A strategic look at global wheat production, productivity and R&D developments

Abstract

The 20th century began with a rapid ramping up of national investments in and institutions engaged with research for food and agriculture. As the 21st century unfolds, the global science and agricultural development landscapes are changing in substantive ways, with important implications for the funding, conduct and institutional arrangements affecting research for food and agriculture. Wheat improvement research is part of this broader agricultural innovation landscape. While there is a general consensus that the present and prospective future of the agricultural sciences bears little resemblance to the situations that prevailed in the formative years of today's food and agricultural research policies and institutions, many of these changes are poorly understood or only beginning to play out. This paper reports on selected new and emerging empirical evidence to calibrate the strategic private and public choices being made regarding wheat research in particular and food and agricultural R&D more generally.