College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Non-AFRE Co-Principle Investigators: Other AEC faculty, Ben Stavis,Tom Zalla and Herb Kriesel; A. Mehretu and D. Campbell (Geography); M Bratton (Political Science); E. Everson and R. Freed (Crop & Soil Science); R. Deans (Animal Science)

Project Name:           Alternative Rural Development Strategies Cooperative Agreement *
Donor:                        United States Agency for International Development
Contract No:              (Phase I) AID/ta-CA-3     and  Phase II)   DAN-1190-A-00-4092  Project No. 9311903
Account No:              71-2017 (Core), 71-2018 (Francophone add-on) plus many other  add-ons
Location:                   Africa (Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Senegal, Zambia, Burkina Faso), Caribbean (Barbados, Eastern Caribbean Islands, Haiti), Latin America (Bolivia, Honduras), and Asia (Pakistan)
Duration:                    September 1977-September 1984
Budget:                       (Phase I), $2,043,331 add-ons &  $1,201,973 Core. (Phase II) total $ 1,000,843
Documents:                (Click here to view)

Project Goals:           To enhance the capacity of developing country institutions and AID missions to plan and implement national and regional rural development strategies, policies, and programs that promote increased productivity, income, and welfare of the rural poor. 

Project Plans/Objectives:

• To conduct research with a focus on smallholder production systems, including farm, non-farm, and off -farm linkages.
• To conduct farming systems research.
• To conduct research on rural marketing systems.
• To discern the interrelationships among production and marketing systems, with attention to consumption/nutrition implications for rural households.
• To assist developing countries with policy analysis through short-term professional services to enhance programs aimed at the rural poor.
• To generate cost-effective techniques for data collection and analysis, including the use of hand calculators, microcomputers, and hand computers in research on farming and marketing systems.

Cooperating Institutions:      Universities and Ministries of Agriculture in each of the countries in which research is undertaken.

Project Summary:           Phase I of this project was from Sept of 1977 to Sept of 1983. Phase II was from Sept 1983 to Sept 1985.  Major activities in each Phase are listed below.  Click here for more detail on these activities.  Click here for a listing of all faculty, consultants and graduate students involved in both phases of this project.

Phase I, activities included:

• Bolivia - Preparation of an Integrated Agricultural Extension and Applied Research Project.
• Zambia – Preparation of an Integrated Agricultural Research and Extension Project.
• Barbados-designed a work plan for accomplishing the evaluation of the Caribbean Agricultural Trading Company trading operations and business growth during the period of AID assistance
• Haiti performed an economic analysis of the evaluation of the Haiti Area Development project, including assessment of the agricultural components of the project--agricultural credit, demonstration gardens, plantations, and reforestation--to determine their impacts on the residents of the Northwest.
• Francophone countries of Africa—assisted selected AID missions in preparing country development strategy statements, food sector strategy studies, mission agricultural sector assistance strategies, project papers in agricultural policy and planning, agricultural institutional development including marketing and enhancement of farmer participation in the development process.
• Evaluation of the Casamance Regional Development Project in Senegal;
• Livestock marketing surveys in Somalia and Saudi Arabia;
• A study on how to enhance farmer participation and how to design agricultural policy and institutions in several Francophone countries;
• A micro-feasibility study of PL480, a food and agricultural sector assessment, and a study of rural roads in Mauritania;
• Agricultural surveys and rural development analysis for the Mandara Mountain region in Cameroun;
• Workshops on farming systems research in conjunction with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council;
• An evaluation of the CARDI/USAID Small Farm Multiple Cropping Systems Research Project in St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Trinidad; and

 Phase II, activities included:

•  Zimbabwe – worked with the Consultative Technical Committee for Research of the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) on developing a regional food security policy; advised SADCC on a regionally coordinated program to strengthen undergraduate and graduate training in the region's various faculties of agriculture; conducted a special study of regional agricultural research and training needs, including alternative food security strategies, crop production, livestock production and disease control, irrigation, and soil and water management.
• Barbados-designed a work plan for accomplishing the evaluation of the Caribbean Agricultural Trading Company trading operations and business growth during the period of AID assistance.
• Francophone countries of Africa—assisted selected AID missions in preparing country development strategy statements, food sector strategy studies, mission agricultural sector assistance strategies, project papers in agricultural policy and planning, agricultural institutional development including marketing and enhancement of farmer participation in the development process.
• Botswana--worked with the Government of Botswana in reviewing observations regarding a five-year ICRISA Regional Millet and Sorghum research program; review ICRISAT preliminary proposal for research on land and water management; participation on a review team to upgrade a Grain Legume Feasibility Study.
• Gambia-evaluated a “mixed" farming project.
• Miscellaneous--assistance was also provided in St. Lucia, the Philippines, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Swaziland, Sudan and Ivory Coast.
• Applied research was also conducted in Thailand as part of a Thailand Off-Farm Rural Employment Assessment Project, as part of a joint undertaking with Ohio State University.

Documents From/About This Project:

• Final Project Review for USAID of the Cooperative Agreements on Alternative Rural Development  Strategies implemented by the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University.  1985.  By Merilee S. Grindle (Harvard Institute of International Development) and Richard L. Meyer (The Ohio State University).

• Knowledge-Building for Rural Development: Social Science and the Cooperative Agreements: A Review and Analysis of Nine Cooperative Agreements Funded by the Office of Multisectoral Development, USAID. 1983. By John M. Cohen, Grindle, Merilee S. and Thomas, John W. Harvard University. Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). 

•  Many project related outputs published from this work are in the MSU Rural Development Papers and Working Papers Series, and the MSU International Development Paper and Working Paper Series (from 1982 to 1985), or selected standalone publications, such as the MSU/USAID Mandara Mountain Research Report Series.
  •  MSU Rural Development Papers.  1978-1980.
  • MSU Rural Development Series Working Papers. 1979 -1982.
  •  MSU International Development Papers.  1982 - 2004. (Numbers 1-6)
  • MSU International Development Working Papers.  1982- Current. (Numbers 1-25)
  •  Mandara Mountain Cameroun Research Report Series.
  • Thailand Off-Farm Employment Project Publications  (Joint with the Center for Applied Economics Research, Kasetsart University, Ohio State University and Michigan State Univerwsity.

• USAID Development Clearing House Archive Alternative Rural Development  Documents – Project No. 931-1190 (documents from 1977 to 1985)

Selected Project Publications:   See the selected list of downloadable documents below. Also, click here for a complete listing of reports published under the two phases of this Cooperative Agreement.

•  Ten Decades of Rural Development: Lessons From India. 1978. by Akhter Hameed Khan.  MSU Rural Development Paper No. 1.
• The Rise and Fall of Community Development in Developing Countries, 1950-65: A Critical Analysis and an Annotated Bibliography. 1978. by Lane E. Holdcroft.   MSU Rural Development Paper No. 2.
• A Bibliography on Rural Development in Tanzania. 1979.  by James E. Kocher and Beverly Fleischer.  MSU Rural Development Paper No. 3.
• Rural Non-Farm Employment: A Review of the State of the Art. 1979.  by Enyinna Chuta and Carl Liedholm.  MSU Rural Development Paper No. 4.
• The Farming Systems Approach: Relevancy for the Small Farmer. 1980.  by David W. Norman.  MSU Rural Development Paper No. 5.
• Farming Systems Research: A Critical Appraisal. 1980. by Elon H. Gilbert, David W. Norman, and Fred E. Winch.  MSU Rural Development Paper No. 6.
• Research on Agricultural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical Survey. 1982. by Carl K. Eicher and Doyle C. Baker.  MSU International Development Paper No. 1.
• A Simulation Study of Constraints on Traditional Farming Systems in Northern Nigeria. 1982.  by Eric W. Crawford.  MSU International Development Paper No. 2. 
• Farming Systems Research in Eastern Africa: The Experience Of CIMMYT and Some National Agricultural Research Services, 1976-81. 1982.  by M.P. Collinson.  MSU International Development Paper No. 3.
• Animal Traction in Eastern Upper Volta: A Technical, Economic and Institutional Analysis. 1981.  by Vincent Barrett,  Lassiter, Gregory, Wilcock, David, Baker, Doyle C. and Crawford, Eric W.  MSU International Development Paper No. 4.
• Socio-Economic Determinants of Food Consumption and Production in Rural Sierra Leone: Application of an Agricultural Household Model With Several Commodities. 1982.  by John Strauss. MSU International Development Paper No. 5

*This description is adapted from work by Nancy E. Horn, an MSU alumnus from the Anthropology Department, published in 1985 “A Project History of Michigan State University’s Participation in International Development for the period 1951 – 1985”.  See AFRE Emeritus Faculty Acknowledgements