Financing Agricultural Research in Australia: 1953-1994

摘要

The role of the public sector in financing rural research in Australia is the subject of continuing debate. A major constraint to this debate is the availability of data detailing trends in the financing of rural research by the public sector, by primary producers through the Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) and by the private sector. In this paper a data base for the period 1953 to 1994 assembled from the State Departments of Agriculture, CSIRO and the major universities, and a more limited ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) data set are used to identify trends in public and private support for rural research. A trend towards applied research funded by RDCs and greater interest in the public sector in measuring the environmental consequences of agricultural technologies and other 'spillovers' to the wider community are likely to have implications for the demand for the economic evaluation of agricultural research.