Agricultural Research Funding in the Public and Private Sectors

Note: Updates to this data product are discontinued.

Errata: On February 15, 2019, this data product was reposted to correct an issue with how the data series Total private food and agricultural research was adjusted to avoid double counting in combining private agricultural input research data with private food research data. In the previous version, the adjustment for double counting in computing the total was based on a slightly older estimate of agricultural input research; the component data for private agricultural input research and private food research were correct and current (and are unchanged). The changes in the series Total private food and agricultural research for any given year range from -1.4 percent to 1.4 percent, with a mean change over the entire period (1970-2014) of 0.01 percent.

Data for public and private funding of food and agricultural research and development cover the years 1970-2015 (public) and 1970-2014 (private). Data are available in nominal dollars and in values adjusted for inflation.

Public funding is based on data from two sources:

• Federal data are from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development series
• State-level data are from USDA's Current Research Information System (CRIS) and NSF's Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development series

Private funding estimates are constructed by ERS, based on the methodology presented in the ERS report:

• Research Investments and Market Structure in the Food Processing, Agricultural Input, and Biofuel Industries Worldwide (ERR-130, December 2011).

Private agricultural input research is more likely to have impacts on agricultural productivity than private food manufacturing research, so these two components of private research are also available separately in the data.

The research deflator (used to convert current dollars to real) is constructed by ERS, based on the methodology described in Pardey et al. (U.S. Agricultural Research Deflators: 1890-1985), Research Policy 18:5 (1989): 289-296.

For more details see Documentation and Definitions and Related Resources. Note that the series methodology and estimates have been revised with this release, see Update and Revision History for details.

An update to the series is expected mid-2020.

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