The Director Generals of IICA

 
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Wallace Bressman Allee Samper Madrid Araujo Morillo Piñeiro Aquino Brathwaite
 

Overview: The Institute is founded and takes its first steps

The Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IICA) was founded in 1942, thanks to the vision of people like Henry Wallace, then the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and Ernesto Molestina, Director General of Agriculture of Ecuador. It was Wallace’s idea to create IICA and Molestina who presented the respective resolution. The Institute’s headquarters were established in Turrialba, Costa Rica, a region strategically situated between South and North America, with characteristics typical of agriculture in the Americas.

The first IICA field office (which subsequently became the Center for Education and Research) was officially inaugurated in 1943, at a ceremony attended by the President of Costa Rica, Rafael Angel Calderon Guardia, and the Vice President of the United States of America, Henry A. Wallace. They were accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture of Costa Rica, Mariano Montealegre, and the first Director General of IICA, Earl N. Bressman. The high caliber of IICA’s scientific and academic activities paved the way for its subsequent expansion.

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Henry Wallace
1942