RBC Inc. was founded by Dr. Roger Beck, agricultural economist, Professor Emeritus from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and international development project administrator. The firm aligns closely with Dr. Beck’s grassroots approach to economic development, cultivated over more than 30 years’ experience in teaching, supervising graduate students and vocational training programs, and senior project management in the US, Asia, and Europe. Dr. Beck is an inspiring professional who has made a difference in the lives of thousands of farmers through his development work in furthering agricultural yields and getting the most out of every drop of available irrigation water, as well as empowering local leaders with appropriate technology and community development tools.
After serving as Chief of Party on behalf of New Mexico State University, the lead in a consortium of five US universities tasked to implement a four year USAID-funded agriculture program in Afghanistan, Dr. Beck envisioned a firm that would fill cultural and practical gaps he recognized were delaying progress on the ground.
What We Do
Technology for Development
Founded on the belief that the most effective development comes from teaching and empowering local leaders, Roger Beck Consulting Inc. offers development consulting that endures.
RBC Inc. prides itself in bridging chasms between the universities conducting development research and the donors commissioning it; and between developing country nationals - both individuals and organizations - and the organizational cultures that want to help them succeed.
Agricultural lands cover half the Earth’s surface and food security is a pressing global concern, hand-in-hand with climate change. Nearly 40% of the world’s more than 7 billion inhabitants earn their living from agriculture. And 100% of the world depends on them for their food, fiber, and increasingly for transportation fuel, clean air and water.
Projects
Training and Outreach
RBC specialties include sharing strategies for agriculture, water, and integrated natural resources management through capacity-building.
Services
Applied Research for International Development
RBC Inc. specializes in implementing economic development projects through a combination of applied research in the field and working with communities to ensure that well-intentioned interventions meet local conditions.
This involves a broad range of interventions to translate on-the-ground activities into both increased income and language understandable by all stakeholders.
Through our extensive fieldwork, we have seen that the root cause of water problems in many regions is the widespread devastation of watersheds. In Afghanistan, this has created a bleak landscape of deforested hillsides, barren rangelands, and derelict irrigation infrastructure. The disastrous 2010 floods in Pakistan were largely a result of watershed degradation, and the human and economic toll they took can only lead to further instability. Yet integrated watershed rehabilitation and water management have not yet taken priority in any donor programs to date. RBC Inc. experts are working to share this experience to fully inform development programs in the early planning stages. |
Preventing erosion is the only way to ensure that costly dams can be used as intended – to collect and store clean water. Terracing the hillsides stops the water from rushing down and causing further erosion. Installing appropriately-placed check dams, constructed at natural runoff points, prevents soil loss and slows the water flow from the hillsides long enough to seep into the water table. Most importantly, local communities must ‘own’ the problem and take responsibility for building and maintaining these structures. |
Planting trees or shrubs on these terraces is the next logical step to upper watershed management, but in Afghanistan this requires considerable effort to bring nursery managers out of a 30-year abyss in which they have lacked access to new information on composting, species selection, greenhouse design, and planting techniques. Progress is slow, but has begun by assessing dozens of nurseries and previously forested areas for reclamation and rehabilitation. |