Archives West Finding Aid

For the Jordan Valley Agricultural Services Project (JVASP), Washington State University contracted under the collaborative assistance provisions of Title XII of the amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, which created the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and initiated a partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) in Jordan in 1981 to found agricultural research stations, develop agricultural extension services similar to those WSU provides in the State of Washington, and train Jordanians to provide those services. The first WSU personnel arrived in Jordan in June 1982. JVASP employed about 90 technical and support staff in Jordan, sponsored 19 academic degree programs, and provided short-term training programs to 41 MOA employees. At the project's conclusion in 1988, fifteen Jordanian extension agents were working in the Valley.

The project established an agricultural research and extension center at Deir Alla and three substations at Wadi Al-Yabis, Abu-Habil, and Karameh. The Jordan Valley and Southern Ghor are major agricultural production areas in Jordan. The Jordan Valley and Southern Ghor are major agricultural production areas in Jordan. JVASP's goal was to increase fruit and vegetable production in them by developing appropriate agricultural technology at the research stations and then disseminating that technology, methods, and other information through extension agents. Advised by WSU faculty, JVASP staff undertook applied research in integrated pest management, plant production, soil science, water management, and production economics.

JVASP followed a WSU partnership with the University of Jordan in the 1970s to assist in developing an agricultural teaching, research, and extension structure at the Amman campus similar to that of a land-grant university such as WSU in the United States. The initial JVASP contract was for $5.6 million and to extend five years through fiscal year 1986. A two-year contract extension carried JVASP until 1988 when it completed.

The College of Agriculture, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) and the government of Indonesia, partnered with eight institutions of the Association of Eastern Island Universities in a multi-million dollar, five-year cooperative education program that began in the October 1979 and concluded at the end of June 1984. The program involved WSU faculty and graduate students working in Indonesia and Indonesian faculty and graduate students visiting the Pullman campus.