In general, reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are high, but questions have been raised about upward biases in the evidence. Among the reasons for this bias, insufficient attention to attribution aspects. Matching of research benefits and costs is a pervasive problem, the magnitude of...

IFPRI has long argued that spending on agricultural research constitutes a sound investment in poverty reduction and agricultural and economic growth, through improvements in productivity. This argument is based partly on the reported evidence of high rates of return to agricultural research,...

Spending per scientist declined precipitously within African agricultural R&D agencies over the past several decades. In 1991, average cost per researcher across 147 R&D agencies was $119,300 in 1985 international dollars — or US$59,500 when measured in United States rather than international...

Agricultural research and development has stimulated enormous increases in agricultural productivity in the twentieth century. Now, in response to common pressures, countries the world over are changing how they manage and pay for agricultural R&D. Paying for Agricultural Productivity reviews...

Technological advances developed through R&D have supplied the world with not only more food, but better food. This report looks at issues raised by this changing environment for agricultural productivity, agricultural R&D, and natural resource management.

"This report spells out the benefits to the United States from its partnership with the CGIAR. Using wheat and rice to illustrate the gains from international research on important food crops, the report shows that U.S. investments in CGIAR wheat and rice research have paid off many times over...

Transgenic crops are relatively new technologies being adopted rapidly in the United States and in a few other countries. The economic impacts of these technologies have, thus far, been estimated in a piecemeal fashion. The purpose of this study was to collect and characterize the economic...

A total of 294 studies of returns to agricultural R&D (including extension) were compiled and these studies provide 1,858 separate estimates of rates of return. This includes some extreme values, which are implausible. When the highest and lowest 2.5 percent of the rates of return were set...

Governments around the globe are trimming their support for agricultural R&D, giving greater scrutiny to the support that they do provide, and reforming the public agencies that fund, oversee, and carry out the research. These contemporary developments represent a break from previous patterns,...