In an agreement between a delegation of agricultural scientists, Iowa State’s College of Agriculture has added another substantial new project to its list.

This particular project takes on an international perspective in the form of an agreement signed on Jan. 28 by representatives of ISU and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

The project is financed by World Bank at a cost of $250 million. The objective of the project is to enhance India’s quality in teaching research and extended programs, said Ramesh Kanwar, assistant director of Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station.

Kanwar said the process started nearly eight months ago on June 27, 1997.

“We invited Ashok Seth, a World Bank senior agriculturist, to look at some of the programs at ISU within our 14 departments,” Kanwar said. “One objective of his visit was to see which of our programs would be beneficial to Indian programs.”

A team of three ISU faculty members was also sent to India in December to give seminars and training workshops at four different universities.

Two of the people who conceived the project were Seth and Kanwar. Kanwar, who is mostly responsible for ISU’s involvement, said he decided to work with Seth to link ISU to the project.

“I had been working with [Seth] on different World Bank projects in India for five years, and when I moved into an administrative position at ISU, I wanted to do something for the university,” Kanwar said.

The purpose of the agreement is to link different agricultural universities in India with various U.S. universities.

Kanwar said that in the 1960s and 1970s, every agricultural college in India had a partnership with one U.S. school.

“However, beginning in 1971, the relationship between India and the United States had cooled, and we lost that contact,” he said. “Now what we want to do is build partnerships with U.S. schools again.”

In addition to ISU, Texas A&M, another Big 12 university, has signed similar agreements with India.

Kanwar said he views the partnership as a “win-win situation” for both countries.

“It gives faculty an opportunity to develop research projects in the long run, and also to conduct joint research on common projects,” he said. “We also want people from other countries to visit our labs and give us an international perspective on what we are doing.”

Students will also benefit through the agreement by being offered opportunities to do research in India.

“One of our goals is to take a group of ISU students to Bangalore, India for 2 to 3 months to take a three-credit course in Indian history,” Kanwar said.

He said he hopes to have study abroad programs available sometime in 1999. Study abroad research programs also are in the works for doctorate and graduate students.

Kanwar is not the only one optimistic about the project. Faith in the Indian capabilities is coming from World Bank as well.

“The $240 million goes through the National Agriculture Technology Transfer (NATT), which transfers information at the scientific and administrative level,” Kanwar said. “We want to train Indian administrators in how things work at the administrative level at U.S. universities.”

When asked how difficult this project would be given the obvious strain in India-U.S. relations, Kanwar’s reply was optimistic. “I think India might have perceptions of U.S. policies towards them. But India is opening up — it is starting to open up into a market economy, which will improve relations with the U.S.”

Some of the departments linking ISU with the Indian universities are in the areas of livestock research, meat technology, crop utilization research, sustainability aspects of crop production systems, international trade and policy and animal disease.

The College of Family and Consumer Science also will help Indian home economics colleges to upgrade their curriculum.

The area of animal disease will be handled by the College of Veterinary Medicine, which will also help in developing a comparative grants program.

On April 25, Kanwar, College of Agriculture Dean David Topel, and ISU Provost John Kozak will travel to India to sign the working plans, which are working protocols that spell out activities for each program’s use.

The project is substantial in size and difficult, but Kanwar remains optimistic.

“We are quite excited about working with India, and our hope is that these relationships will work for the better for all of us,” he said.