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What's crop research worth?

A range of independent studies show crop cereal development delivers one of the highest investment returns of any type of research.

"I believe strongly that there is no other investment in agriculture that even comes close to the return on investment from crop development research."

- Dr. Hartley Furtan, Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Saskatchewan

In the high-stakes game of global trade in agri-products, the players hold relatively few cards that separate the winners from the losers. For Canada, one of its most powerful cards is crop development research.

This research is the factory that produces crop varieties farmers require and markets demand. And Canada has built a network that is a long-standing world leader.

It's why Canadian grains are preferred by top markets around the world, and it's why Canada's competitors have ramped-up their own research bases.

It's also one of the best investments going in agriculture. Even at a very basic and narrow level of assessing research investment value - dollars invested vs. direct returns in yield and disease improvements - a range of independent studies show a minimum 10-fold return on cereal development research.

And that rate of return is fast rising. Equipped with the latest tools in biotechnology and bioinfomatics, Canadian researchers have slashed years off the crop development process. They've also cracked the genetic codes of key traits and flagged them with genetic markets - meaning faster, more sophisticated and more dramatic improvements.

Case study shows 10-fold return

In 2002, Alberta Agriculture Food and Rural Development commissioned a study to examine the economic returns to feed barley breeding and disease resistance research at the Field Crop Development Centre in Lacombe.

The study was conducted by agricultural economist Dr. Joseph Nagy and assessed the period from 1974 to 2001. It found that while the total investment in research during this period was approximately $8.6 million, the overall monetary benefit from that investment was $109.4 million from 1983 to 2001 alone.

The internal rate of return was estimated at 29 percent, which Nagy reported is an excellent rate of return for an agricultural research and development program. The FCDC has since added significant staff and biotechnology resources to ramp up the speed, power, efficiency and payoff of the research.

Next: How research delivers value