President J George Harrar and his colleagues chose Kasetsart University (KU) for the work it could do in the areas of hunger and rapid population growth, a focus at the Rockefeller Foundation since the early 1950s. Thailand was predominantly an agricultural country, and committing resources to the only university devoted to agriculture in Thailand proved an easy decision to make. Engaging with Kasetsart appeared to be a guaranteed way of advancing the work of farmers and improving their lives while promoting development. In the end, Foundation funding was put to good use and benefited Kasetsart University, according to an assessment commissioned by the Foundation in 1979.
Dr Stakman, an early leader in the Green Revolution, discussed root rot problems in 1973 at Kasetsart University with trainees from Thailand, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The trainees were participating in the Inter-Asian Corn Program.
Even so, the University Development Program (UDP) effort at Kasetsart proved considerably more complex than at Mahidol University, where goals were highly focused and only a small number of leaders were responsible for achieving them. At Kasetsart there was more than one goal for the use of Foundation money and numerous officials and agricultural specialists from the Foundation and KU to work with. Historically, the university had strong relations to the Ministry of Agriculture, which added another dimension to decision making. Other funders were also involved, including the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Ford Foundation, and Japanese and Dutch development agencies.
Fortunately there were strong Thai leaders at the university who generally kept the various interests working together for the longer-term benefit of the institution. There was also sturdy leadership from Foundation officials assigned to the UDP who, as at Mahidol, enjoyed collegial relationships with their Thai colleagues.
Dr Sujin Jinahyon, a corn breeder from Kasetsart University, displays two large ears produced on a single stalk of corn. Breeders selectively promoted this characteristic using a technique known as controlled mass selection.
Kasetsart University was a relatively new institution, although its roots trace back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Programs in silk culture and fisheries had been joined together over the years. The new university was established in 1943 by combining the College of Agriculture and the School of Forestry, creating two additional faculties: Co-operative Science (Economics and Business Administration) and Fisheries. By 1970 there were nine faculties: Agriculture, Economics and Business Administration, Engineering, Education, Fisheries, Forestry, Science and Arts, Veterinary Science, and a graduate school. The latter took responsibility for the graduate programs in each of the separate faculties. At the end of the UDP in Thailand in 1978, Kasetsart had a student body of 7,000 students.
Initially, the Foundation saw the UDP at Kasetsart being directed to those departments doing the most work on increasing the production of food. As time went on, the emphasis expanded to the university more broadly. Of most concern to university and Foundation officials was the role of the Ministry of Agriculture. Until 1958, the university concentrated on training students to enter careers in the Ministry of Agriculture. As a result, it was administratively part of the agency. In devising larger goals for the university — beyond training future employees for the Ministry — the government separated the two in 1958, which led to some resentment.
Some Ministry officials believed that the university competed with the agency by duplicating its research and farm extension initiatives. As a result, funds and facilities for research at the university were no longer as readily available from the Ministry, which had been virtually the sole source of such assistance in the past. Hence the keen interest at Kasetsart in working with the Foundation’s UDP.
Officials at Kasetsart were optimistic about working with the Foundation based on productive past experiences with other American institutions. In the 1950s, the university had joint programs with Oregon State College (later University) and the University of Hawaii, both of which left a legacy of goodwill in Thailand. Between 1954 and 1960, under the auspices of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Kasetsart and Oregon State created a joint program to improve physical facilities at the university; enhance the course of study; train teaching staff; and improve research in agriculture.
This program provided for twenty visiting faculty appointments from OSU for up to two years at Kasetsart. The program also supported sixty fellowships for advanced study in agricultural subjects in American universities. While the majority of these fellows received M.S. degrees, some completed Ph.D.s. Almost all returned to Thailand, where they found teaching and administrative positions in universities and government departments. Meanwhile, the University of Hawaii, under a contract from USAID, focused on encouraging applied research. Eighteen faculty members and support staff came to Kasetsart to work with the faculty on applied research projects. Ten Thai students received fellowships to attend American universities, where they worked on Master’s degrees in agricultural subjects. Most of the graduates of this programme also returned to Thailand after foreign study.
In 1966, researchers associated with Farm Suwan began a maize breeding program.
Despite the tensions between the Ministry and Kasetsart, the Foundation enjoyed a warm relationship with the Ministry. In the 1950s, the Foundation had provided funding for research and scholarships at the Ministry and the University. Joint funding for projects continued into the 1960s. Indeed, one such grant was authorised at about the time Thailand and the Foundation signed the memorandum of understanding in April 1963 for the UDP.
Under the UDP, the first efforts at Kasetsart were designed to support applied research programs to increase the production of rice, corn, and sorghum. For each crop there were already programmes underway. In some instances, the Foundation was the source of funding through another programme. Research on corn was funded by the Foundation’s Inter-Asian Corn Program (IACP). Interest in rice overlapped with the work of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Many agricultural specialists held out hope for increased production of sorghum as a food source in Asia, and the Foundation collaborated with the university and the Ministry in efforts to enhance sorghum.
Among the most important of the Foundation’s achievements in Thailand through the UDP was building the premier agricultural field research and training installation in Southeast Asia. Led by a Foundation agricultural specialist, James Finfrock, the Kasetsart facility was located on 300 acres about 100 miles northeast of Bangkok. It was named the National Corn and Sorghum Research and Training Center, or more popularly "Farm Suwan". Researchers at Farm Suwan specialised in corn and sorghum breeding and testing. Later, they expanded their research to focus on diseases affecting these crops. Specialists researching the breeding, care, and diseases of livestock were also housed there.
The training programme at Farm Suwan was open to Kasetsart undergraduates and graduate students, but it also became the locus for an international training centre connected to the Inter-Asian Corn Program. Over eight years, six-to-twelve-month training programmes served more than 200 agricultural scientists, including 66 Thais. The farm’s importance attracted financial support from the Ford Foundation, USAID, the Overseas National Foundation of Japan, and the government of the Netherlands. Its participants fanned out over Southeast Asia, influencing agricultural research in the countries of the region.
As part of the University Development Program, the Rockefeller Foundation helped Kasetsart University launch the National Corn and Sorghum Research and Training Center, also known as Farm Suwan.
