From 1951 to 1965, around one third of US government aid to Taiwan was directed by the JCRR into agriculture, creating almost two thirds of net domestic capital formation. JCRR programs contributed directly to improving crop and animal stock, development of irrigation and flood control, soil improvement, rural credit programs and cooperatives, health programs, and birth control. The JCRR continued the strategy developed by the Rural Reconstruction Movement on the mainland of coordinating all these programs instead of running them independently one by one. Under the combined stimulus of the land reform and the agricultural development programs, production in agriculture increased at an average annual rate of 4 per cent from 1952 to 1959, greater than the growth in population, which was 3.6 percent. The JCRR is widely credited with creating the basis of agricultural prosperity which led to Taiwan's rapid economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s.