ACDI/VOCA Celebrates Birthday
On July 12, 1963, the State of Illinois issued Certificate of Incorporation Number 20433 to the International Cooperative Development Association (ICDA), the predecessor of ACDI. Thus July 12th was our official 45th birthday.
During the previous month, at the Congress Hotel in Chicago Jerry Voorhis, president of the Cooperative League of the USA (CLUSA), had chaired the meeting of 19 U.S. co-op leaders that adopted articles of incorporation and bylaws, elected a 5-man board of directors and authorized incorporating and opening a bank account. Not surprisingly, the first order of business was to prepare a proposal to USAID for funding. Thirty-seven days later ACDI/VOCA was born.
USAID's Murton Peer attended the Chicago meeting and ventured that the agency would welcome an organization representing farmer cooperatives and would approve it for funding. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota had authored an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 stating "...it is declared to be the policy of the United States...to encourage the development and use of cooperatives..." in programs funded by AID.
ACDI, and later ACDI/VOCA, have continued to operate until the present with the same co-op bias and under that same certificate of incorporation, though it was amended in 1968 when ICDA and Farmers Union International Assistance Corporation (FUIAC) merged to form ACDI, and in 1996 when ACDI and VOCA merged.
Unofficially, however, ACDI/VOCA could be considered 62 years of age because ACDI's "other half," FUIAC, had roots in international activity going back to the post-WWII rebuilding of Europe. In 1946 the National Farmers Union first arranged U.S. farm stays for young French farmers, and then became an instrument for carrying out widespread programs under the Humphrey amendment. In 1964 the Farmers Union International Assistance Corporation (FUIAC) was formed to consolidate growing NFU overseas activities.
The young ICDA (ACDI/VOCA) got off to a brilliant start in the mid-'60s with the founding the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative, arguably the most important project in ACDI/VOCA history and one of USAID's all-time successes.
India was said to be on the brink of famine when CLUSA hatched the idea to use co-ops to build fertilizer capacity. ICDA formed a study team, engaged USAID, GOI and U.S. cooperative support, and formed Cooperative Fertilizer International to spearhead the $125 million project and provide technical assistance. Extensive study, training and adoption of the newest U.S. fertilizer technology paved the way. There was a delay and a scramble for funds when Congress cut USAID's budget, but with help from the British and Dutch governments, the project was completed on schedule and with only a 2 percent overrun. Indira Gandhi attended the first plant's grand opening.
The project resulted in the largest fertilizer manufacturer in Asia and one of the largest in the world. Today, IFFCO has a $3 billion turnover. From the beginning it had a critical role in boosting Indian agricultural productivity, since new Green Revolution varieties of rice when cultivated with fertilizer could produce 10 times the yield of local rice. India exported 4.5 million tons of rice alone in 2006. Since 1982 IFFCO has been a loyal member of ACDI/VOCA, and today win-win A/V-IFFCO smallholder horticulture programming is in the offing that would tap IFFCO’s 38,000 member cooperatives.
Many other major, and minor, projects have followed. Notable successes include reintroducing cooperative banking in Poland after the Cold War ended, invigorating Ethiopian cooperatives that benefited 5 million farmers and bringing agricultural credit to vast underserved areas of rural Russia. In 2003 then-USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios called ACDI/VOCA the “premier agricultural development NGO in the world.”
As it marks its 45th anniversary ACDI/VOCA looks back on a record of benevolent and proficient service in 145 nations. It also looks forward to significant new sources of funding and refinement of its noted value chain enterprise development approaches and participatory models for community strengthening. Finally, the current food crisis brings rising prices that, while threatening, also represent new opportunities to those who have always been our best customers--rural farmers, new reasons to apply development-oriented ACDI/VOCA food aid monetization methods and general affirmation that agricultural development should be at the forefront of our foreign assistance program.
For more information about ACDI/VOCA's current work around the globe, click here.