The Agricultural Development Council

The Agricultural Development Council, Inc., (ADC) was founded in 1953 by John D. Rockefeller 3^rd. Originally called the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, its aim was to strengthen the professional capacity of Asian countries to deal with the economic and human problems of agricultural and rural development. Funded exclusively by JDR 3^rd and the RBF for its first ten years, the organization changed its name after the Ford Foundation gave it a major grant in 1963 and began to rely on it as the instrument through which it conducted agricultural development work. At this point, the ADC transferred its cultural affairs work to other agencies, including the Japan Society, and adopted two primary focus areas: agricultural economics and community development. The Fund’s initial contributions in 1953 underwrote a program of training and research in agricultural economics in the Far East. The RBF gave the ADC core operating support for more than two decades, and project support through the early 1980s.