CONCLUSIONS
Budget and expenditure data covering agricultural research in Germany has some
weaknesses. While data is available from the early 1980s onwards, there are substantial
gaps particularly in GERD data. Generally restrictions in comparability of time series apply
to all indicators collected due to a number of revisions of the systematisation applied, and
the German reunification.
BERD data particularly for the agricultural sector, has a lot of
limitations due to the voluntary nature of data collection. The best time series for Germany
are GBAORD data, with the limitation that it only indicates planned and not actual
expenditure. Besides the collection of internationally relevant indicators, the German
government has its own systematic for categorising research expenditure by funding
priorities. Numbers deviate substantially from the GERD data; however, general trends are
similar.
The different indicators for research expenditure show increasing trends for the past 20 to
30 years; likewise total public expenditure for agriculture have been increasing. However,
analysis of the public R&D expenditure (HERD and GOVERD) shows that the share of
agriculture in the total actual public expenditure has been decreasing from 5.3% in 1993
to just above 4% in 2011. Private R&D expenditure (BERD) on agriculture and the food
industry make up very low shares of the total private R&D expenditure (0.3% and 0.6%).
Absolute expenditure for agriculture and food industry have shown slight upwards trends
since the early 2000s, however, the shares in total expenditure do not show any clear
trend.
In any case analysis of BERD data has some limitations due potentially incomplete
coverage.
EU Forecast
euf:ba18h:66/nws-01