October 2, 2008

 

Declining R&D stifling UK agricultural industry

A decline in agricultural research and development (R&D) is compromising the competitiveness of the UK agricultural industry, according to the Commercial Farmers Group, farmers and academics.

 

Tim Rymer, chairman of JSR Genetics, said UK's R&D chain has several missing tiers around Applied research and demonstration activity, and a remedy R&D model in use has limited effect as it fails to collect feedback from the industry regarding its needs.

 

Rymer feels that current consumer and market trends justify more agricultural R&D and the industry must maintain its innovative and competitive advantage.

 

With the current global food demand and price inflations, domestic agriculture is vital to the food, energy, water and environmental security of the UK, Rymer said, adding that while JSR invest 10 percent of their turnover each year in applied R&D, most farming businesses are not able to do the same. 

 

Rymer believes the decline in agricultural R&D begun in the mid-1980s, when public sector support for agricultural R&D fell. That led to a decline in the UK's agricultural productivity, with a yearly drop of 1 percent in food self-sufficiency, Rymer said.

 

"By 1989, the UK was 12.5 percent lower in food self sufficiency than the other members of the "high technology" club (US, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark) and in danger of being overtaken by Ireland, Italy, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg."

 

Rymer said the government's focus on research papers, rather than studies with real industrial impact, is behind the decline of agricultural R&D.

 

"The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) fails to realise that a copy of "Nature" is unlikely to improve sow productivity," Rymer said. Organisations maintaining their industry contacts have had their core research funding reduced and some have had to close, according to Rymer.

 

Rymer said the significant gap between science and the industry is stifling development, and that there is a loss of career opportunities in agricultural R&D.

 

UK agriculture needs a 20-year plan based on competitiveness, and from there it would be much easier to prioritise what R&D will have the greatest effect on making agriculture more competitive, Rymer said.

 

"For example, it would then be very difficult not to press forward with Biotech crops."

 

Additional funding has to be developed from both public and private sources and the new Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board must help address the market failure of agriculture R&D in order to allow the industry to remain competitive, Rymer said.

 

JSR Genetics Ltd supplies technical support and quality pig genetics to partners worldwide, and is continuing to develop a number of partnerships within the pork supply chain.