The Foreign Service Journal, May 2010

Agriculture accounted for a large share of early U.S. government-related technical missions abroad. By the first decade of the 20th century, the United States had already sent suchmissions to Manchuria (now China), Siam (now Thailand), East and South Africa, Panama, Argentina, Brazil and India. While most of these missions were commercial or oriented toward scien- tific research, not humanitarian, some foreign governments were so eager for U.S. help that they offered to cover the costs. In 1846 the Ottoman sultan re- quested scientific agriculturalists to in- troduce cotton culture and livestock and fertilizer improvements, while Chi- nese leaders requested assistance to es- tablish an agricultural school in the 1890s. Examples such as these set clear precedents for later development co- operation models. An early example of larger-scale co- operation is that between the Central China Famine Relief Committee and the American Red Cross. This cooper- ation not only provided foodstuffs and distributed seed, but also promoted public works. Increasingly, concerns about the poverty and vulnerability of the Chinese population led to a focus on long-term development. Dismayed that famine relief efforts were required again and again in China, and confident that American engineering could find a solution to the underlying problems, the ARC initi- ated flood control schemes, a major departure from its customary practice. The Chinese government paid for U.S. engineers retained by the Red Cross to complete a proposal in 1914 for a $667 million flood control project to be pri- vately financed. The ARC spent over $22 million in China before World War I and con- tinued to provide relief afterward, but later narrowed its role. Globally, meanwhile, these efforts began to be dwarfed by U.S. commercial invest- ment overseas, which quadrupled from the late 1800s, reaching $77 bil- lion in 1914. After southern Italy suffered a de- structive earthquake and tidal wave in 1908, private Americans provided over $24 million in relief. In addition, be- cause so many Italians were left home- less, Congress appropriated funds for the construction of housing for the dis- placed. Once again, the Red Cross experi- mented with assistance that went be- yond the scope of combating hunger or sickness, combining its private re- sources with this federal funding. For example, ARC personnel worked alongside U.S. naval personnel and Italians to construct prefabricated homes using partially constructed cot- tages shipped from the United States. The Mexican Revolution of 1910- M A Y 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 47