Investing in agricultural science and technology pays off

Dr Victor Sadras, a member of the Network at the South Australian Research & Development Institute, spoke at the 2020 congress of the Argentine No-Till Farmers Association (Aapresid).

For years, a group of colleagues and I shared a concern about extreme reductionism in agricultural R&D. Every now and then we would share a paper asking, “How could this have been published?” For example, a study concluding that a trait related to grain weight could improve yield, without yield ever being measured, or without considering the negative correlation between grain weight and grain number.

In November 2018 we brought together a group of colleagues to discuss these issues at an OECD workshop in Adelaide. The meeting highlighted the high return on investment in agricultural R&D —at least 10 to 1— and the historical decline in investment, particularly in the most developed countries. It also revealed patterns of inefficient investment arising from substandard science, regardless of the scientific field. In some cases the scientific flaws are naive; in others they are deliberate and promote a particular agenda.

These findings are summarised in a paper in Advances in Agronomy. Guillermo Divito and his colleagues took an interest in the topic, which led to the presentation at the 2020 AAPRESID congress.