AGRICULTURE: RESEARCH
Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her Department's expenditure was on (a) basic and (b) applied agricultural research in each of the last 15 years.
George Eustace, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for farming, food and marine environment: a) The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has not funded basic agricultural research within the past 15 years. Such research is commissioned by the Research Councils who are funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
b) Defra’s expenditure on applied agricultural research in each of the last 15 years, excluding food science research but including agri-environment and soils research, is as follows:
Defra’s expenditure on applied agricultural research (£millions)
|
1999/2000 |
2000/01 |
2001/02 |
2002/03 |
2003/04 |
2004/05 |
2005/06 |
2006/07 |
|
78.8 |
78.0 |
79.5 |
78.7 |
79.3 |
79.4 |
77.8 |
71.5 |
|
2007/08 |
2008/09 |
2009/10 |
2010/11 |
2011/12 |
2012/13 |
2013/14 |
|
|
64.9 |
59.4 |
61.1 |
59.0 |
57.8 |
52.1 |
43.5 |
Note: This has been supplemented since January 2014 by £160million allocated by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for International Development to agricultural research and innovation under the UK Strategy for Agricultural Technologies, which Defra developed jointly with these departments.
225776