The Organization of Agricultural Research in Western Developed Countries

This paper reviews agricultural research structural and organization changes in western developed countries, examines new financing prospects for agricultural research, and provides some tentative conclusions about which organizations are best positioned to provide services for the 21st century. Giventhat these countries faces many similar economic, political, scientific, andagroclimatic factors and fiscal issues, we canexpect a similar set of similar new developments thathave potentially important and widespread long-run implications. After three common developments are outlined, principles ofimpure public good financing are applied leading to the following agricultural science policy recommendations (i) new political jurisdictions should be formed to finance research, e.g., new alliances across countries and subregions within large countries, (ii) intellecmal property rights should be strengthened to increase the total amount and share oftotal (public and private) agricultural research that is privately financed and conducted, i.e., the private sector should find it profitable to undertake a large share ofapplied research but not be expected to finance public sector agriculmral research, (iii) the public sector should redirect its research efforts increasingly to areas that are socially worthwhile but not privately undertaken, e.g.,in the basic and pretechnology areas, on envkonmental, resources, food safety and human nutrition, and policy. Finally, large countries that have developed asystem ofshared public and private financmg and performance and decentralized public support ofagricultural research seem best position for meeting the needs ofthe 21st century