10 SOCIAL SCIENTIST development^ also pointed towards the need to build local research capability for improving agricultural productivity.6 Cooperation between the scientists of the United States and India started in 1953 with Dr Frank W Parker, the chief agriculturist in the Technical Cooperative Mission (TCM), arranging for a number of soil scientists to study the fertility status of soils and to guide development of soil testing methods.7 This step was instrumental in changing decisions on kinds and quantities of fertilisers needed in India, and laid the basis for the establishment of a chain of soil testing laboratories aided by USAID which subsequently paved the way for the introduction of chemical fertilisers in India. Cooperation received a big push, when, on the initiative of Dr Parker, the Indian government took the decision to permit a joint Indo-American team to review the Indian agricultural education and reasearch system. With the study by the first joint Indo-American team on agricultural research and education the basis was laid for subsequent collaboration in which the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U S land grant universities assisted the Indian universities and research institutions to revamp their curricula and facilities to reorient them to meet the challenge of introducing HYVs in India. First Joint Indo-American Team The terms of reference of this first joint Indo-American team included a thorough 'national5 review of Indian agricultural research and education as a means for providing comprehensive guide lines for overall American technical assistance i^ this area. This team included five Indians and three Americans. Its report represented an attempt at long-range planning of U S technical assistance to Indian agriculture. The report contained 118 principal recommendations, many of which are relatively minor and could be implemented without much problem. Two of the team's principal recommendations are of significant interest to us because they laid the basis for further cooperation. First, the team recommended that each state should develop a rural university. Second, the team suggested that post-graduate colleges be established by the Government of India at the Indian Agricultural Institute and the Indian Veterinary Research Institute among other places.8 American technical assistance in the implementation of the first joint Indo-Americcn team's recommendations took place through two principal agencies: the five U S land grant universities that contracted with USAID as authorised by the first supplement to operational agreement No 28 in 1955, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The programme carried out by the five U S university contracts was referred to as the Agricultural Education and Research Project. In 1955, while the first joint Indo-American team was counducting it$ study on a national basis, two-man teams from the universities of Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio State and Kansas State undertook