Commentary: Fund food research now

Rice fields on terraced at Chiang Mai, Thailand

Recently, a team of agricultural economists (Pardey et al.) released a powerful commentary about the state of agricultural research funding, which they say is insufficient. They observe that, fueled in part by the changing climate, food prices are rising everywhere, but they are forecast to rise even higher due to global underinvestment in agriculture R&D. They show that inflation-adjusted research spending has slowed significantly in the past decade. Furthermore, compared to the US and Europe, there has been increased spending in Asia-Pacific and middle-income countries (e.g. China, India, and Brazil) due to food security being important policy priorities. The authors call on governments to raise public funding for agriculture R&D, and for better integration of public and private research programs. Because it takes years to see impacts of R&D investments and yield improvements increase linearly not exponentially, even if governments increase spending now, the damage from recent slowdowns will continue to affect food supplies for years. The authors conclude, “Humanity faces a worsening imbalance between worldwide supply and demand for food. This will hurt everyone, but especially the poorest people in rich and poor countries alike. Governments must move quickly to reverse the agrifood R&D spending slide.” (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) Nature 10.1038/d41586-025-03970-0