Food prices are increasing almost everywhere. Disruptions and declines in food production owing to climate extremes are part of the reason1,2. But our analysis of global spending on the innovations that underpin food production and the processes that get it to people’s tables shows major shifts in investment in agricultural science. These could help to explain why demand for food is getting out of balance with supply — and why things are likely to get worse.
How farming could become the ultimate climate-change tool
From 1980 to 2021, the world’s population increased by almost 80% (by 3.5 billion people). Owing to agricultural science, food and other farm products have become more plentiful over this period for most people on the planet — by no means all.
Our analysis of public and private spending on research and development in agriculture and food (agrifood R&D) for 150 countries from 1980 until 2021 shows an alarming trend, however. Between 2015 and 2021, the annual average rate of growth in total ‘real spending’ on agrifood R&D over 6 years was one-third less than it was during the 35 years between 1980 and 2015. (Real spending refers to spending adjusted for differences in the purchasing power of money among countries and over time; see also Supplementary information.) When comparing these two time periods, growth in absolute spending has slowed for more than half of the world’s countries. In one-third of them, spending has even declined. This has happened even though demand for food and other agricultural products continues to increase, thanks to growing populations and rising incomes3.
The countries and sectors that are investing most in agrifood R&D are changing, too. In 1980, the public sector, including government agencies and universities, was responsible for two-thirds of the world’s spending on this research area. By 2021, private-sector spending had caught up with that from the public sector. And whereas high-income countries were the top spenders in 1980, by 2021, middle-income countries had overtaken high-income ones. Today, the Asia-Pacific region is responsible for half of the world’s spending on agrifood R&D (see ‘Changing spending habits’).
Source: Analysis by P. G. Pardey et al.
Early signs of these shifts were evident in 2016 when we conducted a similar analysis of R&D spending from 1980 to 2011 in 130 countries4. Still, we were surprised by the extent and speed of the changes since then — particularly the widespread slowdown in spending.
It generally takes years or decades until spending on agrifood R&D widely benefits farmers and consumers. So a slowdown in the growth of R&D funding, or an overall decline, will eventually mean higher food prices for decades to come and increased pressures on the natural resources that underpin food production. Likewise, the shifting balance in spending by the public and private sector and by high- and middle-income countries will affect what kind of research gets done, and which producers and consumers around the world benefit from the resulting innovations.
Some of these trends must be reversed — fast — if the world’s farmers are to have any chance of sustainably meeting the expected growth in demand for food, animal feed, textile fibres and agriculturally sourced fuel by 2050 (the relevant timeline given the R&D lags that are at play5).
Three seismic shifts
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