R&D in the field of ‘agriculture, forestry and fisheries

Private spending (BERD data) on R&D in the field of ‘agriculture, forestry and fisheries has
increased steadily since 2001.

In comparison to other research fields, enterprises invest relatively little in R&D for
agriculture and forestry. Section 3.1 already highlighted the issues of the BERD data
limiting option for analysis. As the Stifterverband itself expressed, ‘It is not a sector at the
cutting edge of innovation’, Stifterverband, personal communication, 07.08.14). In
contrast to this statement an interviewee estimated that enterprises spend 15 to 20% of
their turnover on R&D and expects a further increase: it becomes constantly more difficult
to achieve innovations leading to a higher agricultural revenue (e.g. The field of resistance
breeding has become increasingly complex). Another interviewee estimated that private
spending on agriculture must be around € 3 billion.
A quick review supports this assumption: In 2013, one company alone, Bayer Cropscience
(‘one of the world’s leading research-intensive companies in the agricultural industry’),
spent € 857 million (€ 779 million in 2012) on R&D (Bayer 2014).

Therefore, one interviewee assumes, that BERD numbers in the field are low, because
(some?) enterprises only report to the Stifterverband numbers of externally performed
research. On the other hand Bayer CropScience e.g. Spends around one third of their R&D
funds for these external cooperations.