This data product reports on public and private expenditures for agricultural and food research and development (R&D) in the United States. Public agricultural R&D spending is reported annually for 1970–2021, except for R&D spending by USDA intramural research agencies, which is reported for 1970–2022. Private food industry R&D is also reported for 1970–2022. R&D spending by private agricultural input industries is reported for 1970–2014. R&D expenditures are shown in current dollars and in constant dollars (adjusted for inflation in the cost of research). Expenditures are adjusted for price inflation using the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI) from the National Institutes of Health.
Public R&D expenditures are based on data from two sources:
- Research expenditures by USDA intramural research agencies come from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development, that reports research and development outlays by Federal agencies. USDA intramural research agencies include the Agricultural Research Service, the Economic Research Service, and the U.S. Forest Service. Small amounts of research are also performed by other U.S. agencies. Research expenditures performed by USDA intramural research agencies are total outlays minus research grants and cooperative research agreements made by these agencies (and not administered by NIFA) to State universities and cooperating institutions.
- Research expenditures by State land grant universities and other cooperating institutions are from the National Institute for Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Research, Education, and Economics Information System (REEIS) data portal for 2002–2021, the Current Research Inventory System (CRIS) annual Inventory of Agricultural Research for 1970–1997, and the CRIS Annual Funding Summaries for 1998–2001. NIFA extramural grants to the private sector through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program are not included in public agricultural research expenditures.
An adjustment was made for REEIS-reported research expenditures by State land grant universities and other cooperating institutions for 2006, 2007 and 2008. For these years, NIH grants to the University of Minnesota veterinary school were subtracted from the State total. These grants were for general health sciences research and were erroneously reported as agricultural research in REEIS (Alston et al., 2010, pages 231–232). The amounts subtracted from the REEIS totals for these years were $275.17 million, $301.65 million, and $299.12 million for 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively.
Private R&D expenditures are constructed by ERS, based on the methodology described in the ERS report:
- Research Investments and Market Structure in the Food Processing, Agricultural Input, and Biofuel Industries Worldwide (ERR-130, December 2011).
Revised and extended estimates are also reported in:
- Fuglie, Keith. 2016. "The Growing Role of the Private Sector in Agricultural Research and Development World-wide," Global Food Security 10: 29-38.
Research expenditures are estimated for the food, beverage and tobacco manufacturing industry and seven agricultural input industries. The agricultural input industries include: 1) crop breeding and genetic improvement; 2) crop protection chemicals; 3) synthetic fertilizers; 4) farm machinery; 5) animal health; 6) animal breeding; and 7) animal nutrition. Private agricultural input industries research is then aggregated into total private agricultural R&D.
For most years, the NSF Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) Survey and its predecessor business R&D surveys provide estimates of total R&D spending by firms in the food (including beverages and tobacco) industry. For missing years, food industry R&D is estimated by extrapolation (i.e., by assuming a constant annual growth rate between observed years). Most food industry R&D is for new product development and processing innovations. However, a portion of the R&D is also directed toward agriculture, primarily in animal breeding and nutrition. Food industry R&D has been updated to cover 1970–2022.
NSF BERD Survey data on private R&D spending may not represent all the R&D investment by agricultural input industries. NSF provides estimates of R&D by the agricultural chemical and farm machinery industries. However, private research on animal health is included in research expenditures by the pharmaceutical industry, which is mainly for human health. Also, the NSF BERD Survey does not include firms whose primary revenues are from agricultural sales, so the survey may exclude many seed companies. Private R&D on animal breeding and nutrition is primarily conducted by food industry firms and included in the BERD total for the food and kindred products industry.
To construct a consistent estimate of R&D expenditures by private agricultural input industries, ERS constructed a database of annual agricultural R&D spending by large and medium-sized firms in each input industry. This firm-by-firm database was built from company financial statements, reports from industry associations and consulting services, and personal interviews with company and industry representatives. For firms with R&D spending in multiple industries, only R&D spending in agricultural input industries are included. For animal health R&D, for example, only a firm’s R&D on food animals is included—R&D spending on humans and companion animals is excluded from the ERS estimate. Private R&D in the crop genetic improvement and farm-machinery industries also include an estimate of R&D spending by small-sized firms, based on a fixed percentage of industry sales by these firms. For input industries that do not conduct much R&D (namely, bulk fertilizers and animal feeds), few firms in these industries report R&D expenditures. For these industries, the ERS estimate of R&D spending is estimated as a constant percentage of industry sales, where the percentages are determined from past surveys or industry norms.
Private agricultural input R&D expenditures cover the period 1970–2014. Due to changes in input industry structures and emergence of new industries and technologies, comprehensive estimates beyond 2014 are not yet possible. ERS is working to update these estimates in the future.
Constant-dollar research expenditures are adjusted for inflation in the cost of research inputs, using the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI) from the National Institutes of Health (February 2022 update).