By July 1975 an agreement had been signed with TVA, whereby TVA would defer to IFDC all work dealing with fertilizers for the developing countries and IFDC would not work on problems dealing with the United States. Information developed by IFDC would be available to United States entities only through TVA. Entities in the other countries of the developed world could be contacted by either or both organizations. TVA would also be the official representative of the United States at all international meetings. IFDC would attend such meetings under its own cognizance.

Although a number of developing-country sites were considered for IFDC, it was obvious that the opportunity to develop a site on TVA property had many advantages. First, it would be close to the OACD of TVA and would facilitate transfer of U.S. technology. Second, TVA had agreed to furnish IFDC at cost the raw materials needed (phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, urea solution, etc.) for research activities. Thus, IFDC would not have to build its own chemical plants nor have to build storage for these materials. This arrangement produced a sizable saving in both plant cost and manpower.

Also, IFDC was able to contract with TVA for a number of other facilities and services, not the least of which was being able to share the OACD Library (recognized then as the best working library on fertilizers in existence). IFDC had access to TVA’s medical facilities and contracted for fire protection, security, grounds maintenance, etc. The possibility of sharing facilities was also very enticing. The two organizations have had excellent working relations and do share facilities. In short, the TVA site possessed most of the ingredients necessary for IFDC to become fully operational in a short period of time and at a modest establishment cost.

Thus, IFDC was established at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in late 1974. In July 1975 the international staff of TVA was transferred to IFDC to become the nucleus of IFDC. The building program was started at the present site in March 1976. Some facilities were occupied in late 1976, and the total complex was available for occupancy in August 1977.

USAID was the chief sponsor for the establishment of IFDC. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada also functioned as a cosponsor and, in fact, provided the first financing as a startup grant (CDN $50,000) in late 1974. (Until 1994 IDRC continued to be a regular contributor to IFDC programs.) Soon thereafter, USAID contributed to the startup (US $250,000).