Agriculture R&D has dropped significantly since 2000
![Tim Hammerich](/Assets/UserImages/user_5db8744c65c9e803206005_300_300.jpg)
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
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.