Agricultural Research Funding in the Public and Private Sectors: Documentation

Data for public and private funding of agricultural research and development cover the years 1970-2007 (public) and 1970-98 (private). Data are available as nominal figures and adjusted for inflation.

Public funding is based on data from two sources:

• Federal data are from the National Science Foundation's Federal Funds for Research and Development series that reports research and development outlays to USDA's agencies. Data for 1970-2000 are from Federal Funds of Research and Development, Detailed Historical Tables 1967-2002 (NSF 03-325), Table 2. Data for 2001-2007 are from Federal Funds for Research and Development: FY 2005-07 (NSF 09-300), Table 99. Data for 2006-07 are preliminary. To prevent the double counting of money given to the States, funds allocated to USDA's Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service (CSREES) were subtracted from the Federal total. NSF did not separate out data for CSREES during 1970-80. For that decade, we used CRIS.

• State-level data are from USDA's Current Research Information Systems (CRIS). For the years 1970-1993, the data come from the "Inventory of Agricultural Research" publications. CRIS stopped publishing the Inventory and moved to a web-based reporting system that can be found on the CRIS home page. Those data are used for 1993-2007.

Private funding estimates are constructed by ERS, based on the methodology presented in "Private-Sector Agricultural Research Expenditures in the United States, 1960-92" (Staff Paper AGES9525). The private sector data series relies on many sources. In brief, research expenditures are estimated for five agricultural industries and then aggregated. These industries include four agricultural input industries: 1) plant breeding; 2) agricultural chemicals; 3) farm machinery; and 4) animal health; and the agricultural output industry, 5) food and kindred products. The series uses a number of databases, primarily from the National Science Foundation and industry associations. Since the series was created, the agricultural input sector has experienced significant structural changes. Data sources have altered in definition or scope, and some no longer exist. Therefore, the series ends at 1998; analysis to create a new methodology is underway.

The R&D deflator (to convert current dollars to real) is based on methodology described in Pardey et al. ("U.S. Agricultural Research Deflators: 1890-1985." Research Policy 18, October 1989) which provides weights for three components: researcher salaries, State and local government consumption expenditures, and construction costs. The deflator has been updated using information from the American Association of University Professors (The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, various years) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (National Economic Accounts, Table 3.9.4: Price Indexes for Government Consumption Expenditures and Gross Investment).