INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE

The International Institute of Agriculture (IIA) was founded in Rome in 1905 by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, largely due to the efforts of David Lubin of Sacramento, California. The king provided a building in Rome and an annual income of $60,000, and called the first congress in 1906, attended by delegates from 40 countries, which established the institute as a permanent organization via treaty. The IIA's main goal was to centralize and standardize agricultural statistics worldwide, gathering annual crop production data and presenting it as a single numeric statement comparing yearly harvests. In 1930, it published the first world agricultural census. The Italian government campaigned for its creation to unify agriculturalists across borders, while the Ottoman Empire was among the most active early participants, helping shape the institute's data standards. The IIA was administered by a general assembly of delegates meeting biennially and a permanent executive committee with one representative per country, overseeing four bureaus handling administration, statistics, and agricultural intelligence. After World War II, the IIA's assets and responsibilities were transferred to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.