Imagery in agricultural aid: an examination of two aid institutions

This paper examines how the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and International Potato Center (CIP) of CGIAR utilize images to represent their work in the Third World. The paper considers the cover images of the centres’ annual reports produced between the years 1971 and 2022, applying a visual semiotic methodology common to research on humanitarian aid. In doing so, the paper contrasts the contradictory discursive strategies at work in diverse parts of the aid sector. In the case of IITA and CIP, the paper finds these change agents draw on a repertoire of techniques, compositions, and themes whose repetition both softens and sustains a set of contradictions over decades. Chief among these contradictions is a juxtaposition of people and plants in accounting documents that assert improvements via depictions of a timeless, Noble Savage.