A disturbing trend has emerged in the way governments fund agriculture research in this country, says a senior official with a Saskatchewan commodity group.
In 1981, 8.4 percent of Canada’s total spending on public research and development was directed toward agriculture.
Since then the ratio has steadily eroded, falling to 2.9 percent by 2000, according to data compiled by Phil Pardey, a University of Minnesota economist, cited as one of the world’s leading experts on agriculture research policy.
During that time, spending on agriculture research fell from $513 million to $468 million, while Canada’s total R&D expenditures rose from $6.1 billion to $16 billion.
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“The good news for Canadians is that the total R&D has gone up (almost) three-fold. But the bad news for producers is that it hasn’t been targeted to agriculture,” said Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers.
Policy makers could point to the fact that agricultural gross domestic product fell from $25 billion in 1981 to $18 billion by 2000. And that the ratio of agricultural GDP to total GDP fell from five percent to 2.2 percent over that same period.
So why devote more money to an industry contributing a shrinking portion to the country’s bottom line?
Patterson said that point is shortsighted. He wonders how the agriculture sector can be reinvigorated without investing in it, especially considering the growing importance governments are placing on the health care and alternative energy files, two areas where agriculture can contribute solutions.
“Let’s invest based on the potential. We’re saying we think there is opportunity here. Investing less probably isn’t going to get us there.”
Patterson is also concerned about developments at the provincial level.
“We’re not seeing the responsibility shouldered here,” he said during an interview at an international agricultural research conference put on by the University of Saskatchewan.
Patterson noted that agriculture has made a good case for why it should attract public dollars, pointing to a 2003 pulse industry study showing that for every $1 million invested in research, there is a $31 million return.
But the provincial government appears to have different priorities for taxpayer dollars.
“We’ve been trying for years on this one and we haven’t been able to get them to move,” he said.
Jacquie Gibney, assistant deputy minister of Saskatchewan Agriculture, who attended the same conference, said the province is committed to the concept that research is the foundation of the industry.
“I don’t think there’s ever enough research spending,” she said.
Her department invests $12 to $13 million annually into agricultural research. That total was augmented this year by the Feb. 12 announcement that Saskatchewan would put an additional $41.5 million in federal agricultural policy framework funds to the province’s research sector.
Gibney said agriculture is forced to compete for taxpayer dollars with public priority areas like health care and the environment. If farming wants more dollars, the best way to do that is by convincing the public it can contribute solutions to reduce health care waiting lines and clean up the environment.
“We need to be able to make the case that investment benefits the broader consumer,” she said.
Patterson agreed with that sentiment.
“I think that’s where we failed as agriculture. We need better links between food and health,” he said.
Pulse Canada is addressing that shortcoming through the Pulse Innovation Project, by attempting to scientifically prove there is a direct link between consuming pulses and improved health.
But until those links are made and politicians are convinced that agriculture research can benefit the health and environment files, commodity groups will continue to claw for every dollar they can get.
That is especially true in Saskatchewan where 80 percent of agriculture funding is directed toward business risk management programs like the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization Program and crop insurance, said Patterson.
“I’m concerned and I think others in agriculture should be concerned that (research funding) is so low here.”
