Agriculture R&D has dropped significantly since 2000

Agriculture R&D has dropped significantly since 2000

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Agricultural productivity has increased tremendously over the past century. Some of that productivity, says the Breakthrough Institute’s Alex Smith, is from on-farm innovation. A lot of it is also the direct result of public investment into agricultural research and development.

Smith… “There are all these technologies that were both a product of farmers tinkering and peak producers and private companies finding new technologies to sell. But also, and very importantly, a product of agricultural R&D at the public level and federally funded ag R&D, both United States and all over the world.”

What’s alarming, Smith says, is how much that funding for ag R&D has dropped in the U.S. over the past 22 years.

Smith… “Agriculture R&D is 66% of what it was in real terms, in real numbers than in 2000. So we're significantly lower than we were. And I think we're now at about the same level as people were funding in the 1970s. And for a long time, the US was the global leader in ag R&D. We were spending more money than anybody at a public level. I think now we're second to China, and significantly lower than they are.”

Public investment into agricultural research and extension is critical for the farm of the future.

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