We don’t often think about Supercomputers and science and technology when we think about agriculture, but many of the advances that have allowed a ballooning world population to survive have occurred because of R&D investment in agrifoods.

At the Crawford Fund’s International Conference Celebrating Agriculture for Development at Parliament House, Canberra  Dr Philip Pardey, the Australian Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Director of Global Research Initiatives for the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Minnesota uses a Supercomputer to help synthesise big data to come up with groundbreaking insights into Agrifood production.

The trouble is, he is finding that R&D spending is down everywhere except China. The spending of the CGIAR – the world’s largest global agricultural innovation network – has declined in inflation adjusted terms by almost 40% since 2014

Image: Image: Shutterstock – courage007

Produced By: Roderick Chambers

Featured In Story: Dr Philip Pardey, Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Director of Global Research Initiatives for the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Minnesota

First aired on The Wire, Tuesday 16 August 2022