English

During 2008–2012, Sudan’s total public agricultural R&D spending fell by 40 percent (in inflation-adjusted terms), largely driven by sharp declines at ARC and ARRC.

In 2011 Sudan invested only 0.19 percent of its agricultural GDP in agricultural R&D, giving it one of the lowest agricultural research intensity ratios in Africa.

Agricultural R&D spending in Benin more than doubled between 2000 and 2011, largely driven by the combined effect of an increase in internally generated revenues at INRAB and greater involvement in agricultural R&D on the part of UAC.

National agricultural R&D spending increased by 5 percent during 2008–2011, primarily due to increased government support; nonetheless, spending as a share of agricultural GDP remained fairly constant.

Although the national number of BSc-qualified researchers increased by 20 percent during 2008–2011, substantially increasing Tanzania’s total number of researchers, the number of researchers with PhD qualifications declined by 20 FTEs during this timeframe.

New quantitative evidence presented in this report demonstrates  that total public agricultural R&D spending in Asia–Pacific increased by 50 percent, from $8.2 billion in 1996 to $12.3 billion in 2008 (in 2005 PPP prices). Most of this growth was driven by the region’s low- and middle-income countries, whereas growth in the region’s high-income countries stagnated. In fact, growth in public agricultural R&D spending in the region’s low- and middle-income countries has outpaced growth in all other developing regions around the world since the 1980s.

Despite year-to-year fluctuations, agricultural research investment in Malaysia remained roughly constant between 2002 and 2010. Capacity levels did increase, however, primarily reflecting the recruitment of younger, BSc-qualified researchers. The country’s growing researcher capacity measured against a decreasing number of farmers led to a higher ratio of researchers to farmers. In comparison, research spending intensity fluctuated, largely in response to volatile AgGDP levels.

Overall, global agricultural R&D spending in the public and private sectors steadily increased between 2000 and 2008. As further proof of positive development, most of this growth was driven by developing countries, since growth in high-income countries stalled. But, spending growth in developing countries was largely driven by positive trends in a number of larger, more advanced middle-income countries—such as China and India—masking negative trends in numerous smaller, poorer, and more technologically challenged countries.

During the first decade of the new millennium, Sri Lanka’s worsening security situation forced the national government to allocate an increasing share of public resources to national security. This was at the expense of other public investments, including agricultural research. Moreover, revenues generated by a cess on plantation crops were gradually channeled away from agricultural R&D. Both factors had a notable impact on the country’s total agricultural R&D spending, which declined by roughly one-third during 2000–2009.

New quantitative evidence presented in this report demonstrates that total public agricultural R&D spending in South Asia more than doubled between 1996 and 2009, while the number of agricultural researchers decreased by 6 percent. These trends were largely driven by India, which has the highest investment levels and strongest human resource capacity in agricultural research South Asia by far (both in terms of size and qualification levels), as well as the highest agricultural research spending intensity at 0.4 percent of AgGDP.