The state of agricultural research and innovation

The Centre for Agricultural Research Impact, or Ag.Impact – a centre dedicated to promoting and supporting agricultural research – has released a landmark report covering the health of the discipline within the UK: the State of Agricultural Research and Innovation.

The report covers the years 2022–26, and takes a broad approach to classifying projects as agricultural research, searching for keywords related to crops, livestock, soil, water and environment, pest and disease control, on-farm technology and robotics, rural social sciences, or food supply chains. The definition covers research and innovation for which agriculture is but one aspect or use case.

It explores the distribution of organisations involved in such research: over the period, this amounts to almost 400, including 127 universities and colleges, 34 independent research organisations, and 60 NGOs.

The largest funder of agricultural research by quite some way is UKRI, with £0.78bn committed in 2022–26, followed by DEFRA with around a third of this amount. Within UKRI, the two largest sources of funds are found to be BBSRC (£358m) and Innovate UK (£233m).

Looking at the period as a whole, it’s suggested that the government has “maintained overall investment” despite a challenging financial context. Both Defra and devolved governments are said to be responsible for a “growing share of public research funding,” which holds the potential to increase the alignment between research and agricultural policy objectives.

The data analysis is complemented by a survey of around 600 stakeholders, around half of whom were farmers. The question of whether UK agricultural research is coordinated efficiently across the different organisations involved stands out as an area for improvement, and the report agrees that sector-wide foresight is currently “sporadic and piecemeal.”