Global agricultural R&D spending in the public and private sectors steadily increased between 2000 and 2008. Most of this growth was driven by larger middle-income countries such as China and India.

The ASTI Global Assessment of Agricultural R&D Spending, published in collaboration with the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), discusses these key trends in global agricultural R&D evidenced by the latest available data.

The assessment is being released in advance of the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), a platform to encourage practical collaboration among all those working in agricultural research and innovation and their role in development, which opens on October 28 in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Global challenges, including the recent food and financial crises and climate change, highlight the need for continued and scaled-up investments in agricultural R&D. Following a decade of slow growth in the 1990s, global public spending on agricultural R&D increased by 22 percent from 2000 to 2008—from $26.1 billion to $31.7 billion.

Middle-income countries have been the main drivers of global growth in recent years; spending growth in high-income countries stalled. China and India accounted for nearly half the global increase, but spending also rose significantly in a number of other middle-income countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Nigeria, and Russia. Growth was particularly strong from 2005 to 2008.

Most notably in Brazil and China, long-term government commitment to agricultural R&D and a supportive policy environment have fueled increased agricultural productivity, as well as overall economic growth. These productivity gains demonstrate the benefits of sustained government investments.

Although agricultural research spending continued to grow in low-income countries overall from 2000 to 2008, in many, spending stagnated or declined. These countries, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara, are highly vulnerable to volatile research funding, often the result of the short-term, project-oriented nature of donor and development bank funding. Additionally, R&D agencies in these countries lack the necessary human, operating, and infrastructure resources to successfully develop, adopt, and disseminate science and technology innovations.

The report, background materials, and infographics are all available on the ASTI website: http://www.asti.cgiar.org/globaloverview

For press release and media enquiries, please see: http://www.ifpri.org/pressroom/briefing/global-trends-agricultural-rd-spending

© Photo credit: Clemens Breisinger, IFPRI

ASTI is pleased to announce the launch of a new survey round in the WANA region, thanks to a grant from the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The WANA region faces critical limitations on land and water resources for agriculture while experiencing rapid growth in population and food demand. The extent to which countries in this region will be able to meet their own food security needs will depend on how well they manage their food and agricultural policies, especially their investments in agricultural R&D and related S&T policies.

Information on recent agricultural R&D trends are currently unavailable or out of date for nearly all of the countries in the WANA region. This new ASTI project will work in close collaboration with the Association of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Near East and North Africa (AARINENA) and main national agricultural R&D agencies to:

1. Survey R&D institutions in the region, analyzing:

-R&D investment and capacity levels;

-The changing institutional structure of R&D; and

-How science and technology policies influence R&D incentives and performance.

2. Give particular attention to how R&D is being used to address critical resource constraints, especially water supply and irrigation efficiency.

The project will focus on Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. These countries comprise a representative sample of the different economic, social, political, and agro-climatic conditions in the region.

A series of country reports and thematic papers published by ASTI—based on a collaborative project led by Rutgers University, IFPRI, and McGill University—address these questions and examine recent trends in private sector agricultural R&D in a number of developing countries.

Over the past decades, technologies transferred by foreign private companies have been a major source of innovation in eight countries in South Asia and Africa (Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia), especially in the areas of crop protection, agrochemicals, poultry farming, agricultural machinery, and processing. In addition to technology transfer, many local and multinational companies conduct some level of in-country research.

Despite the private sector’s role in agricultural innovation, there is still scope for improvement. Public policy and regulatory reforms could significantly reduce the time, effort and costs associated with bringing new technologies and products to the agricultural sector.  Farmers, rural entrepreneurs, and agribusinesses could benefit from reductions in lengthy administrative procedures to import agricultural inputs, removals of cumbersome regulations for registering new products, and improvements in tax incentives for investments in research.

Few studies have been able to take a close look at private investment in agricultural research and its drivers in developing countries. Researchers for the current studies collected and analyzed data on private agricultural R&D capacity and investment from hundreds of companies in the eight countries in South Asia and Africa. The reports examined trends in private investment in research, interactions between technology transfer and research investment, and the policies that influence private research and innovation in the agricultural sector.

The series of reports offers a number of policy recommendations aimed at promoting greater private sector involvement in agricultural research. It also makes a case for more in-depth analysis on the impact of policy changes on private sector innovation, and the impact of private sector innovation on productivity and poverty.

India continues to be the region’s largest player in agricultural research and technology development. The country’s annual investment in agricultural R&D has doubled since the late 1990s, reaching $2.3 billion in 2009 (in 2005 PPP prices). Other aspects of agricultural R&D that set India apart from its neighbors include the relatively important role of the private sector and the sweeping reforms under way to encourage more effective partnerships and entrepreneurship. On the less positive side, weakened research capacity at state agricultural universities has contributed to an 8 percent decline in total research staffing since 2000.

Compared to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka face greater challenges in bolstering agricultural R&D. Relative spending levels are lower than in India, and year-to-year fluctuations in funding are more extreme due to greater donor dependency. Prolonged recruitment freezes, losses of senior staff, limited training opportunities, and an aging population of researchers have all weakened capacity. Furthermore, research staff in these countries are also less likely to hold postgraduate degrees. With the exception of Sri Lanka, women are severely underrepresented.

In view of major challenges including rapid population growth, climate change, land and water scarcity, and volatile agricultural markets, South Asia urgently needs a revitalization of its agricultural sector. Effective and well-targeted agricultural R&D will play a key role in this regard.

The ASTI report makes the following key policy recommendations:

• Increase investment levels, but also better manage, time, and target these investments to ensure maximum impact on productivity growth and poverty reduction.
• Increase diversification of funding sources through sales of goods and services and private sector participation (meaning governments need to provide the necessary enabling policy environment).
• Develop stronger links to connect agricultural research agencies with farmers, to ensure that research outputs are effective and respond to end-users’ needs.
• Increase subregional collaboration, to streamline allocation of limited resources and reduce duplication.
• Promote policy and institutional reforms that enhance good governance.

For detailed data and analysis of agricultural research trends in South Asia, please download the report.

In recent years, agricultural research spending has fallen out of step with AgGDP growth. In 2009, Pakistan spent just 0.21 percent of its agricultural GDP on R&D, one of the lowest levels in the developing world. The country’s share of agricultural researchers holding PhD degrees and the overall proportion of female scientists also continue to be very low by international standards. Finally, private investment in agricultural research has grown but remained relatively small as of 2009.

These financial and capacity challenges have occurred at a time of institutional uncertainty. Spending and capacity patterns have fluctuated as agencies adjust to the devolution and reorganization of responsibilities across national, provincial, and local levels of government. Provincial institutes have taken on a larger role in agricultural research, but questions remain as to whether they are resourced and structured to do so effectively. This period of change has, however, offered opportunities to review existing structures and reassess research priorities. Whether the changes will yield advancements both in the system itself and in agricultural productivity remains to be seen.

A survey of agricultural researchers and managers from 30 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has shed new light on the state of data collection capacity and infrastructure across the continent.

The Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative conducted the survey as part of an effort to streamline and integrate its own data collection activities with those of agricultural research agencies at the national and regional levels. By cultivating decentralized and institutionalized data collection systems, ASTI hopes to stimulate more frequent and less laborious updating of R&D capacity statistics. More decentralized collection of data will also bring the scientific capacity indicators that result closer to hand for African research managers, readily available for analysis and use in research policy and decision making.

Survey respondents participated in two ASTI workshops and provided insights on the data management systems currently in place in their home countries. Most said that data is gathered on an ad-hoc basis within individual agricultural research agencies, where it is used mainly for accountancy and human resource purposes. Respondents agreed that some centralization is needed to harmonize and systematize data collection nationally. Joint questionnaires and data sharing across institutes and regions are key in this regard, in addition to M&E capacity strengthening. ASTI has taken these recommendations on board in implementing its current survey round in SSA.

For a summary of the survey results, click here: http://www.asti.cgiar.org/pdf/ME-capacity-infrastructure-assessment.pdf

The renewed emphasis on agricultural R&D since 2000 comes on the heels of three decades of reform of the country’s agricultural science and technology system, which is the world’s largest and most decentralized. It also reflects pressure to increase farm production to provide a reliable supply of grains, vegetables, and meat for China’s increasingly affluent population.

To raise the efficiency of the R&D system, China has strengthened its patent system and introduced commercialization and competition to diversify agricultural research funding sources. These reforms have attracted more private-sector participation in technology development. Agricultural researcher qualifications and productivity have also improved since the turn of the millennium. A greater share of scientists and engineers now hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Higher output of government researchers and agencies has contributed to rising numbers of patents and publications as well.

Despite the progress achieved, problems remain in China’s agricultural R&D system, and new challenges have emerged. China has some 43,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers and more than 1,000 public agricultural research agencies at the national, provincial, and prefectural levels. The resulting high level of decentralization limits coordination and has led to funding inefficiencies and duplication of research effort. In addition, investment in basic research is still very low. Most patents awarded to scientists and agencies are for the adaptation of technology, rather than for new inventions. Finally, in China, as elsewhere, it has proven difficult to strike an appropriate balance between market-oriented research and research that meets specific developmental needs.

All VAAS agencies, not just AGI, face a similar hurdle. Researcher salaries are extremely low--around US$250 per month for mid-career scientists. Young researchers are attracted to AGI early in their career because they can benefit from government-funded MSc training. By mid-career, better pay elsewhere prompts many to move on. Agricultural research in the country is now largely dependent on government funds. Since reaching middle-income status, Vietnam has become less attractive to foreign donors (though some remain on board, like the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Sweden, and Denmark).

The Vietnam government would like to make its national R&D agencies more independent, competitive, and commercial. To do so, it has introduced legislation to change the structure of public-sector research funding. If ratified, Decree 115 would greatly reduce core funding for salaries. This has caused a wave of uncertainty among R&D agencies. Managers fear they might be forced to lay off staff. “It is not good for the future of science in Vietnam,” said one.

Pictured: Prof. Dang Trong Luong, Vice Director of the Agricultural Genetics Institute in Hanoi.

Most importantly, the road map offers practical, solution-oriented guidance in each of these areas. The guidelines are written for policymakers, national governments, and donors. They set out ways to bring agricultural research capacity in line with the problems of today—problems such as rapidly growing populations, climate change, water scarcity, and volatile food prices. Addressing these problems requires increased, consistent, and coordinated funding from governments, donors, and development banks.

The road map document "Reflections on the Conference" synthesizes the paper presentations, panel discussions and deliberations by participants at the conference “Agricultural R&D: Investing in Africa’s Future” convened by ASTI/IFPRI and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) in late 2011. The wide interest in the conference and its outputs is indicative of the high priority of agriculture on today’s development agenda—due in part to rising global food prices. Smallholder farmers especially benefit from agricultural research tailored to their local climate and farming conditions. Nonetheless, ASTI data confirms that African governments have persistently underinvested in agriculture, especially agricultural research. Now, as much of Sub-Saharan Africa experiences relatively brisk economic growth, the time is right for greater investment in research capacity.

While the organizational structure of African R&D is in place, it is highly complex. Key contributions are made by national, subregional and international institutes. Strong linkages between these levels can stimulate local breakthroughs, because countries alone are often too small to provide the required capacity.

Beyond a more interconnected global agricultural research system, higher and more stable levels of government funding are needed. A focus on longer term objectives will promote financial stability, institutional efficiency, and overall quality of research outputs. For this, governments need to identify long-term national R&D priorities and design programs to match.

Finally, expanded investment in agricultural higher education will enable universities to train more agricultural scientists, offering more PhD and master’s programs and improving curricula of existing programs.

Please visit the conference website for more information and to download conference papers, case studies, presentations, discussant notes, and panel discussion summaries: http://www.asti.cgiar.org/2011conf

Past investments in agricultural research have paid off for India. The quality of the country’s scientists has considerably improved in the past decade, leading to more PhD-level researchers. However, the total number of researchers has fallen by 8 percent since the turn of the millennium. This drop is due mainly to budget constraints at state agricultural universities. Without an effective policy response, the states’ research capacity could decline further, leading to less time spent on projects tailored to local problems and conditions.

Since the Green Revolution era (1940s to 1960s), India has achieved impressive growth in agricultural production. But agriculture still faces crucial challenges. The vast majority of the population depends on the sector for their livelihood. Production growth continues to lag behind the targeted 4 percent, and poverty and malnutrition remain widespread. Key goals for the coming decades will be meeting the growing and diversifying food demand (especially for meat, dairy products, and vegetables), managing natural resources sustainably, and raising the productivity of rainfed agriculture.

India’s substantial and well-coordinated agricultural research system has a long track record of helping to boost food security and reduce poverty. Nonetheless, additional resources for agricultural R&D will be needed to meet these goals.