Guatemala : development of the Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (ICTA) and its impact on agricultural research and farm productivity

initiated a project to increase the production and nutritive quality of basic crops in Guatemala and to develop the capability of the Institute for Agricultural Science and Technology (ICTA) to generate and promote the use of improved small farm technology. This report describes the project's setting and activities, outlines its impact, and summarizes its lessons. Under the ICTA system, new farm-tested seed varieties and cultural practices acceptable to small farmers were developed for maize, beans, and sorghum and led to increased yields and development of a thriving private seed industry. In addition, ICTA staff increased both quantitatively and qualitatively (although rigid government salary schedules have led to a high attrition rate among the 10 Guatemalans who received advanced degrees, threatening ICTA's future progress); benefited from expatriate help in its research work and organizational growth; and received dramatic increases in financial support from the government. ICTA has come to represent a new and innovative model for agricultural research and is now working to share its approach with DIGESA, the Ministry of Agriculture's extension service. Project experience taught: the benefit of an unconventional approach to generating acceptable small farmer technologies; the importance of sustained USAID/G involvement and of investing simultaneously in human, institutional, and technological resources; A.I.D.'s potential for developing agricultural institutions, its comparative advantage in institution-building projects, and the need in such projects to provide for an institution's support after the project ceases; the productivity of ICTA's linkages to international and U.S. agricultural research centers; the importance of coordinating technology and sociology in small farmer research projects; and the need for special financial incentives to retain ICTA's advanced degree scientists, special feedback information systems to test technology results, and flexibility in project implementation. Appendices treat the evaluation methodology, ICTA's approach to technology development and farmer acceptance of it, the role of improved seed, and ICTA's institutional development.