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Abstract
There were 16 leaders from the world's major foreign assistance agencies concerned with agricultural development - such as Adekke Boerma, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, John Hannah, director of the US Agency for International Development, and Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank and former defence secretary to President John Kennedy - plus eight of us consultants from the science of food production. The scientists were Sterling Wortman of the Rockefeller Foundation, whose idea the Bellagio conference was, and Robert Chandler, director-general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. After two follow-up conferences at Bellagio in the spring of 1970, it was agreed to set up a Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and in 1971 the organization that carries its acronym (CGIAR) was formed, under the leadership of the World Bank.