Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the financial return from her Department's investment in agricultural research and development since 2010.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra has not made any assessment of the financial returns on investment in agricultural research since 2010 as this is considered too short a time frame to fully evaluate the impact of research and development. However, research used for the ex-ante evaluation of the £160 million UK Agri-tech strategy suggests strong returns to UK public research of the order of 17-60% per year (internal rate of return) for a period of 25 years¹.
An ex-post evaluation design and baseline study for the Agri-tech strategy is currently being developed by Defra, BIS and DfID in conjunction with evaluation experts SQW. We are also developing a framework for estimating the value for money of new Defra research and development activities.
¹ Thirtle and Holding (2003) “Productivity of UK Agriculture: Causes and Constraints”
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether any UK trawlers are fishing in the waters of Western Sahara under the new protocol to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement; and what her policy is on utilising the UK allocation under that agreement.
Answered by George Eustice
There are currently no UK vessels fishing under the new protocol to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement. Decisions on any quota allocation and licensing would be made by UK authorities under the existing regulatory regime.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much (a) her Department, (b) the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and (c) other public bodies spent on each category of agricultural research in each of the last 10 years; what estimate she has made of public expenditure on research and development on agriculture as a proportion of total spending on research and development in each of those years; and what proportion of publicly-funded research and development related to agriculture is (i) basic and (ii) applied research.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra’s investment in agricultural research over the past 10 years can be categorised as follows:
Financial year | Research spend (£million) | ||||
Farming | Agri-environment | Soils | Animal health & welfare | Total | |
2004/2005 | 37.0 | 2.7 | 1.2 | 38.5 | 79.4 |
2005/2006 | 35.7 | 2.8 | 1.3 | 37.9 | 77.8 |
2006/2007 | 29.1 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 38.6 | 71.5 |
2007/2008 | 25.0 | 1.6 | 1.0 | 37.3 | 64.9 |
2008/2009 | 22.7 | 1.8 | 0.8 | 34.1 | 59.4 |
2009/2010 | 26.0 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 31.9 | 61.1 |
2010/2011 | 23.0 | 1.9 | 1.3 | 32.9 | 59.0 |
2011/2012 | 23.5 | 2.1 | 1.6 | 30.7 | 57.8 |
2012/2013 | 21.1 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 27.4 | 52.1 |
2013/2014 | 16.2 | 1.1 | 1.8 | 24.5 | 43.5 |
The majority of this investment was in applied research.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s (BBSRC) investment in agriculture-related research has steadily increased over the past 10 years. The expenditure can be broken down as follows:
Financial Year | Research spend (£million) | ||
Basic | Applied | Total | |
2004/05 | 16 | 42.2 | 58.2 |
2005/06 | 22 | 45.1 | 67.1 |
2006/07 | 26.5 | 44.7 | 71.2 |
2007/08 | 28 | 47.1 | 75.2 |
2008/09 | 33 | 50.8 | 83.8 |
2009/10 | 33.3 | 56.4 | 89.6 |
2010/11 | 30.7 | 57.5 | 88.2 |
2011/12 | 30.9 | 60.6 | 91.6 |
2012/13 | 23.1 | 66 | 89.2 |
2013/14 | 27.7 | 67.1 | 94.9 |
Department for International Development (DfID) has invested the following amounts in agricultural research over the past decade:
Financial Year | Research spend (£million) |
2004/2005 | 37.1 |
2005/2006 | 38.6 |
2006/2007 | 35.9 |
2007/2008 | 38.3 |
2008/2009 | 40.6 |
2009/2010 | 65.1 |
2010/2011 | 67.9 |
2011/2012 | 86.9 |
2012/2013 | 69.2 |
2013/2014 | 94.9 |
As with Defra, the majority of this investment was in applied research.
Together, Defra, BBSRC, and DfID’s investments in agricultural research account for more than three-quarters of the total spend by public bodies in this area. Smaller, but significant investments are made by the devolved administrations and other research councils., The Scottish Government, for example, annually invests around £50 million in research on rural affairs, food, and environment. A substantial proportion of this investment is focussed on both basic and applied agricultural science research.
Figures on the total government spend on research across all categories are held by the Office of National Statistics. However, information regarding total public investment in agricultural research and development (R&D) as a proportion of total Government spending on R&D across all categories is not readily available.
Defra is currently working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to deliver Action 1 of the Agri-Tech Strategy: a comprehensive mapping and evaluation of both private and government funding for research into agricultural technologies. This exercise will determine the total spend on agricultural R&D in the UK, categorise agricultural research investments by topic and identify the relative proportions of funding for basic and applied agricultural research in the UK. The findings of this work will be published next year.