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Written question asked by James Paice (Conservative) on Thursday, 28 January 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 1 February 2010. It was answered by Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour) on Friday, 5 February 2010 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Agriculture: Research

Question
(2) what estimate he has made of public expenditure on research and development on agriculture as a proportion of total spending on research and development in each of the last 10 years;
Answer

Over the last 10 years research programmes and public funders of agricultural R and D (including DEFRA) have been restructured and comparable data across this period are not available by categories. The following table presents the food and farming R and D funding by the main sponsors (DEFRA, BBSRC and DFID) since 2003-04.

R&D funding on farming and food per financial year
£ million
2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09
DEFRA agricultural R and D funding 81 75 78 78 75 68 65
Total BBSRC funding on farming and food research 132 129 138 150 171 185 189
DFID n/a 30 38 36 35 38 41
Total n/a 234 254 264 281 291 295
Total Government (inc NERC, ESRC, FSA, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland) n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 368 365
Note:
DEFRA's research is primarily applied strategic, BBSRC's is primarily fundamental and DFID funds research in and for developing countries.

National statistics on R and D spend are presented per calendar year, and the latest year available is 2007. The following table compares the combined DEFRA, BBSRC and DFID funding on farming and food R and D with total spend on R and D between 2003 and 2008, indicating that Government expenditure in food and farming research has represented on average 1.2 per cent. of total R and D investment.

Year¹ Total Government expenditure on R and D in the UK (£ million)² Year³ Defra, BBSRC and DFID funding on agricultural R and D (£ million) Ratio (percentage)
2008 n/a 2008-09 295 n/a
2007 25423 2007-08 291 1.14
2006 23410 2006-07 281 1.20
2005 22106 2005-06 264 1.19
2004 20242 2004-05 254 1.25
2003 19727 2003-04 234 1.19
¹ Expenditure shown by calendar year.² Source: Office for National Statistics.³ Expenditure shown for financial year.http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/tsdataset.asp?vlnk=532&More=N&AII=Y

In 2007-08, over 68 per cent. of public investment on food and farming research and development supported applied (strategic and specific) research (based on the international Frascati coding definitions), with the remainder for basic research."Source:""http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/GO-Science/UK-Cross-Government-Food-Research-Strategy"

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
505 c534-6W; 315153
Session
2009-10
Subjects
Agriculture Research
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk