Q. What roles do public and private agricultural research
expenditures play?
A. In 1996, total public and private
sector expenditures on food and agricultural R&D were
about $7 billion—$3.1 billion public and $4 billion
private. Prior to the early 1980's, public agricultural
research resources exceeded private industry's.
Public sector R&D
Public expenditures on food and agricultural research
declined slightly in real terms (corrected for inflation)
in 1996. Natural resource management; research for the
protection of forests, crops, and livestock; and research
to reduce production costs of food and forest products
made up nearly 70 percent of the public research budget.
Public research expenditures as a percentage of commodity
value tend to be highest for horticultural crops and lowest
for field crops, with livestock commodities falling in
between.
Private sector R&D
Private sector investments in food and agricultural
research continue to grow in real terms. Between 1960
and 1995, private industry expenditures for agricultural
research more than tripled. The share of private R&D
expenditures for farm inputs (plant breeding, agricultural
chemicals, farm machinery, and veterinary pharmaceuticals)
rose from 55 percent of the total in 1960 to 70 percent
by 1996. Private sector research in plant breeding has
expanded, particularly for major field crops.
Public agricultural research addresses those areas
that the private sector has little or no incentive to
investigate—basic
research and applied research on "public goods"
like environmental improvement, rural development, and
food safety. Such research includes basic research to
advance knowledge, without which applied research would
flounder. Applied research on public goods is unlikely
to be undertaken by the private sector because it is
difficult to appropriate the benefits of the research.
Private firms engage primarily in applied research,
which yields immediate or near-term commercial applications.
See
Agricultural Research and Development, Agricultural
Resources and Environmental Indicators
for more detail.
|
