Public investment in research and development in agriculture has fallen by about a third since 2002, according to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture report.
Land-grant universities perform much of the public R&D into agriculture. In the data, “public” refers to where the R&D was performed, not where the funding came from. Universities receive funding from corporations for some of their agricultural research.
America has fallen behind other countries, particularly China, in publicly funding agriculture R&D, according to the report. Surpassing the U.S.’s investment in the mid-2000s, China now spends the most on public R&D on agriculture.
Top image: A building on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana, Illinois. photo by Investigate Midwest
