Advocating for increased investments in agricultural research and development
Estimates indicate that USD 47 billion were invested in public sector agricultural research and development worldwide in 2016, representing less than 1 percent of the agricultural gross domestic product. Spending is very uneven. Nine high-income countries were responsible for almost 60 percent of investments in 2016 while spending in low-income countries was just 2 percent of the global total. Monitoring such trends is important. In 2015, FAO partnered with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to organize an international workshop called “Towards better monitoring of investments in agricultural research in Europe”. During the meeting, recommendations for new methodologies to collect data on investments in agricultural research were discussed with policy-makers.