In 1991, Congress requested that the National Research Council (NRC) outline a strategy for U.S. universities to carry out research to support the needs of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management in developing countries. Recognizing the importance of multidisciplinary on-farm methodologies in the performance and sustainability of agro-ecosystems, the NRC recommended that U.S. universities collaborate with host country interest groups to employ integrated, multidisciplinary research organized across agro-ecological zones. The NRC also recommended that the universities design their research to involve the ultimate beneficiaries of research: the farmers and landowners themselves. By drawing on and actively engaging in-country expertise and indigenous knowledge, the small-scale farmer as well as the rural and urban poor would play a pivotal role in the development of research. These recommendations, reported in Toward Sustainability (NRC, 1991), led to the creation of the SANREM CRSP and the subsequent USAID cooperative agreement with a consortium led by the University of Georgia (UGA).

Phase I
SANREM CRSP Phase I (1992-1997) was developed as a program of training and information exchange with landowners and decision-makers in agricultural regions of developing countries. Researchers focused their activities on four principles that established the foundation for SANREM’s focus:

• participation
• interdisciplinarity
• multi-stakeholder involvement, and
• landscape/lifescape scales.

During Phase I, SANREM’s main projects were in the Philippines, Ecuador, and Burkina Faso, with smaller targeted activities in Cape Verde, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Morocco. Research efforts sought to understand relationships and linkages in a landscape setting by combining agricultural, ecological, and social sciences for a mixture of views and ideas on natural resource management (NRM). Researchers focused on the participatory involvement of decision-makers and implementers by working to develop sustainable natural resource management at the farm, landscape, and provincial levels. This was achieved through:

• characterizing landscape and lifescape parameters to better understand linkages and constraints to sustainability
• designing and evaluating alternative strategies with farmers and community stakeholders (multi-stakeholder training/participation), and
• working to enhance individual and institutional awareness and capacity.

Information resources generated through all phases of the SANREM CRSP can be found in the SANREM Knowledgebase on this website. 

Phase II
SANREM CRSP Phase II (1997-2004) was marked by the expansion of efforts to promote sustainability and natural resource management. Continuing the programs started in Phase I, SANREM expanded its reach to include key decision-makers at national, regional, and global levels. While some projects continued in the same regions, researcher efforts reflected continuing efforts to include decision-makers and apply relevant, sustainable solutions to agricultural dilemmas.

Andes
Project leader: Robert Rhoades, University of Georgia
The Andes program was established in 1994 in a watershed roughly 100 km from Quito, Ecuador’s capital. In this area, residents were struggling with the decreasing ability of the watershed to support the local population and inadequate local knowledge of sustainable practices, coupled with a lack of government policies and interventions. These barriers to sustainable natural resource management provided a platform for researchers to provide support to local, regional, and global decision-makers concerned with sustainable development in this mountainous region.

Final project publication

Southeast Asia
Project leader: Ian Coxhead, University of Wisconsin
The Southeast Asia project in the Manupali watershed in the Philippines was SANREM’s first research site. Established in 1992, this project was designed to support decision-makers in circumstances where global and regional markets, as well as the devolution of authority, strongly influence local natural resource management.   

Final project publication

West Africa
Project leaders: Michael Bertelsen and Keith M. Moore, Virginia Tech
During Phase II, the West Africa group provided research and methodological support to decision-makers facing stakeholder conflict over access to and use of resources in Mali. In dialogue with community leaders, researchers focused on issues of local development and sustainable natural resource management. These efforts adapted a Holistic Management™ approach, which understands overgrazing to be a result of the amount of time livestock spends on a patch of land, not the number of animals in the grazing herd. 

Final project publication

Global Decision Support System
Project leader: Neville Clarke, Texas A&M
This initiative developed and demonstrated the utility of geo-referenced methods and related data/information bases for assessing impact of changes in technology and policy on agriculture and natural resource use. The project developed a global decision support system (GDSS) that included critical foundation data for spatially explicit analyses, access through global networking to other models, and sources of relevant information.

For Phase II archives, click here

Phase III
In 2004, Virginia Tech was named the CRSP’s new management entity (ME), signaling the beginning of SANREM CRSP Phase III. The transition to Phase III opened a more competitive phase in project selection and the building for the SANREM Knowledgebase (SKB) providing access to SA and NRM research. Under Program Director Theo Dillaha, the ME continues to apply the recommendations set forth by the NRC, striving to promote stakeholder empowerment and improved livelihoods through knowledge-based sustainable agriculture and natural resource management systems. The core of Phase III is the five Long-term Research Award (LTRA) activities.  

Phase I

Program Director William Hargrove (1992-1997)
Deputy Director Constance Neely (1992-2002)

Phase II

Program Director Robert Hart (1997-1999)
Deputy Director Constance Neely (1992-2002)

Program Director Carlos Perez (2000-2004)
Deputy Director Constance Neely (1992-2002)
Deputy Director Carla Roncoli (2003-2004)

Phase III

Program Director Theo Dillaha (2004-present)
Associate Program Director Keith M. Moore (2004-present)