Twentieth Century

After World War II,considering several factors including national strategy and humanitarian,the Western developed countries,represented by the United States,began to organize and provide a lot of large-scale assistance to the developing countries in need.Because of the significant role that agricultural progress plays in poverty alleviation and maintaining global peace,the US government and many agencies have invested a considerable amount of foreign aid resources in the field of agricultural development,in the forms of direct donation of agricultural materials,development of irrigation facilities,and educational or technical assistance,etc.After years of practice,the US government,and intellectuals in fields of science and education have gradually reached a consensus,that the most critical content and effective means of assistance is to help recipients develop their own agricultural production system,to accelerate the realization of agricultural modernization.Throughout agricultural development process of the United States and based on its own experience,the integrate mode of "education,research and extension”as a unique agricultural development system has always played a key role.It was the land grant universities in the United States who created this development model.Also in the development process of these universities,their focuses gradually expanded from domestic agriculture to a wider range.They sought to share their knowledge and fulfill their basic function to serve the society in a larger space or area.Especially after World War II,in order to meet the strategic needs of "Point Four" project of President Truman's government,the land grant universities first started to carry out a number of foreign aid projects,organized by the government.In terms of foreign aid projects in the field of agriculture,Cornell University could be regarded as pioneer and representative among many land grant universities.Therefore,the purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the whole development course of the foreign aid activities conducted by Cornell University since the beginning of the 20th century,in a comprehensive and systematical way.To this dissertation,the whole development process can be divided into two stages.Each stage will be expanded on respectively,and comparison will be made between the two stages.Cornell University started to carry out foreign agricultural aid projects as early as the turning of 19th and 20th century.The first half of the 20th century could be considered as the initial development stage.After the end of World War II,Cornell University began to gradually transit its foreign agricultural assistance to the second stage,thus entering the rapid development period.Throughout these two stages,whether origin or transformation of Cornell University's f-oreign agricultural aid,were both the results of combined effect from different historical backgrounds and internal motivations.Additionally,in different historical stages,Cornell University has different preferences on the target regions of offering assistance,as well as different choice of contents and forms of aid.The "Cornell-Nanking story" and the "Cornell-Los Banos story" are selected as the representative project cases for each respective stage.Either story may reflect the different features between the two stages,and they both reflect the continuity and inheritance of the whole historical development.From the point of view of historical development,this dissertation tries to make an objective review on the overall development process and its impact of Cornell University's foreign agricultural aid to developing nations.It should be first recognized that the assistance did bring tangible help to the recipient,and make contributions to the world's agricultural development,and promote communication and application of advanced agricultural science and technology in the world.However,it should not be neglected that foreign agricultural assistance still has a characteristics of being a tool in line with the government's diplomatic strategy,to achieve certain interest or benefit for the government.So it can be concluded that such foreign agricultural assistance work is never a "one-way traffic",and must be mutually beneficial to the two parties of it.In this way,some historical limitations of the aid activities may also be inferred.The first innovation of this research is the perspective:First,the academic community generally understands that foreign assistance at Cornell University originated from the end of World War II,while this research traces it back to the turn of the 19th and 20th century.Some personal behavior is regarded as early unofficial work and starting point of Cornell University's foreign assistance,so that a more complete understanding and a whole picture of the research object can be achieved.Second,this research adheres to the concept that foreign agricultural assistance is interest-oriented,so as to find out the background and motivation of occurrence and development of foreign agricultural assistance at Cornell University,as well as the benefits achieved by the assistance donor.Additionally,the relationship between foreign agricultural aid work and agricultural universities' basic functions is defined in order to sort out the content and forms of the assistance work in a rather scientific way.Besides the innovation of research perspective,this study explores and makes use of a large number of archives and historical materials,being kept by Cornell University.These literature is very precious and constitute the second innovation of this research.The purpose to study the development process of Cornell University's foreign agricultural aid is not only to find out more historical facts,thus having better understanding of the communication route of advanced agricultural science and technology in history;but also to conclude some enlightenment and experience from history,so that they may hopefully offer some recommendation to China's agricultural universities,who are seeking new opportunities for their international involvement and development.These experience from history may also be useful to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in agriculture between China and other nations,aiming at coping with the new challenges faced by the current and future agricultural production.