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India has one of the largest and most well-coordinated agricultural research systems in the world. Research is primarily structured around agencies under the ICAR umbrella at the federal level and within agricultural universities at the state level.

Notwithstanding the fact that India’s agricultural research expenditures nearly doubled between 2000 and 2014 (in inflation-adjusted terms), agricultural research spending as a share of AgGDP fell slightly during this timeframe, from 0.34 to 0.30 percent.

Brazil’s agricultural research system is by far the region’s largest, in terms of both research capacity and spending. Almost half of all agricultural researchers are employed by the main federal government agency, Embrapa, and a further quarter are employed by the state agricultural research organizations (OEPAS).

During 2006–2013, agricultural R&D spending rose by 46 percent due to growth at Embrapa and in the higher education sector, particularly among federal universities. At 1.82 percent, spending as a share of AgGDP is the highest in Latin America.

Drawing from comprehensive datasets derived from primary surveys, this report reviews the major institutional developments and investment and human resource trends in public agricultural research and development (R&D) in the seven countries that constitute Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is well situated to scale up its agricultural production in the face of a growing global population and climate change. The region’s sources of comparative advantage lie, in part, in its abundant water and land resources. To succeed in generating the research outputs needed to accelerate agricultural growth, LAC countries need sufficient, sustainable funding for strategic agricultural research programs in alignment with national and regional priorities, combined with talented, well-trained researchers.

This study assesses the patterns of agricultural intensification in 40 African countries looking at the role fertilizer plays in the process. We propose a set of indicators that uses information on available agricultural land and land suitability to measure intensity of land use in agricultural production.

The evidence of improved performance of agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) in recent years has indeed been quite striking when compared with the past. For the first time, the sector has maintained a real growth rate of 3.4 percent per year, well above the population growth rate of 2.5 percent. Despite this improved performance, agricultural productivity growth in SSA continues to lag behind every other region of the world, growing at rates that are roughly half of the average rate of developing countries.