John H. Davis (diplomat)
John Herbert Davis (October 5, 1904 – February 28, 1988) was an American scholar and diplomat. In his early career he helped coin the word agribusiness and worked in organizations related to farming and agriculture. He later led the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Davis studied at Iowa State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree, and at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master’s and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics. From 1928 to 1939 he taught in Iowa schools, with a brief break in 1935–36 when he worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Beginning in 1939 he worked for several New Deal agriculture agencies, including the Commodity Credit Corporation and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.
From 1953 to 1954 he served as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower administration. From 1954 to 1959 he was a professor at Harvard Business School, where he co-wrote two influential books about the agricultural sector that helped popularize the term agribusiness: A Concept of Agribusiness (1957) and Farmer in a Business Suit (1957).
In 1959 he left Harvard to become Director and the first Commissioner-General of UNRWA, a post he held until 1963. In later years he continued work related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, wrote The Evasive Peace (1970), and founded American Near East Refugee Aid, serving as its president.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:22 (CET).