Seed program and industry development

Special evaluation covers the period 4/79-7/83 and is based on document review and interviews with MSU staff. The cooperative agreement between A.I.D. and MSU has been highly successful. STL, with a professional staff of eight who devote 30-35% of their time to the A.I.D. project, has provided 41 person-months of excellent TA, helping 54 LDC's to develop comprehensive seed programs and/or solve specific seed problems. As an information resource for LDC's, STL has provided general publications (over 200), scientific reprints, personal correspondence, and consultations (with 81 international visitors). MSU has trained 272 LDC participants through: degree (B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.) and nondegree (4-8 weeks) campus programs; and short overseas courses in, inter alia, seed technology (Colombia, Upper Volta), seed conditioning (Kenya, Colombia), and seed pathology (Thailand). MSU staff have delivered an average of 237-460 person-days of instruction annually in LDC's and have helped 10 LDC's to develop training programs. STL has also conducted a significant amount of applied research, into specific LDC seed problems, including: developing a heater fan to dry cowpea seeds in Guyana and a solar seed dryer for Nepal; and investigating new forage grasses for South and Central America and the use of defoliants and desiccants to speed cowpea production in Guyana. MSU has helped 15 African, Asian, and Central and South American LDC's to develop applied seed research efforts. The project has been very cost-effective, with MSU funding the excellent STL facilities and other costs, and with STL providing some LDC assistance free of charge to the grant and cooperating freely with other assistance programs. Also, the close proximity to MSU of 5 state seed units enhances STL's technical/training capacity. Key recommendations are to continue the project at MSU and the cooperative funding arrangement.