International Agricultural Institute

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The International Agricultural Institute was an international organization based in Rome . The institute, founded in 1905, collected and disseminated data and statistics on agriculture in the various states and colonial areas of the world. During the Second World War it ceased its activities. In 1948, the Institute's tasks and material assets were taken over by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations .

history

On October 23, 1904, the American agricultural reformer David Lubin defeated the King of Italy, Victor Emanuel III. , the establishment of an international agricultural organization. This should examine the agricultural developments in the different countries of the world and publish the results periodically as well as make concrete contributions to the protection of the farmers against cartels and other forms of exploitation. The monarch assured his support and forwarded the proposal to his prime minister in a letter dated January 24, 1905. At an international conference opened in Rome on May 28, 1905, the representatives of 40 countries signed an agreement on June 7, 1905 to establish the International Agricultural Institute, which was formally established on August 16, 1906. From October 1906 to May 1908 a building for the institute was erected in the Roman park Villa Borghese , which started its operations there.

David Lubin's ideas of an international representation of the interests of farmers could not be realized because the governments of the various countries only gave the institute a very limited scope for action. It was only allowed to collect official information from the individual states and evaluate periodicals . The publications produced on this basis had to be submitted to the governments for approval in advance. Despite these limitations, the Institute's publications worked in Lubin’s sense. It made significant contributions to statistical and scientific cooperation between the states. During the First World War , representatives from all warring states worked together in the institute until 1915. By 1930 the number of member states, including colonies treated as equivalent, rose to 75. No other international organization at that time had such a high level of participation. Even after the beginning of the Second World War, representatives of the warring states cooperated in the Agricultural Institute until 1940. In 1943 it was closed due to the war.

Even in the post-war period, which was marked by economic hardship and supply problems as well as the collapse of the colonial empires, the need for an international agricultural organization remained. In March 1946, the XVI. General Assembly of the International Agricultural Institute, which was taken over by the World Food Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, founded in 1945. In 1947 the International Agricultural Institute produced one more yearbook, which was published with the FAO. In the following year, the institute was definitively dissolved, but a number of material assets, including the archive and the library, remained in Rome. As a result of this transition process, the FAO was moved from Washington, DC to Rome, where it was able to move into a new building.

organization

The General Assembly, which meets every two years, consisted of representatives of the governments of all countries participating in the International Agricultural Institute. There was also a permanent executive committee with one representative per state. The President of the Agricultural Institute also chaired the Executive Committee. There was also a Vice President and a General Secretary.

There were four offices on the working level:

  • The office of the Secretary General was responsible for human resources, finances, administration, infrastructure and other central services including the library and the printing and distribution of the Institute's publications. It also produced an annual review of each state's agricultural legislation.
  • The statistics bureau collected and published data and statistics on agricultural production, including animal products, and their distribution.
  • The Office for Agricultural Research and Plant Diseases collected and disseminated information on research results and practical agricultural experience, as well as on plant diseases and entomology.
  • The Bureau of Economic and Social Institutions collected and published statistics and general information on agricultural cooperation, related insurance and credit systems, and matters relating to the economic and social organization of rural communities.

The Agricultural Institute published a number of bulletins , including two annual bulletins on agricultural statistics and legislation, three monthly on statistics, research and plant diseases, and economic and social institutions, and one weekly on bibliographic information. There were also numerous monographs. The official language of the Agricultural Institute was French. Various publications have also been published in other languages; the governments interested in the translations paid for this.

For the library of the Agricultural Institute, an outbuilding was built at its headquarters in 1934. The major holdings are the David Lubin Memorial Library of the World Food Organization library in Rome.

President

Web links

literature

  • Asher Hobson: The International Institute of Agriculture. University of California Press, Berkeley 1931.
  • Luciano Tosi: All origini della FAO. Le relazioni tra l'Istituto Internazionale di Agricoltura e la Società delle Nazioni. Angeli, Milan 1989.