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Emerging Trends in the Public and Private Investment in Agricultural Research in India

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Abstract

The paper analyzes trends in public and private R&D investment levels, research capacities and priorities in Indian agriculture. At the national level, the public investment in agricultural R&D has attained significant spurt in the middle of the 2000 decade, and its allocation was quite diversified to address the research needs of marginal production environments. The wet semi-arid region comprising agrarian and poverty stricken states of West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh still continue to under-invest in agricultural research and education. The private investment in agricultural R&D though has responded well to the country’s size of agricultural market and incentives; still there is a dearth of a strong R&D base in the private sector, especially in the small- and medium-sized firms. A leadership role is to be taken by the public sector to harness private sector’s potential and address market failure in R&D.

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Notes

  1. The data includes both agricultural research and education expenditure together as under land grant system followed in state agricultural universities makes difficult to bifurcate the expenditure separately.

  2. Biotech Consortium India Limited (BCIL) provides firm level information of firms engaged in different market segments of agri-biotechnology, turnover, manpower, investments, R&D focus, product types, etc.

  3. Period relates to 2012–2017.

  4. Includes expenditure of agriculture and allied sectors, major, medium and minor surface irrigation, rural infrastructure including rural roads and electricity, agricultural research, education and extension.

  5. The Eleventh Five year plan denotes 2007–2012 period.

  6. Pal and Byrlee (2006) estimated that major proportion of SAUs funds are being utilized for carrying out education, administration and extension activities and only 45 % of the funds goes for research, as against 73 % in ICAR institutes.

  7. The Division of Agricultural Economics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi conducted a survey of all agricultural R&D organizations in the country in 2009, in collaboration with the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators Program of CGIAR.

  8. P. Venkatesh, personal communication, Division of Agricultural Economics, IARI, New Delhi.

  9. Pray and Nagarajan (2012) estimated research intensity in seed industry 6.9 percent in 2009, an increase from 3.5–3.8 % in the mid nineties.

  10. BCIL survey does not include all the agri-biotech firms, and for few firms turnover data is even unreported, hence this might be an underestimation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank National Agriculture Innovation Project, Govt. of India for their financial support. Any and all errors are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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  1. Division of Agricultural Economics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Alka Singh & Suresh Pal

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  1. Alka Singh
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  2. Suresh Pal
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Correspondence to Alka Singh.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

See Table 5.

Table 5 Pattern of education grant by the ICAR and state-wise research intensities
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Singh, A., Pal, S. Emerging Trends in the Public and Private Investment in Agricultural Research in India. Agric Res 4, 121–131 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40003-015-0151-0

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